 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad you're here to start your week with us. It is Monday, but I like to call it Monday, and it's even more of a yay because today we have Hathaway Miranda joining us where she serves as strategic advisor and leadership consultant to so many of our nonprofits in our nation. She's here to talk to us about leading a culture of philanthropy at your nonprofit. So Hathaway, we're glad to have you and we'll ask you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about yourself in just a moment. But before we do that, we want to say hello to Julia. Julia Patrick is the CEO at the American Nonprofit Academy. She keeps me around and I'm so grateful for that. I'm Jarrett Ransom, non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group and truly honored to serve alongside you Julia, day in and day out to have these conversations with leaders across the nation. And we wouldn't be here if it also weren't for our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us these unscripted conversations. So thank you so very much. Shout out to our friends at Bloomerang, also American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, also to staffing boutique, non-profit nerd as well as non-profit tech talk. Thank you for helping us to produce now nearly 900 episodes. And if you missed any of them or you wanna go back and binge watch any of them, you're in luck. So you can download the app, those of you that are watching live or either they're recording right now, you can scan that QR code, download the app and in just a mere few hours after today's conversation, with Hathaway you'll get a notification that it's uploaded and you can listen to it again. We're also on podcast and broadcast. So wherever you choose to stream your entertainment, you can find us there. So Hathaway, you have waited patiently. And again, we are so grateful to have you joining us today. For those of you watching or listening, Hathaway Miranda is here talking to us about culture of philanthropy. Welcome to you. Well, thank you so much. I'm just honored to be here. I'm a big fan of the show and all those sponsors are fantastic. So congratulations to you all. And it's just a joy to be here, especially on a Monday. Monday's usually a dark day for folks in the cultural space because they've worked over the weekend and a lot of times twice on Saturday. So talk to us about your relationship with the cultural world and institutions that are engaged in cultural activities. Well, sure. So I grew up in New England and studied visual arts my whole life and worked my way out to California where I lived in California for 20 years. And I started my nonprofit career or 25 years ago at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I was the manager of the Modern Art Council and those of you at SFMOMA will probably not even remember the Modern Art Council or maybe you may, they are no longer part of the museum is my understanding but they were in charge of all the fundraising events. And I really didn't understand when I was going to college and studying art that there were actual opportunities in arts organizations for people that weren't curators or specialists in certain types of art or musicians and things like that. So I actually had an incredible 25 year career worked for SFMOMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I worked for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Sundance Institute, the Sundance Film Festival. And then I was recruited out to Honolulu, Hawaii where I was a deputy director of the Honolulu Museum of Art, a wonderful institution. If anybody ever is out in Oahu, you've got to see that museum. It's a little jewel box in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And that was a really fun, amazing place where I learned so much about running an organization and really started, that's kind of when we all started talking about what is that culture of philanthropy? And then I landed back on the mainland in the Midwest at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art as the vice president for development. And I left the Nelson-Atkins this past September, so almost a year ago, and I am back in grad school and I am consulting now with some wonderful organizations, the Kansas City Public Library, the Great Plains SPCA and many others, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. So really busy creating that culture of philanthropy, working with incredible leaders, as you said, across the nation. I love it. I love that you can bring so much rich knowledge and experience to a very wide group of people. And let's dig right into this because we were talking in the green room. What is the culture of philanthropy? I mean, it's kind of this nebulous thing. It sounds like, oh yeah, that's good. We need to be doing that. But what does it really mean? Well, that's a really good question. And I think that a lot of people could interpret it in many different ways. But I did look it up on Google and I wanted to read it because it's really good. And I love what philanthropy, just the word philanthropy, if you look that up, it's a love of humanity, which is a wonderful term, I think. And I think all of us that are fundraisers out there in the world see philanthropy and the work that we do in the development office is quite noble and something really wonderful that we're doing for our community and our world and for the organizations that not only we are passionate about, but there's a community that's passionate about this organization and would do anything. And philanthropy doesn't always mean giving of your wealth, but it gives giving of your time, giving of your positive influence in the community and things like that. So creating a culture of philanthropy, let me just read this, a culture of philanthropy is community of people committed to telling and supporting relevant stories to enhance each other's well-being. So I think that's really powerful. And that's something that I'm really committed to in my career moving forward. I'm glad you read the definition. I also like to remind people in the definition of philanthropy, there is no set dollar amount, right? It doesn't say you have to be Bill Gates, you have to be Melinda Gates. It's like- Thank you. Yeah, exactly. It's that culture of giving. It's really just the act. And as you said, it's not just of our money, it's of our time and talent as well. