 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here, not only spending your day with us, but perhaps the entire week. Today, we are honored to have president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption organization with us, Rita Soranen has joined us. So she's here to share about the origin story as well as the history of the organization that she leads and to really talk about realities of founder syndrome. I love this so much, Rita, because I feel like founder syndrome is like taboo. Don't talk about it, we know it happens, but let's not talk about it. So again, this is a dedicated week, nonprofit power week, that we are so honored to have leadership from the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, where they are forever working with families and across the nation doing some really good, big, heavy work. So so grateful to have you joining us today. I want to also remind all of you, if we haven't met you yet, Julia Patrick is here. She's the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, non-profit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. Honored to serve alongside you, Julia, as co-host, day in and day out, thanks to our amazing partners. So thank you to National University Fundraising Academy. Thank you also to Bloomerang, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, American Nonprofit Academy. Also thank you to Staffing Boutique, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. We are always amazed when we look at our calendar and realize many of these partners have been with us from the very beginning. So that's almost four years, almost a thousand episodes. And if you missed any episodes, including any from this week of the non-profit power week, that's okay, we've got you covered. So you can go back and listen to the conversations. You can download that out. You can also still find us on the streaming broadcast and podcast platforms. And just later today, after our live conversation with Rita, this conversation will be uploaded onto all three of these channels and woven into the fabric of the American Non-Profit Academy. Rita thrilled to have you back. Truly for everyone listening, everyone watching today's episode, either live or on the recording. Again, honored to have Rita sordin with us today. She's the president and the CEO. So she leads the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Rita, this is your third year with us as we do this non-profit power week. Really honored to have you here. But why is it so special? Because November is a really special month for you. Can you tell us why? It is and thank you, Julie and Jared. You know, a half hour with you makes my day any day. So thank you for letting me be a part of this. I'm honored to do that. November for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and so many organizations that focus on adoption and foster care adoption. November is National Foster Care Adoption, National Adoption Awareness Month. And in fact, embedded in that, this Saturday, the 18th is National Adoption Day. So we really spend this month, although we do it all year long, of course, but we really spend this month highlighting as much as we can and talking to as many folks as we can and getting as many communications out as possible about for us the need for foster care adoption, the need to focus on it, to understand the complexities of it and for communities to step forward and support those children and families who are involved in systems like the foster care system. Yeah, it's such an amazing concept that you as an organization would take this topic and really navigate it in so many ways that's incredibly powerful, not just in your own community, but across the US and Canada. And so I wanna start by asking you about the legacy of Dave Thomas because a lot of people would be like, wow, that looks like the guy that started Wendy's. What's the connection? Talk to us about that, Rita. Absolutely, Dave Thomas. Look, it's our namesake, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, but underneath that is the legacy of this incredible person who, yes, those people that know him, he started the incredible Wendy's brand, those square hamburgers and frosties that they're known for, but so many other wonderful products and were very innovative in the world of quick serve restaurants from the get go. But what people may not know is that Dave Thomas, and this is the link to the foundation that he created, was adopted. And although he was adopted as an infant, his adoptive mother passed away when he was relatively young, really young. His father was an itinerant worker moving from position to position. So he was frequently raised by his grandmother, Minnie. And he really felt that that was the person in his life that gave him consistency. Having said that, he still had a hard life. He had family around him, but he had a hard life. And he left home at 16, ventured out on his own, didn't graduate high school, but understood underneath it, there was a drive that he was going to be somehow involved in the food business and create the best. He always said the best hamburger ever. Well, he did that, but he did that through hard work. He did that through figuring out how to build connections and community around him. Frequently people think the Wendy symbol, the Wendy who is his daughter, was the adoptive story in this. And it's not, he married, he had five children, but it was his adoption story that drove him as he was getting toward the end of his career as CEO of Wendy's and embedded in the Wendy's company is this notion always has been this notion of giving back, it's a franchise to business, but giving back to your community where you're located. And so he really wanted to do something and pull together this notion of, well, if we create a foundation that's dedicated to adoption, but not just all adoption, but this very narrow