 And let me start by saying welcome and thank you so very much for everyone who is here and able to join us today. We are thrilled to have the CEO and the development director with us today and they are going to talk to us about how they work together. So Rita Sorennan is the president and CEO and Jill Krombacher joins us as well as the senior VP marketing and development. We are excited to have you to with us. Again, this is nonprofit power week. So Dave Thomas foundation for adoption is with us each and every day this week. If you missed any previous episodes. Don't worry, you can still access them and we will have a couple of more remaining this week. So do stay tuned. And before we jump into the conversation which I cannot wait to get started. We of course want to extend our gratitude to each and every one of our presenting sponsors. You see their logos on the screen. These companies exist for you and your mission they truly are here to help you elevate your goals in and around and your communities to help you elevate your mission. So if you have not checked them out. Don't do it now, but do it soon, because we want to make sure that you hear everything that we have to say in this episode. Julia Patrick, thanks to her we have this wonderful episode and platform, Julia is the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jared, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group. And again, we are so excited for this nonprofit power week, dedicated with Dave Thomas foundation for adoption. And today, I mentioned a little earlier, Rita sorenin joins us again, and Jill Krumbacher is right by her side as I'm sure you are each and every day Jill. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. It's great to be here again. I'm excited Jill. You are a new face for us this week and I would love to learn a little bit about you as we begin into our episode but tell us a little bit about your journey if you would and how long you've been with the Dave Thomas foundation for adoption and just so we have a little bit of background. Sure, I'd be happy to professionally I spent a lot of years in the for profit world, specifically working for American manufacturers, both marketing their products and selling their products into retail so I spent a lot of years, doing that great work but was able to join the foundation about seven years ago. And I really joined because it's a personal passion of mine, I am an adoptive mother. I adopted both internationally and I, my husband and I were foster parents, we fostered nine children, and we adopted a team boy as well through that experience so that was already a passion of mine, and I was really wanting to get into work and live down my passion and thankfully, there was an opening and I need the foundation and, and really believe I can do the work so here I am. What a story. So you, you live this each and every day and so now I'm, I'm more of a fangirl because I cannot. You know, you're like a lot of different forms right like professionally but personally and how it all relates to one another. Wow Rita, you are lucky and I can imagine the two of you work so well together and I'm excited to learn a little bit about that. you know, would kick us off with this. What does it look like working so closely as the CEO with the development director when it comes to setting and translating goals for the foundation? Yeah, I can't even imagine not having someone like Joe who works hand in hand, arm in arm on all of the aspects of the foundation from setting the annual budget to determining how we're going to not only spread the message of the mission but get the resources that we need to continue to grow the mission. And I'm just really lucky with Jill by my side because she's not only a dedicated and skilled professional but she's passionate as you heard about this cause. And she's a very, she's a unique strategic thinker as well. And so that is so critical particularly for an organization like the Daytona Foundation for adoption that's continued to grow. But if you just take it down to that piece about fundraising, it's that's what, you know nonprofits are all about ultimately getting dollars in the door to spread the mission. So it's so important for us. And I think for any nonprofit to have that kind of relationship with their, the development team but particularly the development leader. Yeah, you know, I agree. And often, you know, we hear of organizations kind of doing their own thing or siloing our CEOs not understanding that they also are a piece of the fundraising pie. And Jill, I would love to hear from you kind of what does it look like from the development director side or sorry, we really should say senior VP. That's quite all right. It's the person in charge of fundraising either way. And you know what you learn early on is you don't fundraise by yourself. And clearly the CEO and the president of the organization has a critical role in that. And you have to work together because number one, you're trying to set growth goals so that you can meet your mission objectives. You have to set them so that they are aggressive and so that you're continually building year over year and so you can advance your mission but you also have to make them realistic. And so it really takes the two of us together and our board, right? Sitting down and saying, we wanna aim high but we have to be realistic. And so we work together and do that. Our organization in particular also has marketing and the development mix with which further sort of makes us all one team. We're going for brand awareness because without brand awareness you can't have fundraising. If they don't know who you are then they're never gonna be able to give to you, right? And so I think those things having those functions together and then being so leader to Rita because you know how it is if you've got a major donor they're gonna wanna meet with the CEO and they should meet with the CEO, right? And so her role of coming in and being able to talk to those real high end, high value donors is critical to doing the work that we do. So really that collaboration and cohesiveness really helps to set to, you know again set the goals and learn truly how to translate them as it comes to your day to day operations and functions. And it sounds like the two of you work so well together. So how do you determine roles? When, you know, there's a lot to fundraise and I'd said earlier, I would love