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting because I feel like Jared, you and I talk about this a lot. And we talk about this in our different communities, on the nonprofit show, in our individual work. But it's one of those nebulous things and not everybody really understands it or can row in the same direction. You know, if you say, I'm a fundraiser and we need to raise money, everybody's like, okay, yeah, I understand that. You know, and get drilled down to the small pieces. Yeah. But I mean, some of this piece, some of this is somewhat new and somewhat of a heavy lift for organizations because we haven't defined it. So halfway, how do nonprofits take this concept and then promote it, promote a culture of philanthropy? What does that look like? Well, you know, I think that there's a lot of ways that an organization can drill down on creating that culture of philanthropy. But I would say that the start, the very start of that is internal and that's your leadership and board champions who have a very, very clear vision that is understandable, attainable, exciting and that all of the community internally and externally can understand and get behind. And also an understanding that these organizations are a nonprofit. So every dollar raised, every good conversation about that organization, everybody that understands what you are trying to achieve in the future creates that culture of philanthropy. And it is extremely important for the success of fundraising for that organization, for people to really know what they're giving to of their time, of their talents, of their wealth. If I give, where is that gonna lead this organization that I do deeply care about? And it's a fantastic way to engage your communities through that culture of philanthropy and that clear vision forward. Well, I'm curious, is it really the development department that's championing this? I mean, do we wanna kind of like bring the whole organization along with it? What does that look like? Cause I feel, and I think we joked about this in the green room, right? It's like, is this really a department of the fundraising? And that's championing this and that's it. Yeah. You know, I think that it is unfortunately, I will say a thought out there, a belief that it is the development office. That's who's our culture of philanthropy, just them. And the head of development is responsible for this huge fundraising goal and they're just gonna go get all that money. And we're just gonna go along with our day and do our business and we're just gonna let them, we don't need to talk to them. We don't need to support them. We don't need to know what they're doing. That's their job. And that's really hard to sustain for the development office. I think we all know that there's a lot of burnout, there's a lot of turnover, there's a lot of people leaving fundraising because of the pressure of an organization not really fully understanding the culture of philanthropy. So, I think that the culture of philanthropy and everybody that works at an organization and supports an organization is all responsible for that fundraising goal. So I do think that that is really incredibly helpful for our nonprofit leaders to certainly be responsible for leading the discussion and always sitting at the table and representing that, but that everybody understands that they are part of the success of the fundraising department. It's not just that head of development. It's not just those development professionals. So are you telling me that the guys in facility maintenance and the folks that work in the cafeteria and maybe the two odd folks that drive the pickup vans, the pickup and deliveries, they need to know what the culture of philanthropy is and they need to know what the goals are? I would say, yeah. And honestly, I think that the development office also needs to know what their job is and what their goals are. I think that it's really important that not only are the people in different departments aware of what development is doing, what development is trying to accomplish and how they can help, but development needs to be aware of what everybody in the organization is doing so they can properly connect the dots for funders in the future and they can really speak clearly about what the vision is and what the aspirations are. And there's a lot of folks out there that would love to support the security detail or whatever the real important things are for the organization. It's just so important to bring development folks to the table, to all of the conversations in all different levels so they understand what's going on and they can do a better job at communicating and representing that organization in the philanthropy part of the work that that nonprofit does. I'm working with a nonprofit right now that's creating a deployment structure and it's kind of based on what the military does and that is they're taking folks from their different departments and they're moving them around for a short period of time so that they can kind of learn and see and observe what goes on. And so they're taking folks from development and putting them into facilities management and all this other stuff for a short period of time and then they're taking people from facilities management and all that and putting them in development because one of the things that came out of this was that a lot of folks thought that the development team just went out to like lunch and parties. Oh my God. What, what? And so I can't wait to see how this blend works because I think it speaks to the culture of philanthropy. Absolutely. That is something that I've dealt with my whole career is, oh, you guys just do parties and are fancy walk around Boston, everybody around because you work with the trustees so you guys can tell us all what to do. Unfortunately, it is, I really trust me. I thought I was getting into something very glamorous working at all these organizations and being ahead of a development office but it is not, it is hard, hard work and development folks are awesome at creating relationships for organizations and we also have to create relationships internally as well with all the different departments and it really starts with the leadership and like I said, board