 Let's get cranking. I'm excited. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here for another episode of the non-profit show. Today's sponsor, of course, every Friday we like to give a shout out to the fundraising academy and their cause selling education model. We're so honored to have them as the exclusive sponsor of these Friday Ask and Answer episodes. Today we did just come out of the gate full charge, and I know I'm in need of a weekend and again, so grateful to end our Friday thanks to our sponsors. Thank you for being presenting sponsors of the show. Have to give a shout out to each and every one of them. Thank you to Bloomerang, to your part-time controller, fundraising academy, non-profit nerd, American non-profit academy, staffing boutique, non-profit thought leader, as well as the non-profit Atlas. Thank you because each and every day we have very robust conversations thanks to our sponsors. Thanks to Julia Patrick for having this grandiose opportunity and idea. Julia is the CEO of the American Non-profit Academy. I get to come on and nerd out. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. Again, if you have not checked out our podcast, make sure you do that so you can find us anywhere you are listening and streaming your podcast. Not only are we online, we are Roku TV, Fire TV, Vimeo, Prime, if I haven't said that, yeah, Amazon Prime, and all the podcast channels as well, so excited for that. You know, it really is amazing. I want to give a shout out to our executive producer, Kevin Pace, who really has figured out how we can navigate our work onto podcast platforms. I think he told me that we are on something like 20 plus streaming services, and that's growing. It's very, very exciting. And for those of our tribe that are in this non-profit sector that might really like to consume their information or their content through the podcast networks, we're there for you and growing. Now you can access almost 500 episodes of the non-profit show. That is not the case on the podcast. We actually are moving forward with that because it's just too much of a volume of work, frankly. But already, you know, every five days, we've got five more episodes and five more podcasts. So I mean, it's crazy and exciting. And again, I just want to make sure that we give a shout out to Kevin Pace. He's with us every day. You don't see him. Sometimes he comes on. He's definitely on with us in the Chitty Chat Chat. But anyway, I did want to make sure. Yes, thank you. Absolutely. That we say that. Now, as you know, Jared, we ask and answer. We get questions that are asked of us and we answer them every Friday. Darius writes in from San Diego, California. How important is it to have someone from our organization able to speak Spanish when it comes to the media? Super interesting. We're located in Southern California. And while we have a rich history of Latinx culture, we've not addressed the Spanish language media relations or even pitches. That is fascinating. And the only thing I can think of at this moment is I saw Stacey Abrams speak. And for those of you that may or may not know her, right? She's very involved in the Georgia, state of Georgia political arena. And she provided an interview every week to a channel of a totally different language. In fact, I think it was like Chinese. And so she does not speak this language. So what she did, Darius, was have an interpreter. And that might be something worth considering to have an interpreter, which would cause a little bit more of a pause. But I do think that your Spanish language, your media relations people, they would be willing to work with you to find the best solution. So if you don't have someone on staff, I also say, take a look at your board. You might be surprised, right? Julia Patrick actually speaks Spanish very well. You would not know that by looking at her. And she will say she's not fluent, but I will say that she is enough to do an interview. And I think it's just really polling your community and those that are already involved with your organization because, Darius, you might be surprised. I think you really might be surprised if you ask staff, if you ask board, and you could even potentially do a call to volunteers to find out out in your atmosphere, these connections, who might you be able to lean on in this opportunity? So a couple of different ways to approach that. I love it. And I would say, Darius, if I'm not mistaken, because of the proximity of San Diego to the border, a lot of media, a lot of broadcast is flowing across the border. Our broadcast channels don't just stop at an imaginary border. So yeah, I mean, it's like, these things bleed out and leak in. And so absolutely in your community, I think this has got to be top of mind. Look at the food and the architecture, even the clothing that has such a rich influence from Northern Mexico. Yeah, this is a big part of your community and how it was formed and how it is forming. So definitely this is a place for you to be present. And I loved what you said, reach out internally and find out who can do this for you. It is a powerful, powerful thing. Yeah, let us know how it goes. I think that's fascinating. Yeah, and if all it fails, call Julia. Oh my God. You know, I once had to do a full on media interview in Spanish that was like a pop up. It was like an impromptu thing. It wasn't bad news. It was a happy story. But I was working on a project, looked around and it was very interesting because we did have some Hispanic first generation Mexican Americans. So they had like and they both had Northern Mexico accents, Northern Mexican accents. And they would not do it because they didn't feel that their Spanish was strong enough. Right. They were really conscientious of that. And I was like, oh my God, hello, you're the closest we got. And it was two individuals and they wouldn't do it. So I