to know if you would be open and willing to be so transparent to share with us. You know, what is the operating budget so we can see in relation what we are looking to do together and accomplish and how it comes to determining the roles for each. Sure, absolutely. And no worries, we're very transparent about our finances. We wanna make sure that those who choose to invest in us understand how we use our dollars and where they go. Currently we have an operating budget and we're on a fiscal year, July 1 to June 30. Our fiscal year budget is just at about 38.5 million and that covers not only, you know the staff of about 54 individuals but significant dollars going out the door in grant making to organizations all across the United States. So it's a significant and robust budget. When I started here a few years ago we were just about a $2 million budget with five staff. So we've grown significantly but you have to imagine, of course your leadership team has to be really unified in what that growth looks like and that it's reasonable growth that we're not stumbling all over ourselves just to grow. And again, the marketing and development teams that Jill leads are absolutely critical to that process of determining the budget, determining those annual goals both in terms of fundraising goals but strategic goals of who we are as an organization and what our outreach looks like. So it's an exciting time for the Dave Thomas Foundation production but I think that can be translated to any organization large or small that working together is really to the benefit of the organization. Rita, that is significant growth. I didn't realize that it was such a vast increase of operational budget, wow. Yeah, it's been an exciting time and some of that has been our outreach with our program side in scaling a specific program across the United States and looking at creative co-investment relationships public-private partnerships. That's all baked into that, the growth that we've had but it's not in absence of looking at traditional fundraising and new methods of traditional fundraising as well. Jill, I would love to know and I kind of planted the seed earlier. I would love to hear when it comes to determining roles if we could talk about leadership and what leadership does and plays when it comes to determining roles within the organization itself but between the two of you and I would love to hear from you and then Rita, you're next because I wanna hear from you as well when it comes to, again, just working together. Sure, and I think as far as roles go when you're the leader in terms of the fundraiser organization your job is to be looking out ahead. Your job is to figure out, okay, we have aggressive goals how are we gonna get from point A to B to C to D and grow this one year out, five years out, 10 years out and so my role is to peer out and to find the leverage to pull to determine the initiatives that we need to build as a fundraising team in order to get there and then I need to take those to her to get feedback on and we've been through this journey a lot over the last five years. All of that growth that Rita was talking about took incredible fundraising. We're not talking 3% year over year growth here. We're talking 10%, 20%, 25% year over year growth in order to climb this really steep hill and so some of the initiatives and the things that we brought in as a fundraising practice were new. Every year we're doing something new we're pulling that next lever and so my job is to bring those to her and make sure she's comfortable with those and then she really champions those. I can't do those without her. I think the other part of the leadership so first is to be that strategic looking out and how do I build it but that communication point is so important as well that we have to be linked in everything that we're doing because often if something's out there and something's public she's gonna be the one that gets the phone call, not me. Right? She needs to know every step of everything that we're doing. So I think our style together has been I think she expects me to go out and look and to bring her ideas. She also has her own which she'll bring to the table but that I'm communicating with her on a regular basis and her to me as well. As people reach out to her she brings me into them. So there's just this constant circle I think between us of linking each other in to things that are happening. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And Jeremy, you know, it's interesting it's a constant toggle of the CEO's table between consensus and decision-making, right? And my style frankly is much more let's get consensus but I also appreciate and understand that at the end of the day I've gotta make decisions on major initiatives on major strategies and goals. But it's critically important to me that my leadership team is fully involved in the conversations that lead to decisions that if there's disagreement at the table we hear it. We talk it out. And it's rare that a decision is made at this organization that's contrary to what leadership believes in. So I think that constant communication is exactly what Jill said is critical and probably to Jill's disadvantage a little too much communication at times. Well, it seems like you figured out some work habits that are working and I would love to just expand on this because you had mentioned Rita that or maybe it was Jill and I apologize that everyone is a fundraiser the board, the staff, everyone's really a part of this. So what are some of these work habits that have helped you Jill like year after year not just look at a 3% increase but you had mentioned up to about a 25% increase year after year. What's the secret? Oh, if there was only a secret there are things that we do that we have in place good technology that helps us keep ourselves organized great databases of donors and having some of those basics in place are really important to a fundraising strategy. I think making sure that you're educated yourself I came from a marketing and sales background and so I went back to school Indiana University, Lilly's School of Fundraising I took all those courses, right? I made sure that I was gonna have that solid foundation but also we are not shy to reach out to other organizations who might be ahead of us. We are all looking to do good work and we all have a lot of great causes that we're working at. Donors are gonna give to what they truly have a