champions as well, really understanding what that culture is and it's not something you can do overnight. It is something that is a culture and it takes a while to create that but if you get really clear on what that is and everyone speaking that same language and that same vision, that's it right there. Everybody understands and they understand what the development office is doing, how they can help the development office but then also feel confident that the development office knows what they're doing and can connect these different departments to potential funding in the future. How much time Hathaway do you think it takes for us to really institute organizational participation? I think there's some quick things you can do at your organization, discuss it, have all staff have your head of development and your executive director have a Q&A with staff. Really, you can start that right away but there's a couple other things that I think would be really important for organizations and I'm not sure that a lot of organizations are doing this yet but that would be to include development in your annual review. So everybody who works at an organization, you often have certain things that everybody's sort of graded on or looked at like security efforts or certain types of mandates to the whole staff that are important but you could add development in that. How would you interact with development? How did you support development? That would be a great conversation to have on an individual level and if people see that in their performance review, they're gonna take it real serious and then also, yeah, it's a great way to go. And then also- It's the first time I have ever heard that. I've never heard that. No. Never ever. And I'm like, that is a hair on fire moment. I love it. Yeah. I do too. And I feel when you talk about kind of siloed divisions, siloed departments, but we really could have like, and the same for development, how did you interact with programs, with operations, with the like? I think that really blends the entire organization into this really like inner working flow. Yes. And then just to kind of take it to a next level, your leadership works with development and HR and you also put it into your employee handbook or whatever it is when someone's hired and they know what the expectations are of all staff. So that way no one's blindsided like, well, no one told me I had to, you know, it's in the handbook, the employee handbook when you need to work here, you agreed to participate and understand that we are a nonprofit organization and what that means for you as an employee here is to understand that we are always fundraising. That's right. That's right. Well, what about like, how do we go from the time, like really baking it into all of these areas to saying, okay, we've done it, we've reached the pinnacle, we've been successful, right? Like, how do we know that it's working? Well, you know, one of the things that I really appreciated when I worked in development in the development office at a nonprofit because, you know, I worked at art museums and film festivals and symphonies and obviously those are incredibly beautiful, wonderful things happening at these important cultural organizations, but development is a lot different than a lot of those or a lot of those different departments that are producing these incredible productions. Development is measured on numbers. So I mean, I think it's kind of simple if you create this culture of philanthropy you should be able to see that reflected in the development dollars raised. I'm not gonna say you're gonna go from $100 to $10 million overnight, no, but you should see progress and your development team should be able to really develop fundraising strategies knowing and feeling really confident that there is this culture of philanthropy. They have the support. They know what's around the corner. They know what the different departments are planning in the future, what they're needing in the future. They are working with development. All the different departments are working with development for what we call cheat sheets where you just have like a really easy snapshot from different departments with maybe a visual, some numbers, some measurable successes when we get the funding for these projects within the organization. You know, there's lots of things you can do but ultimately an organization should count on continued growth, healthy growth, not unsustainable growth, but measured success in those dollars every fiscal year. You know, Jared, I've gotta ask you this question and that is in all the years you have been working across the country but especially in my community where I've seen your work your beautiful work, I would say if you went to a board or you went to a group that had, was large enough to have different departments and said, okay, how do you fit into development and how can we count on your support? And if you tried to have that dialogue if you and I in the last 30 minutes were like, what do you think would happen in the real world? I just, people get it, right? Singular people, maybe not the collective department, you know, and I have similar to Hathaway, you know, really brought this into staff meetings like development needs to share, they're not just party planners and then programming needs to also understand that money just doesn't fall out of the sky, right? Like there's a very intentional partnership and strategy working here and you can't have one without the other, right? But I do think really talking about this, you know, in the way that Hathaway has shared would be, it would just really take it to a whole new level because I know the three of us here and probably many of you watching and listening have also heard, you know, like, oh, our board doesn't like to fundraise, they don't like, they don't like to ask for money. And it's like, so you're building this culture that is completely across the organization and it's not just leadership and it's not just board, it is every single person, everyone. Yeah. And I think that has to get, that has to be explained and nurtured and reinforced, you know, that when a prospective donor investor comes onto the campus and the first person they see is the security guard, well, hopefully that security guard takes it off and it's yay team and great so