stepped up to do it. And I said to the reporter, I'm like, I'm gonna do the best I can. And I will do it with integrity but I'm gonna probably need some help. And when I said that and because of the way I look, that reporter was so gracious. Sure. And it ended up being really positive. Now, I can't say that all the time. But that also speaks to the different influence and dialects in different regions. So even though it's Spanish, right? There's different dialects. There's different words associated with the different regions. Totally. I mean, it is a completely different thing. But good job, Darius. Man, you got to get on this, my friend, because it's a big deal. It's a big deal. Can we say Buena Suerte? Buena Suerte, Buena Suerte. Buena Suerte. What did our guests that you spoke with and I watched Armando Zumaia said that the Latinx community is 20% of the giving community. I mean, there's a 20% capacity there to reach. And with a population that's moving towards being 40% of the population. So if we don't acknowledge this and start this as a best practice, we're missing out. We're missing out on money. Yeah. And it's pretty untapped. So go back and listen to that episode with Armando. It was fascinating. Amazing. I loved it. Okay, we're going to go to Patty in Tampa, Florida. How long do you think it takes for the average development team to learn a new CRM system? We're looking to make a change, but a bit concerned on the learning curve. I feel your pain, Patty. I don't know the answer to this, Jared. I don't know the scientific answer, but I will tell you that it's constantly an evolution. So even when you are in a system, let's say you've stayed in a system like Bloomerang. Even Bloomerang comes out with new widgets, right? New opportunities, updates, just like many of our smartphones do now, right? Like there's another update. There's an upgrade. There's a different way of doing it. So what I have always seen, Patty, is to identify what is the goal that we want to do? How do we want to use our database? What reports, what filters? Like how do we use our system regardless of the name of the system? How do we best use it? And then how do we best reach that end goal with any system that we might be in? So I recently had a client move from Salsa as a CRM to Bloomerang as a new CRM. And so yes, there are intricacies, there are nuances that are different, but overall, I think anyone with a basic broad knowledge of a donor database, I really think the capability and the user ability is pretty seamless and pretty quick. So I will tell you from Moves Management, Sasha, she will tell you that it's typically a six month transition period. That doesn't mean a learning curve, but it should from start to finish take about six months to really switch over your donor database. So this means if you have any recurring donations that you need to consider and perhaps you need to reach out to these donors and let them know that you're changing systems, maybe you need to recoup some of these transactions, so they don't fall through the crack. These are the things that are part of that six month. That is powerful. It's not gonna witness to you. That's a little frightening to hear. Yeah, it's a long time when you think of it. It's a long time, but not an overnight. It's not a weekend. It's not even a month solution. Okay, I think, so when you said that, I'm thinking to myself, holy moly, if we moved on something right now, it's March, you're gonna get really close to that holiday giving and that holiday push that you're moving forward in, right? I mean, yeah, you need to really be thinking about this, right, Jared? So that you're not in the middle of your busiest and most important time with critical involvement and then have problems. Absolutely, absolutely. And when and if you do change over, Patty, make sure that you are downloading, saving reports and documents so that you are safeguarding this information so that you can access it. Now, some systems will allow you continuous access on a month to month basis to ensure that you've been able to pull everything over. So again, you just wanna safeguard this data and make sure that you either A, have access to it in perpetuity as if you download it and save it somewhere, or you have access for an infinite amount of time for this purpose. So when you say infinite amount of time, are you saying that you have somebody on that company side that you know you can access and get a real person to help you engage with whatever the problem? Is that what you're referring to? I think so, because there's oftentimes when you think, oh, I didn't think of that. You're right. You know, there's things that slip through. Okay, that was a great question. And Patty, let us know how it turns out because it sounds to me like this is knowledge that a lot of us could use. And yeah, wow, okay, I'm a little freaked out, but I'd rather know now than have to learn later. Okay, let's go. Oh, name withheld Washington, D.C. I love Washington, D.C. Love name withhelds. Okay, have you ever heard of a development fundraising team getting bonuses? We want to pitch this idea to our CEO for fiscal year 22, 23, but we need some backup. Yeah, I bet you do. I know that AFP does, yeah, AFP does not support commissions, but this could be different. I have heard of this and Julia, I'm curious if you have as well, I've heard of this for the CEO space as well as development, more for like the development director, not for every individual staff person within development. Now, name withheld, I do not know how this works. This is not something in my wheelhouse that I've ever been privy to, but I have heard of hitting certain goals that again, not commission-based as you're saying, and for those of you that are wondering the acronym AFP, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and they are very clear with their ethical