 Welcome back. It's a new day and new week and new month. Yes, new day, new week, new month. Thrilled to have in the hot seat with us today our very own Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. She is bringing to us a topic that we haven't talked much about yet. It's a critical mission moment for us to have this conversation. So she's going to share with us letting the community know what you do. And she's bringing some of her own personal insight as she's had some experience with this lately. So Julia, I'm glad to have you in the hot seat for today's conversation. We do this not very often, but we'll turn the tables on one another to get each other's expertise on a certain subject. So today we have you. And for those of you that are joining us, maybe this is your first time, welcome. Maybe this is a repeat, welcome back. Julia Patrick, of course is here, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. She has to be here because she's sharing the topic today. I'm Jared Ransom, you're a non-profit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group, honored to serve alongside day in and day out with the amazing support from our presenting sponsors that allow us these great opportunities. So a huge shout out goes over to our friends at Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising Academy at National University, non-profit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd as well as non-profit tech talk. These companies have truly been with us, most of them from the very beginning. All of the episodes that we've ever done, thanks to our presenting sponsors, you can find them on these three different platforms, podcasts, broadcasts, latest and greatest, you can still download that app and you'll get a notification in just a couple of hours that today's episode has been uploaded and is available for you to watch or to listen or however you like to consume your entertainment. But without further ado, again, when we put one or the other of us in the hot seat, it's a really, I'm gonna say, vibrant conversation and today we have Julia Patrick in this hot seat for us today and she's here to talk to us about really letting the community know who we are and what we do and from the standpoint of the non-profit. So Julia, before we get started, why now? Why are we bringing this conversation to the forefront now? You know, it's fascinating because I think you and I talk about this a lot more often than not, we talk about it off camera, but recently over a trajectory of several months, I've been involved in the disbursement of a very, very prestigious funding opportunity, roughly about a million dollars. And I sat with these other very august seasoned professionals from the nonprofit sector and discussed, you know, all these different things, there were interviews, there was research, blah, blah, blah, blah. I could not believe, yeah, I could believe, how much of these people involved in this major decision, a million dollars basically, when all of a sudden done, didn't really know what these nonprofits were doing. And it wasn't that it was, you know, spurless or that, you know, that people were like, oh my God, they do bad work, oh, they do great work. They did not know what the service areas were. I mean, they had an IT formed. No, I mean, they were like, oh my God, they do the work of the angels, they're a great group, you know, they've got great leaders, whatever, but they didn't really know if they ran an after-school program, a before-school program, you know, a medical clinic, book fair, I mean, whatever it was, or if it was all those things, right? People were not, they were undereducated, underexposed about what these nonprofits actually were doing in our community. It was riveting. Our local community. Well, one thing that we share, and of course this isn't new, there's 1.8 million registered nonprofits in the US in our community, Julia, I believe there's about 33,000. So as you can imagine, right, the competition is still large, as well as missions can change, they do change, programs and projects change, can change. So even though we might know an organization for its origin story, we might not have our finger on the pulse from that community standpoint of all of the evolutions that perhaps they've gone through. And I'm sure that's what you experienced. It's exactly what I experienced. And you know, at first I was like, okay, this is just this particular organization. And then I'm like, okay, I'm a woman of a certain age, my family's been here now for generations, I know where the bodies are buried. So then I was like, okay, this is my own lens because I have all this historical knowledge pinging around in my brain. And so, because I was trying to really like say, oh no, this can't be the case. Everybody knows what XYZ nonprofit does, but they didn't. And over this period of two plus months, it really was cemented into my brain about how and why we're missing the boat. So I was just like, Jared, I gotta come on, please schedule me. So let me ask this question. And I don't mean to be, I don't mean to push blame, but I have to ask who's fault is it? Is it the organization's fault or is the community member's fault? It's such a good question. And I think it's 100% the nonprofit. Okay. Because I was with people that live and breathe the nonprofit sector. You know, they wanna be educated, they wanna know. They wanna collaborate. They wanna make introductions. They wanna be connectors. And this difference was so shocking to me, Jared. So shocking. I mean, I can't even remember the reason. Okay, so talk to us about how we can find out, moving into that brand audit, how we can find out what the community does think that we as the nonprofit does. And I can imagine this is a little bit of a survey or maybe, I'm not sure how exactly to do this, but what are you suggesting when it comes to the brand audit so that we really can gather what the community's description of the nonprofit currently is? Exactly. So first and foremost, you hear about brand auditing from the donor perspective. And I'm not saying, I'm saying these are two different things. The donor and the community is different. So what do elected officials think? What do the presidents of the