passion for and so none of us need to compete with each other and what I have found in the nonprofit world is that I can help give advice to organizations who might be smaller than me at this moment or beginning their fundraising practice and tell them and help coach them up to what they need likewise. Our team has not at all been shy to reach out to other organizations who might be ahead of us in their own fundraising growth and you know what we have found? We get on the phone and we ask for a conversation and they give it every time. And so we learn from our own studies, we learn from watching the landscape but we learn from other organizations and we have just found people being so gracious in giving up their time to listen and say, okay, you've got this, this is, yeah, this is what's next, right? And so we do that for others and we get that for others. So I think those are a few of the things that we've done to really help set us up for rapid growth because that's what we needed. We needed rapid growth. Give and receive mentality. And I so commend you and applaud you Jill and the entire team for having that approach because I really do see that we're all in this to help one another. And when we can share best practices and lean and learn from one another, it helps our community grow stronger. And so that's probably a work habit that works as well. Rita, I'm gonna ask you a little COVID related work habit. We've all been a little shaken and stirred over the last couple of years but what have been some of the work habits that have really helped you continue to lead the team towards these goals that you've set? You know, the day that we pivoted to working from home, I realized that although I was good at communicating with staff, typically it was a quick email here and there, it had to be face to face. Well, it couldn't be, you know, real face to face. It had to be virtual face to face but I put in place at least monthly one-on-ones with everyone on the staff. We had already had in place weekly team meetings and weekly one-on-one leadership meetings but I wasn't doing it with the entire staff. So making sure that there was absolute clarity of communication, transparency, what's happening, sharing, you know, the challenges that we were all experiencing. We didn't know what was gonna happen the next day much less the next week or month. So number one was that absolute face to face communication whether it's across the camera or in person was critically important. But that also that sense of transparency with our donors, we weren't sure what was going to happen in March of 2020 versus what's happening now. There were, there's such profound need out there. We very quickly, and again, this was quick communication and strategizing with Jill and her team. How do we need, do we need to pivot some of our strategies that we had in place that were very successful? What did we need to pivot very quickly to make sure the public understood the needs of our children in foster care are profound. They were even more so during COVID. So strategies that we already had in place about how we communicated the need had to change a little bit. We had to change on a dime and we had to make sure that it was resonating with the public. So, you know, constant assessment is something we do very well here too. We actually have literal scorecards for marketing and fundraising and compare ourselves against goals on a quarterly basis that we share with the board so that the board can hold us accountable to those goals. Well, that kind of got a little bit elevated during COVID. Everyone understood, no one knows what's happening. If the budget goes down, if fundraising goes down, we get it. But we needed to be able to explain where and how that was happening. So I think all of those bits and pieces really just were highlighted more during COVID in the way that responded to the mission's needs during COVID. It seems that transparency is such a big piece of your culture. Yeah, absolutely. It is both internally and externally. We've got, you know, the only way that we can develop trust is with transparency to ensure trust is with transparency. And quite honestly, the child welfare system feels so closed to the public. I think unless you're involved in it, issues of confidentiality and it happens in courts and it happens in child welfare agencies and those just aren't familiar places to people. Our job is to open those doors up to illuminate what happens to these children, the experiences that they have. And so that has to translate into who we are here as an organization and with each other. One of the things that I've taken away from previous conversations with you this week, Rita, is really about the perception of others when it comes to foster and adoption. And those children, that it's at no fault of theirs that they are in this situation. And so really changing that perception and do go through transparency and storytelling. And I know that you are very committed to research and data sets and really gathering that information. So all of those are great work habits that are obviously working quite well. Let's talk about how we can make improvements to build and continue this machine in a better space or better way. What are some things, Jill? I'm curious if you could start us out with this conversation. I of course want to hear from you, Rita. What are some improvements that you have put into place not only when it comes to working together with Rita but really overall in the fundraising space that has made your organization and your foundation a better functioning machine? Sure, well, I think that an important piece of that is as a fundraising practice, you can learn best practices all day long, but there are things about each unique audience that it may work with this audience that cares about this topic, but it might not work with this audience that cares about another topic. So one really important improvement that I think you have to seek to make is to test different things, watch for the results and then go with the one that works the best. So this AB testing sort of concept, whether it's direct mail, whether it's digital ads, we test different colors on the give button. Does the red work better than the yellow? And believe me, it's not a standard answer across nonprofits. What does your community respond to? And so you only know what to improve if you know what's wrong and in order to know what's wrong, you