that you're not having to do corrective work by the time they get to the development office. Does that make sense? Yeah, exactly. Hathaway, what if the culture slips, right? Like, what if we've reached a great success measure and then we start seeing it slip? Maybe it's during, you know, a pandemic where people are mostly working remotely or maybe it's, you know, with a new leadership. What do we do then? I mean, I think that with a strategy of a culture of philanthropy, you know, strategic plans are compasses that kind of move you in a certain direction and if you include that culture of philanthropy you should always be able to refresh, you should always be able to come back to that compass point that you're trying to get to and again, I think the measurement of success is seeing those numbers continually at least be stable, hopefully grow certain percentage every fiscal year and if you start to see those sort of get stagnant and not grow, that's a great opportunity to hit refresh and work with your development team and again, maybe you need some new leadership, appoint new people on the board, appoint people internally that can be working with development, you know, there's all kinds of ways I think you can refresh that culture of philanthropy attitude. Sure, yeah. Very fascinating. We had a guest on, I wanna say from Bloomerang talking about, you know, volunteer engagement and as you read the culture of philanthropy definition when we started this conversation Hathaway do you also advocate for organizations and members of the team to experience this elsewhere? Like to go volunteer at other places. So maybe if you are a cultural organization you go volunteer at a food bank or, you know an animal shelter, do you recommend that as well? Absolutely, absolutely. I think that that just enriches someone's life. I think it's a wonderful way for a nonprofit organization and really any organization. That's something that, you know at the leadership level at a couple of the organizations that I've worked for we were talking about that as a staff benefit is to give people time off to go and volunteer at organizations that are important to them so they can really have that experience. I think that's such a great point, Jared. That's perfect. You know, and same thing, Julie I'm not seeing that often enough I see it a little bit, you know but I feel like when we work in the sector we stay within our organization and think, oh I give, I give of my time to my employer, you know and maybe not beyond that. Right, and I think there's nothing wrong with going out and looking at other organizations and with a comparative mindset. I mean, because there's something that you can take away that might come back and be an incredible departure for your organization that just moves you forward or something that has really held you back but you couldn't identify it until you were on that other side you were the volunteer, you were doing the work and you were being managed to understand what that looks like. So I think there's an amazing opportunity here and I just think it builds the sector in so many ways. I think that's the thing and we still are competitive by nature as a society even though we're in the supposedly benevolent nonprofit space, I mean we know that we are still highly, highly judgmental and competitive and we're going after the same resources and there's some of those old stories that we live with, right, and so if we can open up this concept and be experiencing other organizations I think it's a super healthy thing. Hathaway, you have been a delight and I love that you were able to join us and you know, Jared and I, we don't get enough folks from the cultural space on talking with us. We need to do a better job of bringing that voice into the nonprofit show because I think it's just such an incredibly important part of all things across our culture but certainly in the nonprofit sector and so this was a lot of fun and I'm thrilled that you're pursuing your education. Good for you. I think that's a marvelous thing at any point in time. We always need to be educating our people so that they can be more professional. Jared and I talk about this all the time, you know when we were starting out there was no formal education for the nonprofit sector and so what a change, what a change and this has just been an amazing thing. Hey, check out Hathaway Miranda's work. You can contact her directly, artfoodmusicatgmail.com that's artfoodmusicatgmail.com and maybe strike up a conversation with her and see how your journeys can link because this is an amazing opportunity for so many folks in the nonprofit sector. Again, everybody, I'm Julia Patrick been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. I like to call her my nonprofit nerd but she can be your nonprofit nerd too. So check her out and again, thanks to all of our presenting sponsors. They include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk. These are the folks that have been most of us from the get go and we're now in our fourth year so these have been people that have really navigated this journey with us as we learn and grow so that our nonprofit sector can be strong as ever. And they have to, I'm going to say, Hathaway definitely have a culture of philanthropy within their ethos for these companies. So it's really cool to have this conversation and to see the inner working so. Yeah, it's been great. It's been great. Thank you. You know, something too, I think we need to keep revisiting Jared and keep, you know, having like a touch point, like how are we, you know, reigniting this, reaffirming it because it's Hathaway, you know, has shared with it. It's not a one and done thing. Oh, it's a constant. Yeah. Yeah. Should be a constant if we're doing it right. Right. I loved your question about what do we do if we're like sagging or lagging? I thought that was a really smart question because this does, this is a journey. Yeah. And so super, super cool. Well, ladies, this was a great way to start our week. We are so grateful that our viewers, our listeners and folks that join us live or on the archives have been able to be a part of this discussion. It's been wonderful. Every day when we end the nonprofit show, we leave with this message and it goes like this, just stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.