college and university systems think? What do clergy, all different types of faiths think? What does the educational system, when we talk about everything from preschool through high school, what do CEOs think? What do bankers think? I mean, there's a whole ecosystem out there of people that, yeah, they could be donors. Yeah, they might be donors. They might be collaborators. But what is it that people think you do? And I would include your vendors. I would include your corporate neighbors, like the people that have businesses around you. I mean, there's so many points of view, right? And yeah, this should be a very, very simple, online survey that you send out that says, could you just help me? We're just trying to figure out how you see us in the work we do. So, Julia, would you suggest that we cast the net far and wide? It's an online request, call for support, please help us really gather your thought on this, because the other thought I have is if we could directly and send an email to a local mayor, a city mayor or council members, clergy, whatnot, they get inundated. They get inundated with so much material, and we talk about this often. There's so much noise in our world. So how do we really go about getting a good database of information? Database probably isn't the right word, but how do we really pulling this information when there's so much other stuff out there for people to be doing? So it really, it is something that is a database. And we've talked about this. I call it the leadership list. It should be a very, very simple list so it doesn't become overwhelming. And literally, it has the stakeholders, it can have a name and an email, opinion makers, community leaders, partners, vendors, as we talked about. And this should be something that you hold as an asset for marketing and for communication. So for example, if your community had some horrible disaster before them and you had to respond in six hours along with major, major operational aspects like from the Red Cross to emergency services and you had to reach out to your community and say, oh my gosh, as you know, this just happened. We need help. These are the types of people that you would get to. Along with your donors undoubtedly, but these are the decision makers that are going to be front and center for something, right? I'm saying every nonprofit should have this. This is a key, key thing. From we're going before the city council and we need your support on this vote to show up to this event or this march, you know, whatever it is, this leadership list should be at the forefront of any organization. And sadly, Jarrett, it is not. Who creates this list and who holds this list? Really good question. You know, I've talked about this all the time no one has ever asked me that question. I think it's the C-suite. I think it's, you know, it needs to follow your donor database, you know, your CRM, you know, position, whatever you're using, but it should be a separate tag for somebody, somebody that might be a donor but that's also on the leadership list. But this is not for donor relations. This is for community relations. And I think it starts with your board. I think that you can go to your board and say, who needs to be on this list? We have this list. Maybe every quarter you freshen it up because people are elected, they're not elected, they move on, they get promoted. I mean, this is a changing ecosystem far more quickly than your donor database. You know, there's been so many unfortunate situations even here in our local community where I see on social media an office has been broken in, the files have been, you know, just torn across the entire office. Equipment has been taken, stolen, things like that. So that's not quite like help us advocate for this change in law. So when do we pull this list out? Exactly, because I can only imagine even a very unfortunate situation such as burglary, theft, you know, damage, is that something that we want to use this opportunity as a touch point? You know, yeah, undoubtedly, but I think it's a little bit more cerebral and higher level. So for example, it should be the announcement every time you add a new board position or you elevate somebody in your board to, you know, one of the key four or five, yeah, positions. It should be, we're going to be celebrating, you know, this milestone. It should be things of like we've won this award, I believe, and this is somewhat controversial. It should be that we are participating in this major grant, like we've won it. We've been recognized, listened to us, you know, on your local NPR station, whatever. It should be thought of as a marketing piece, but it's also telling your story. And again, if you think about our conversation we started 15 minutes ago, you know, my frame of reference was that people didn't really know what some of the most amazing nonprofits in our community were actually doing. And so I think this is that piece where you can say, you know, this was a busy weekend for you, guess what? We fed 800 families, something like that, right? Pulling back. It's interesting you say that. We have a very large organization here in our community that has really been known as the soup kitchen, right? Like coined as this is the organization, the entity, if there's individuals that are experiencing, you know, hunger, they can get fed here at this organization. But I also know they do so much more than that, including scholarships for education. That is night and day from hunger education. How to go about keeping these community members, Julia, abreast, is it simply that leadership list or are there other strategies where we can market to our community? Well, I think this is the most direct, right? I think this is the most direct and the thing that you as an organization can control, right? And let's face it, it might start out to be 50 people and move up to 500. Who knows? It really depends on what it is that you're doing and how much you're gonna invest in this. But, you know, the average person would tell you in marketing would say, well, get it out to the media, get it to the media, get it to, you know, broadcast, print, digital, social media. But you can't control that, right? And so what I'm saying is you can control this, right? You