world that he identified with, although he wasn't in foster care for a length of time, he uniquely identified with those children we focus on now, older youth in foster care, children who've been separated from their family, frequently children who are raised by extended family members like grandmothers, children who frequently leave home at an early age or exit the foster care system at 18 and have to make it on their own. So he created the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption as an independent nonprofit public charity to focus on these children, focus on how do we make life better for these children in foster care waiting to be adopted? It's an incredible legacy when you think about it because he didn't know a lot about the child welfare system. He wasn't a child welfare expert. The people on his team that helped create this weren't child welfare experts, they dug in and said, we'll figure this out as we go. So they literally began to build the plane as they were flying it. Amazing, you know, and it's also, I don't wanna say it's taboo, but it's not like a happy topic in relation to marketing a happy experience in dining, right? I mean, it could have been so easy for him to say, we're gonna focus on arts and culture or we're gonna focus on just education or something that, you know. Or food insecurity, you know? There's a disconnect there unless you know the Dave Thomas story. And that's our job to make sure people understand that connection. Well, I love that because it really reiterates every nonprofit has an origin story. Every nonprofit has a founder, believe it or not, regardless of the age of the organization. I would love, Rita, if you could talk to us about how you have really helped to move his story forward, honor his story, right? Into what some might actually call you, Rita, as the second founder. So looking at that from how you have, you know, really committed yourself and your leadership to moving that founder's intent forward 30 plus years. Yeah, and thank you. And when this foundation started, they really capitalized on, at that point, Dave Thomas, again, I would encourage people to go to YouTube and find Dave Thomas commercials, right? Wendy's commercials when Dave Thomas started them because they capitalized on that celebrity that he had in the late 80s, early 90s to then forward a mission of raising awareness about this cause. That's what the board that he built around him were executives from the Wendy's company that were the chief marketing officer and the people that really knew how to communicate a message, how to sell a brand, right? And so the first part of this organization's life was really dedicated to raising awareness about the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of children in foster care, so many children waiting to be adopted. How do we elevate that message? Well, we knew how we figured out how to sell square hamburgers for heaven's sakes. We can help elevate this message, right? And so it was lovely. And it was exactly the way to start this organization. But when I came on, it felt like, and we were a grant making organization. So we were giving some lovely grants to some scattershot national organizations that were immersed in the cause of foster care adoption. But it didn't feel like there was quite the thread pulling through it that could help solve some of the issues that were deeply embedded in this very complex conversation. You can't just say foster care adoption and hope that people are gonna sign on and donate money and volunteer because underneath that are some deeply held myths and misperceptions about the children, about the system, about the complexities of government systems about family violence. I mean, all those things that get woven into this conversation. So we stepped back. I think I started in 2001 and sadly, Mr. Thomas passed away about six months later. So I did not have a lot of time with this person for whom we wanna make sure the legacy continues. So I leaned on those people at Wendy's that knew him and worked with him for years and sat on my board. But we really looked at, what were we doing strategically? And how could we address this one major issue that every year and today still 20,000 children who've been freed for adoption, who's the judges have said, this family can never be safe, be made safe. So this child will be permanently severed from family. So they're in foster care waiting for an adoptive family to step forward. But 20,000 of them year over year, over year turn 18 and leave the foster care system without a family. About that support of family, there's the potential of really negative outcomes not because they're bad kids but because they don't have that safety net of family. They can't ever make a mistake. They can't ever, they've got to figure out how to earn money and get to a position and find housing, all of those things. So we stepped back, we kind of went underground for a couple of years for about a year and began to research and figure out who's focusing on these children? Who's taking responsibility for these children? Who's making a difference for these children? And that's when we began to shift from not away from awareness, we still needed to do awareness but we needed to move into something more actionable. How do we create a program? How do we create strategies? How do we create? Look, our mission says that we will dramatically increase the number of children adopted from North America's foster care system. Underneath that word dramatic is something measurable. But if you had called me in 19, around 2002 and said, Rita, how many kids did you help get adopted today? I wouldn't have been able to tell you. And so that's when we began to shift to actual programs that we could measure that were evidence-based and then built that structure around it, both in terms of internal and external. And what are all the other