promise that commissions and pay base is not associated to the amount of dollars raised. And so for those of you that are curious and you wanna take a look, I highly recommend looking this up. Literally, if you type in AFP, Commission Pay, pretty sure it'll show up on the Googles. Yeah, I think so. But what do you say, Julia, have you had this discussion at a board level before? You know, we have, I have been on several boards that have brought this up, and what I find super interesting is that folks that are serving on boards, oftentimes come, they often come from the business sector, or, you know, where commissions are a part of an institution's reward system, engagement, it's a very, very important part of the whole structure. And so a lot of, I have witnessed this where board members are like, what? That's unethical because, you know, not calling somebody that they're unethical, that's a big deal. Right. And so I have been around those discussions where people are just floored, coming from the for-profit side and not understanding about this practice. And I have to say on the same side to witness the nonprofit folks saying, are you kidding me? You don't know that this is unethical, you know? So it's a really interesting kind of coming together with one more time. We have a for-profit sector and a nonprofit sector that doesn't get the ecosystems with which they work in, which is another topic, fascinating. But I would say this, I think there are ways to do cash bonuses. I think you need to determine this. And I like name with help that you're figuring this out before the fiscal year starts and getting this down. And so that you would say, what are these levels? But this is what I might do. I might stratify some of these levels and say, if you reach as a team this goal, everybody gets an extra two days off for PTO. Or if you reach this goal, everybody gets X amount or something like that. That's a very, it's a tied to an a dollar amount. Now, where I've had some issues and I've had this people bring this up to me on a personal level, where a team finds out that their executive director has received a bonus and that bonus has not been shared. That's where it can be a sticky wicket. Especially if you have an organization where the development director is managing and they're not necessarily out there with their own portfolio coming in with big checks. So that's a little nuanced. But I think in this day and age, we do need to be thinking about what are some of these bonus situations? What do they look like? How can they behave? Before I jump off this, you know, this is taxable. So- And it's different, it's taxed differently. It's taxed differently. And even if you said, okay, we're gonna buy everybody a $500 gift card to the supermarket. That's our partner, you know, that's taxable. You're gonna have to, you know, declare that. So I mean, there's a whole bunch of nuance to this. But I love it. And I would definitely do something to reward people. This speaks to the issue of keeping our staff, of treating them well, of encouraging them. I don't know, Jared. Well, I wanted to go back to the bonus for the CEO. So typically the CEO is one of the top five paying employees of the organization. And all of that is public knowledge on the 990s. So you can find that on the 990 by way of salary and then any additional compensation. And sometimes that, you know, list would also include a development director or chief development officer, you know, type of a role. So you can see those bonuses as public information. So name withheld is that if this is something you're willing to do and looking to do, be mindful that these are also public documents that anyone can find on the internet. And, you know, there's plenty of ways for your employees to find that as well. I love that. And I would also add, I hadn't thought of that response. But if you're looking to support this decision by what some other organizations are doing, look around. And you can get that information. I think that's really smart, especially in Washington, DC where you have so many, as I call them mother ships, you know you have major nonprofits where that is the seat of their leadership. Wow, really, really interesting. Okay, that was good. That was fascinating. Okay, Louise from El Paso, Texas writes what should the average length of time and RFP request for proposal be open? I'm tasked with writing some policies and I need to set up some guidelines on this. So I assume he's saying when his organization puts up an RFP, how long should that be open? What do you think? You know, I think I've worked with a lot of RFP processes and I would say a minimum of 30 to 45 days. And that's so that you can document where you promoted the RFP so that you keep it equitable and open. But this is the dirty little secret. I have seen organizations, predominantly municipalities that don't want to have a lot of interaction with the RFP. They write an RFP, but they really know who they want the contractor to be. And so they might open it up and then pretty close it pretty quickly. Not super ethical, but I think it's really the engagement level of what you want. Yeah, I think at 30 to 45 is a good baseline. For me as a consultant, I don't like to submit RFPs for a different reason, but it is absolutely best practice as an organization to receive at least three quotes, three pricing structures, that's clearly a hard word. For the due diligence of the organization. So whether it's an RFP process or not, I would say that you are comparing at least three different quotes for a job. And again, 30, 45 days is probably a good window knowing that there's other things on your plate. And that's just the reality. There's a lot going on. And I gotta believe, Jared, with a lot of businesses right now, just trying to keep their heads above water with all the business they have and not really going out looking for a new business, this might even be hard to get those three. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, that due diligence. And often your board might know of someone, are they themselves? Lewis might offer this service. And so for that conflict of interest, you of course want to make sure that you're doing that due diligence of opening up the process to other vendors, other contractors. So for that reason also, I think it's pretty important. So would you recommend that Luis actually, if he's not getting responses to document or put in a process where he actively goes to XYZ company and says, hey, we have an RFP, here it is if you're interested, apply. So you're pushing out? I think so. That's okay. Yeah, I think any of that would be great. Okay, interesting. Well, good luck Luis. And I love it. He's working on a policy. That's great. That's like super, super, really, really, I think a great idea. Okay, let's go to Celine from Dayton, Ohio. We want to establish a board liaison. Okay, my favorite topic. Speaking your love language. I know. In fact, our audit firm is advising us that this is a best practice that we need to institute. Does this person come from the board of directors internally? Oh, that's a good question. Should this be the board secretary? No, Celine, it's not. Generally a board liaison comes from internally. Oftentimes it's the CEO's executive assistant because a big part of the board liaison's work is hurting cats, right? Getting everybody where they need to be. You said it, not me. I know, it's true. It's true. There's a tremendous amount of record keeping. There's a tremendous amount of the contractual aspect of even funders that you have to submit as well as the federal government, maybe your own state government when it comes to recording certain things in order to keep your nonprofit status. So this is a professional job. It can be a part-time job. It can be part of a larger structure. We've spoken about this. I love the product, boardable. They talk about this. This is something that really is a best practice. And I'll tell you why the audit firm is doing this is that the audit firm probably wants to see that certain information has been filed and they're not seeing it. And that's what the board liaison would do. Because yeah, so very interesting. I don't know. Sorry, Jarrett, to get all hot and bothered. This is your bailiwick. This is your whole thing. And I agree with everything you said. I think that's great. And so I do think that it should not be a board member but it is someone on the staff to help that CEO or the executive level. So absolutely. I think that's great. I do think having a board liaison is a really good best practice and yay for the audit firm. I know. I love that they've said that. Hey, we have a question that's just come in and I wanna address it really quickly before we end our day. A viewer writes in, what is the accepted practice for having someone else enter time sheets for other employees? I really do not understand why some employees neglect to enter time sheet information yet expect to be paid. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So I do believe, and again, I'm not HR payroll but I do believe if you're salary there might not be a need for a time sheet so there might be a delineation there. However, I also know that many accounting departments need to capture how much time was allocated for every single role as it relates to funding, grant funding, reimbursement and the like. So for that situation salary regardless I understand the need for that. So that's my two cents but Julia, do you have a little bit deeper understanding? You know, in several organizations this would be a fireable offense that this is something that you never crossed that line. Now, if somebody didn't get in to sign their literal time card or couldn't get online or whatever then most organizations have a chain of command where then it goes to a supervisor and the supervisor has to sign off on it. Now, most organizations that supervisor is gonna have to sign off on those time sheets anyway they're going to have to approve a time sheet. So for example, if the time sheets are due the process is on Friday, most employees or within that team would be expected to submit everything by five o'clock or EOB and a business on Thursday and then the supervisor would take care of everything on Friday and get it to the payroll company by noon or whatever. That can be a common process but absolutely it is pretty much verboten to have somebody else do that time card. I mean, it's just not at all healthy for many reasons as you can understand. And if there's a problem that should be defined how is it navigated through a supervisor through an ops manager, whatever. But yeah, I mean, grow up people don't get me started. Right, right. It is Friday after all but that was a great question. I'm so glad that you were able to ask that and we were able to address it live. It's been a fantastic week with you Julia. Thank you so very much. And of course, thank you to our presenting sponsors to keep these conversation going and flowing. We are so extremely honored, thrilled and privileged to have the support of Bloomerang, your part-time controller fundraising academy, non-profit nerd, American non-profit academy that has some board liaison information. So check that out online. Staffing boutique non-profit thought leader as well as the non-profit Atlas. Thank you, Julia. Hey, thank you, Jared. It's been great. I'm like so privileged that we get to have these conversations that we get to share the knowledge that we have but more importantly share our passion and connect people up to the wonderful things that's going on in our country. And next week is gonna be even better. So stay with us. As we'd like to remind everyone every time we end the non-profit show. Stay well, so you can do well.