can brand it. You can put it in a message format. You can put it into a position where you're telling a snippet of information. It's not a one and done. You gotta be disciplined. You gotta be putting it on your schedule. You gotta know when you identify something positive that's happened or negative. It's something that's profound that most people might not know that you broadcast this out. I mean, because it's all, you're always trying to tell your story. You're always trying to let people know that, you know, you are not just a quote unquote soup kitchen, but that you do have a robust scholarship program. I mean, it's, as you said, it's telling that story. Yeah. Yeah, and telling that story is important. And, you know, even as we mentioned earlier, missions change, programs, projects change. They get added, they expand, they get dropped, right? Like there's a lot of moving pieces. You know, I remember early in my career, I was doing a Gala for an organization that has, you know, been around for 40 years. And I still remember talking to very high up community leaders and them saying, I've never heard of this organization, right? And so many times I hear the words, we are the community's best kept secrets, right? And it's like, but you don't wanna be. No one wants to be a secret when it comes to delivering a mission that can potentially provide a solution to a community problem. So I love that you're bringing this to the forefront because it's really something that is important for all of us. And I can only imagine it's a constant turn, right? Like we need to stay in touch with these individuals. Julia, do you recommend these individuals also get invited to special events and tours and even board meetings? What are you, what are you? I mean, I think it's a two-way street too. You know, I think it's like, hey, university president, you know, you have this amazing educational track for nonprofit management that most people don't know about. How can we learn about you? And how can you learn about us? I mean, I think it has to go that way. You know, most municipalities and state governments and even regional quasi-governmental organizations will have sector leaders. So they will have somebody that's, you know, they focus on crime or education or domestic violence or, you know, health and safety, whatever. So it's not just the mayor or the governor, right? It can be these subject experts. They need to know about you, right? And so that's kind of, I think how we can build more of a sense of community. And then I'm telling you, they will be in a meeting and they'll be like, oh my God, you know, XYZ nonprofit, did you know they did this? We need to talk to them about a collaboration because you, Jared and I, we have been talking about this. The amount of funding that is tied to collaboration has just exploded. The number of grants that require, require organizations to come to the table with other nonprofits is escalating. It creates a lot of stress and heartburn for folks. But guess what? If the community doesn't know what you're doing, right? It's another problem. It's another hill to climb, right? Julie, I wanna ask about the board members. How do they play a role in this? And do you recommend, because one of my strategies that I've used over my career is to nominate board members, excuse me, as well as executive leaders of the staff for community awards, right? Whether it's a business journal magazine, whether it's the local United Way, you know, there's so many events that they, they, these events want to recognize community leaders. Should we use that strategy as part of marketing and telling our story to the community? Absolutely. It's so funny you would bring this up in the last two weeks. I had a major, as we say in my family, Van Gogh, Jesus moment, come to Jesus moment, where I offered to nominate a leader who I think is, you know, one of the finest leaders I've ever been around. And this leader said, no, I don't wanna call attention to myself. And I said, you know what? It's not about you, dude. It's about the entire organization. And this is a platform that would allow your organization to be in a spotlight. And because donors are investors and they want to hitch their wagon to a bright star, you know, if they know an organization is well led or doing something innovative, money follows that. Connectivity follows that. So I agree with you. Award season is upon us and most of our communities get out there and nominate. Yeah. And I think it's a great, a great opportunity. I've had that pickup, if you will, Julia. I've been executive coaching where, you know, the individuals that I'm coaching, whether it's a CEO or the development director will say, I don't wanna be in the spotlight and having to really educate. It's not about you, it's your position within the community and really highlighting the community story, the mission story within this circle. And that's, you know, using you essentially as the vehicle, but it's all about the organization. Exactly. Oh my gosh, it's so much is. And you know, I get that it can be uncomfortable, but I think that when you flip the lens and you say, this is not about me, but this is about my organization and our work, I think that can make it a lot more palatable. And I think that we do need to look at that. I really do. I think that's an important, important thing. And also my experience with, you know, how I led into this discussion, Jared, it's not always the winners who are the winners. And so let me explain. Yeah, tell me. For all of these things, there's a committee, there's nominating, there are forms, there are reviews. And those tentacles go far and wide, right? So maybe the quote unquote winner is the one that's recognized officially, but there's a lot of other work and there's a lot of other marketing and knowledge that has gone on behind the scenes and has impact. Well, look at how involved you are. And so if you are one of how many individuals on that review committee, perhaps seven, eight, I'm not sure how many, maybe smaller, but really looking at that from an aspect of you just took and will take the information that you learned from serving on that, you know, opportunity into the tentacles, as you mentioned, into these