pieces that need to go into this from policy to advocacy to program building in a way that's sustainable? All of those and increased fundraising, increased marketing, increased all of those other topics that every nonprofit has to deal with. But we really had to make that shift and had to convince the board that this was the right direction to go as well because we had legacy board members for a number of years that worked with Dave Thomas and we're very glued to business as usual as opposed to this crazy lady that decided to come in and let's see if we can do something a little bit different. But you navigate that in the way you read the room. You navigate that in the way that you can best do it. Yeah. Well, we're gonna talk about reading the room later because that's a talking point that we're both excited to hear. But I'd love for you, thank you for that Rita because I really do admire and commend truly the team to say, hey, let's take a step back so we can really take a leap forward. How have you navigated modern times, right? And I feel like that's a question we've been asking a lot of our guests, of course, over the last four years, but in relation to this founder's legacy and the modern reality, like there's a lot that has changed. How do you address this? There's a lot that's changed in the child welfare system. There's a lot that has changed at the Wendy's company. Look, the Wendy's executives still sit on my board. The Thomas family members, two of the daughters still sit on my board. And so it's that making sure that we honor the legacy that is Dave Thomas, his wishes. I mean, we quote him all the time. These children are not someone else's responsibility, they're our responsibility. That's a timeless quote. It doesn't matter if he said that in 1969 when the first Wendy's restaurant opened or if he were here and said it today, that's a timeless quote. And that's the thread I think that allows us to continue to look back and honor the legacy but stay forward looking because this issue has not gone away. It's gotten more complex. The pandemic just made it even more complex. Issues of substance abuse and violence, gun violence, all those issues continue to surround this. And so it's taking from those pieces of a vision that Mr. Thomas had and that his family had and that the Wendy's company leadership had taking from that vision, keeping that alive, keeping it as a heartbeat but making sure that the corpus around the heartbeat stays in shape, right? Stays, it keeps jogging, keeps running forward, keeps healthy enough because this cause is not gonna go away anytime soon. No, it's not, and I think it's interesting to me to think about all of the mysteries and opinions and biases that we have about the topic, about the organization. I think a lot of people probably think, well, hell, you just got bags of money behind your desk. If you do, we wanna see them. But they, you know, you have to fundraise. Yes, yeah, yeah. I think that's one of the big misconceptions about the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. One, we've got the name of the family, so we must be a family foundation and we're sitting on the trust. Or two, because we have such an incredibly wonderfully, and fact, I think it's something we should talk about another time, you know, this nonprofit, for-profit relationship that is so profound and so embedded in not only the franchisees of the system, but a lot of the suppliers of the system. How lucky are we to have that kind of access to those folks? So it's, so people think though, because we're so closely related, that we must be a corporate foundation and so we take a bit of proceeds. Or here in Columbus, because we're pretty identifiable in Ohio and in Columbus, Ohio, well, maybe we're a community foundation and we're none of those. Mr. Thomas was so smart. And again, this is part of that vision. And I never heard him say this, but I believe this to be true. That he created us as a nonprofit public charity because that would force us to get out and raise funds. But in doing that, we had to talk about the issue and continue to make sure this issue is at the forefront of everyone's conversation in the community, at a faith-based level, at a policy-making level. How smart was this man? I, you know, it is my, sorry, I just pounded the table and probably made the camera shake. How smart was this man to understand this kind of dynamic while he was building a business, while he was dealing with his own issues of grief and loss and trauma as a child, that, you know, he didn't talk about those when he was growing up. That just wasn't part of the conversation, but it was still part of his soul. I am incredibly honored to be a part of that legacy. Yeah, yeah. Well, and you're going to be also a part of the succession planning. And this is where we talk about reading the room because we kind of laughed about this when we prepared for today's conversation. So you've been there, you said the date. Was it 2001 you started? Yeah, yeah, 2001. And so it's been 22 years. Yeah, 23 of us. Yeah, 22. So when we look at this, right, like you've taken his legacy, you had a brief tenure of overlap with Mr. Thomas himself. Have you broached the conversation of succession planning? I mean, I feel like breaking news. Do you know, like, what can you tell us? And you even mentioned here, you know, like, you want to know if you're overstaying your own welcome, which I just find fascinating. I don't I've never heard that from any other leader. And I just find great awareness in that, Rita. Well, absolutely. Look, we've put a lot of work in, too. When I started the foundation, I think we had maybe seven staff. We have 65 staff now. We were a budget of under a million dollars. It's it's a little bit more than that now. It is. Yes. It's been an incredible opportunity of growth, of of putting my thumbprint on. And I don't say my or my eye very