other areas. Before it's time for us to bid adieu, I want you to talk about this, I think you call it a fact sheet. And so really culminating some highlights, I presume, from the organization, maybe even the origin story, one sheet, fast facts. And it says here, 10 key elements of impact. What is this exactly? So this is something we've talked about before. You can use it in media, you can use it in cultivation of donors, your team should know these facts. So for example, let's say you work in an afterschool program for youth, you can say we serve this many kids, we feed this many families, and we give this many hours of homework, tutoring or whatever, picking metric points, data-specific that you can communicate about what it is you're doing, right? And the impact. If you write a narrative and you make it really cumbersome to retain and process, that's only gonna go so far. But let's say you were trying to talk to a donor or make an appointment, you could say, well, here's a fact sheet, this is what we do. Rather than giving them the whole annual report, this is great for media. Hey, reporter, here's some background information if you want. Hey, potential board member, you should join us or think about us because hey, this is what we do and you give them this fact sheet. It should be digital, it should be posted to your website so it is transferable and it can go through email and go to some other place that maybe you couldn't get to and then it should be printed so that you can physically hand it to somebody. And maybe you're handing it to a mayor's aide or a governor's aide. Maybe you're handing it to a CEO's assistant or chief of staff. You don't know what the trajectory of this information is but I can guarantee you that it holds your data or your information points a little bit truer because somebody can easily say, oh, well, I think they feed 5,000 people a day. No, they feed 500 people a day or no, just the opposite. I think they feed 500 people a day. No, they feed 5,000. Do you see what I'm saying? So you control the narrative. Okay, get your catchers made up because I'm bringing you a curve ball. And it's the post-season. You know, I love baseball. I don't know anything about baseball but okay, sister, best game ever. Total curve ball question. We talk a lot in email, right? Emails are exchanged just always. How did we use our signature block or can we, should we use our signature block to link to this fast fact key sheet? Because I'm just wondering if we should include that as an opportunity. We always have our name or phone number or email. Should we also include, you know, learn more about your skin key fast facts? You know, I never thought about that, but I love it. When we're building our signature blocks, we do have parameters for size. And a lot of times if you exceed that size, you automatically get bumped to junk mail or whatever. So you have to be careful about that. But I love that idea. I mean, if one in 50 people opened it, it's somebody that you hadn't gotten to. And I think that is crazy genius. I wish I had thought of that myself. I'm so sorry. Says the nerd as I push up my gossips. No, I was just curious because I love it. A lot of those signature blocks, they will get changed throughout the seasons of organizations, whether it's, you know, tax time, end of year push, whether it's a special event coming up, but really using that, you know, space, if you will, to leverage some additional information that maybe the staff, the organization really wants to highlight during that time. So I don't know, maybe worth a try, as you said. If one in 50 click on it, that might be a win. Hey, that's a total win. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been great. Like I said, my wedding anniversary, my poor husband had to hear all about this during our supposedly romantic dinner. But I was like so jazzed and so excited to talk to you this morning about it. Because I really think it's a profound discussion. It's important. It's something we need. And I love that we have a lot of guest viewers joining us today to really learn more about this. So Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, thank you so very much. Again, you know, for those of you watching and listening every so often, not often, we do turn the tables on one another. So Julia Patrick took the hot seat today because she really had this burning desire to bring this to you. And I'm so glad to serve alongside day in and day out as your co-host. We are also just so full of gratitude to our presenting sponsors that allow us these opportunities to have conversations unscripted. Because again, we really don't have an editorial calendar that is designed through our sponsors. We're so grateful to have the trust in them. So thank you to our friends that trust us implicitly, Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, fundraising academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. We are coming up this month on 900 episodes. And again, thank you to all of you that helped this journey continue, including our sponsors, but all of you watching and listening truly. You can find all of our archived episodes, including this one on numerous platforms. So pretty much any kind of smart technology, you can just say the nonprofit show. We're still working on that. Maybe that's why Julia took the driverless car this weekend where she wanted to find out how we could just get that entire space where every driverless car is broadcasting the nonprofit show. Wow, okay, that is on my bucket list. We're working towards that, sister. You're gonna have to take more cars, you know? You're gonna have to do this this more often. I think so. Well, the love of my life got that one put together. So thank you, Jeff Jennings. That was awesome. Hey everybody, we like to end every episode with this mantra. And you know, it's funny, Jared, I say this every day, you say this often, but sometimes it means something different. It's really bizarre. And we started saying this, you know, because of COVID and then it's just changed over time. But as we march towards that 900 episode, I see it differently yet again, and it goes like this. Stay well so you can do well. Hey everybody, thanks so much. Thank you, my friend.