often. But but yes, putting my vision and thumbprint on the work of this foundation. But I think it's it's a foolish endeavor to think that an organization won't survive without you or that you've got to stay, you know, until people boot you out the door. The reality is, as a leader, you're you're sold. Well, you've got a couple of main jobs. One of them is to put in place the mission and carry it out in the best way possible to steward donor funds in the best way possible. But the other part of it is to assure sustainability of the organization, because typically all of us are working in causes that aren't going to be solved in our lifetimes for the most part. And so how do you do that? Well, you can't do that by saying, I'm the only important person in the room. You can't say that by I know everything. Therefore, I'm going to I'm going to do everything. Look, I did that when we were smaller and when we were beginning to grow. But you have to build an incredible leadership team. And you've met a lot of my leaders and we have an incredible leadership team with it at some point. It will be time for me to move on. And I'm not making that announcement today. But it will be time for me to move on. And part of that is embedded. People are terrified of that phrase, succession planning, because the board said to me about five years ago, isn't it time we start thinking about this? And your first reaction is, oh, what's going on here? That's never it. They understood because they were coming from a corporation that's gone through a lot of leadership changes. They get succession planning. And so you look at it and you say, right, how do we assure that the vibrancy of this organization if alien abduction happened today and I'm out the door and nobody knows where I am, we have to be sure that this organization won't miss a single step. And so you build that into leadership and the leadership builds that into their teams and you talk about it openly and you do you do leadership development and you do personal and professional development so that your organization is as strong as possible. But I think this is part of board development as well, because there was a point at which I did have legacy leaders on the board and we didn't have terms and they knew everything and they micromanaged at times and they drove us crazy at times. And so I think this notion of succession planning is as important to the board as it is to the leadership of an organization. They should be in tandem. They should be almost mirroring each other depending on where this organization is in the state of its growth. But yeah, you have to know, have I overstayed my welcome and you'll get clues. Good heavens, you should be pushing your leaders to be out there, be visible, be talking, be a part of how this organization is defined. But you'll also get clues from the board if they're starting to dip into your business a little more than usual or you're not getting the kind of responses that you think you should be getting from either board members or staff. Or there are a lot of those clues of maybe it is time and you're just not able to say that to yourself whether it's moving on to retirement or moving on to another position. The position I had before this was in a similar situation. And I had been there for a decade and then I got this opportunity and left. I had not done a good job, it was much smaller but I had not done a good job of succession planning. And it went through a series of leadership missteps for a number of years. So I've seen how it can happen negatively and I don't ever want that to happen to this organization. Yeah, go ahead, Julia. I have a question for you but go ahead. So this is like a personal question and you don't have to answer this but do you see that the next leadership wave will be somebody that you've cultivated internally or that you will go outside and bring somebody in? Because this is a big issue for a lot of organizations especially legacy organizations. Do you have a sense of that? I do and we've planned, we're essentially planning for both. I want to position my leadership team to be able to take over someone from the leadership team. And we've talked about it and we're planning on that and do I have that person identified? No, it's not that deep. But I think the leadership team should all be ready for that possibility. Having said that, this is a complex organization because it's 50% knowing everything about the Wendy's business and the Wendy's system and working with this corporation in lots of significant fundraising and governance and leadership ways. But it's 50%, well it's 100%, 100% really it's 200%. 50% understanding the deep complexities of child welfare system of the judicial system of communications of all of those things. And so I was lucky enough to be able to sort of grow into both of those roles because the organization was young enough, someone's gonna have to come in and step into both of those roles without a lot of learning time. And so that speaks to internal development. But I'm certain given the state of child welfare right now and the issues of equity and race and complexities of the politicization, politicization, I can't say it, of even conversations like child welfare, it's a complex world out there. And so my guess is the board will probably wanna do both, consider internal and external and then make that the decision that's best for the organization. You know, it's so fascinating. When I talk about succession, Rita, I also talk about it so that it's not so fearful for that CEO dynamic that really succession needs to be considered for all positions, including the board, right? And so how are we developing? How are we evolving? How are we bringing in new leaders, new perspective, new everything? I'm curious, and I know we don't have tons of time remaining sadly, because again, we could talk to you for days. Is this topic talked about annually succession planning? I'm curious, Twofold, what if it's talked about regularly as if annually? And then also, did this come about because of COVID or was this already part of conversation, four plus years ago? Good question. No, that's a great question. We engaged in the deeper conversation pre-COVID, but COVID highlighted it, of course, because then we developed an emergency succession plan, which we had, but we really hadn't turned the page on it in years. Yeah. And so both of those happened, but this was a pre-COVID conversation. And is it annually? Yes, but it's also daily. So that when we're looking at teams and team development, when we're looking at annual reviews, when we're looking at professional development, it's not only CEO and leadership team, but it's each individual team. So the marketing team, the development team, the legal team, the finance team, I'm sure I'm missing one, the program team. How are your teams? What if you, the SVP, is suddenly alien abduction? Is your team bench strength strong enough that there won't be a miss in the program team or the marketing and development team? And so it is top down and bottom up, and that's a daily conversation, particularly when there's staff turnover or if there's a reorganization that we need to do to make things more efficient and more effective. So it gets really emphasized during the annual reviews as we begin to look, but those annual reviews are, well, that's another hour conversation too, but we do six-month check-ins. Of course the teams do more than that, but an official six-month check-in. So we're always jockeying, looking all to one, support the staff the best that we can so that they feel like this is a place that they can grow and thrive. But underneath that is, will the organization be sustainable and thriving for this very critical cause? So impressive, truly. I was shocked to hear it's not only an annual, it's a daily conversation. I don't think I've ever heard that, but Rita Sorenan, you are a gem, truly. I'm glad that you didn't have any breaking news for us today. I'm really glad that that's not what we're hearing, but for everyone watching and listening, Rita Sorenan has joined us today. She will also join us on Friday, or as I call it, Friday, but she serves as the president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. This is their website. Please do check it out. It's davethomisfoundation.org for those of you listening. Again, this entire week is dedicated Nonprofit Power Week with our partners, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, for our third annual Nonprofit Power Week where we dedicate a week in November for the Special National Adoption Month. So again, it's just been an honor. There's so much goodness happening. And I also want to give a shout out. And I feel like we got to do this last year as well. But the team's hiring. So if anyone in the Columbus, Ohio area is looking, there is openings on their team. I can only imagine, in fact, I know Julia has threatened to leave and move to Ohio. I would in a heartbeat. I would in a heartbeat, you know, because I am so enchanted and humbled and excited by your work and not just you, Rita. I think you're a rock star. But, you know, everybody we've come in contact with, I'm just like, yeah, I'm going to join the circus. I have an incredible team. And we're doing on a little bit of a test basis, we're doing some remote positions. So yes, Columbus, Ohio, but we're considered remote as well. That was breaking news. I love that. Yeah, check that out. I saw that on LinkedIn. I shared it because, you know, you just never know the power of social connection. But this week has been powerful, hence the nonprofit Power Week. So this week we are broaching all of these conversations with leaders from the organization, trauma in working in the nonprofits. Again, Melinda yesterday, general council, fantastic realities of founder syndrome. Thank you, Rita, for really just pulling back the curtains. You do this every year, but you share with us so authentically and it's just a breath of fresh air. Testing your marketing plan, that's coming up. So don't miss that. And then on Monday, we really kicked off with what you might have thought as of a snoozer is researching and changing attitudes. It was not a snoozer, right? It's really talking about how you can change your storytelling to make a big impact. So Friday again, Rita will join us for the ask and answer. It's been a wonderful week. Thank you for having us. I look forward to Friday, but tomorrow will be wonderful with Joe as well. Jill's great. And it's a lot of, for me, very interesting, our guest tomorrow, Jill Krumbacher, because Jill leads not only the marketing group, but the development group. And it was a very rare situation to see leading two groups, but yet they need to be working together. They need to be rowing in the same direction. And so fascinating conversation tomorrow. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we have amazing sponsors that allow us to have these conversations. And they include Fundraising Academy at National University, Blue Morang, your part-time controller, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, and Staffing Boutique, along with Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Again, these are the folks that join us day in and day out. As we march now towards, okay, hair on fire moment, 1,000 episodes. Yeah, I know. It's been a journey. It's been fun. You know, we were sharing last night with our friends at dinner. The beginning of the journey was a lot heavier than it is now. We still have some heavy conversations, but it's so rewarding. So thanks for being along with us. And as we end every episode, today's no different, but we always hear the words a little differently. And our mantra is to please, stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.