have to sort of test things. So in that space in direct mail and digitally, we know that way, but also we send out surveys to our donors, we ask questions, we find out why they're giving, we have found out what the people look like who are giving versus the people, what are the attributes of the people who are following along, but maybe they're not giving and what can we change, what can we improve? What are they telling us? What separates those two groups of people and how can we get them in another bucket? So I think analysis, testing, all of those things may not be what first comes to mind when you think about fundraising and you think a lot about relationship and all of that is true, but I think that analytical look for us has opened our eyes to maybe what needs to be changed, what needs to be improved in what we're doing. No, I wanna know, which color button was it? Actually it was a yellow button. It was a yellow give button, yes. And that changes on if it's a digital ad that just appears, if you're out on a website and there's a digital ad that pops up the yellow button works the best, if it's on our website, you'll notice there's a red button. That is so interesting. And I again, applaud you for putting what may seem a simple test into place because I know too many of us think about we just have to get the work done. We just have to implement, we have to execute and we don't have time to do any A-B testing. Yes, it's on our list, but it's on the back burner and who knows when we will get there, but as simple as playing with the colors on those donate buttons obviously helps to make a better machine. Rita, what would you say when it comes to some improvements that you've seen your team do as well as you yourself have led your team to do that have helped the organization? A couple of things quickly come to mind, specifically with fundraising is really looking at those platforms and consultants that can help us get to the next level and not being afraid as Jill said, not only reaching out, but sometimes coming out some of your budget for a consultant that's going to help you get there quicker. And we've done that in order to transform a lot of our work to digital work because that's where quite honestly the donors are deciding right now. We still do absolutely traditional face-to-face write a check, have an event kind of fundraising, but to skip the digital approach to fundraising is a big miss right now. But we have to get consultants to help us figure out how to get there and what's the best platform and what's the best way of doing it. Even now looking at cryptocurrency and how that impacts organizations we're right at the midst of that conversation as well. Part of us hesitates and says, no, no, we're not going to go there, but we have to go there because that's where the donors are but sometimes with pretty large amounts of gifts as well. So allowing I think encouraging and allowing that part of the budget that nonprofits are hesitant to do we're hesitant to spend money on research, we're hesitant to spend money on consultants, we're hesitant to spend money on the bigger different platform that might make us more efficient in the long-term, but in the near term it's expensive. I think that's it, but also this notion, Jill is the senior vice president of marketing and development. We have tangled back and forth over the years. Do we pull those apart or do we keep them aligned? What's the value of pulling them apart and having a different leader for marketing and a different leader for development and what's the value for keeping them glued together? And I think we finally ended that conversation a few years ago and said, no, they are so late. There is no way to pull them apart. We've got to keep them together. And so I think that was one of those improvements. We're just going to stop insisting that we think about this more and let's go forward and have this unified team and it has been absolutely to our benefit both in terms of marketing and fundraising. So I think those are just some examples, I think of improvements that we champion, that we encourage talking about and ultimately when we finally make a decision, it's hosting my head. If I had to vote, Jill, I would have voted to keep it together as well. It's where we landed, yeah. It is what you said earlier, Jill. It's really about creating that brand awareness. And one of the things that I would love, Jill, for you to talk about, because Rita mentioned it earlier and we don't have too much time, but I would like to talk about this because I feel that everyone, everyone is a very broad statement, thinks that the Dave Thomas Foundation is fully funded by Wendy's, right? And so there's really not a lot, I dare say this, a lot of work that goes into the fundraising, but there is clearly a lot of work. And I would love for you to just share a little bit about what it looks like being tied to this brand, but not being fully dependent on it either. Right, great question. Yes, we are where we are today because of the Wendy's company. There's no doubt about that. And they're not going anywhere, right? They are very committed to this cause and they continue to be a major funder of ours. However, the situation with children waiting in foster care in the United States and in Canada is so dire and the numbers are so high that one organization cannot finance that solution for the entire country and for Canada, right? It's simply not feasible. And so that's where we understood we are continually going to be linked to the Wendy's company. We love them. They have done so much for us and continue to do so, but we have to move beyond that. And they agree with that, right? We have to move beyond that for a couple of reasons. People across the country need to know about this cause. They need to know about children waiting for adoptive families in this country and in Canada. And they can care and they can help as well. Not everyone can foster or adopt, but this is a way. Giving is a way for everyone to get involved and only when we open it up to everyone and let them know that we need them, that we need them to come to the table and to share in this work of awareness and sharing this work of donating their hard-earned dollars, only then can we begin to fully scale our work in the way we need to and make sure that we have enough recruiters nationwide and in Canada to be able to get these children, those forever homes that they deserve. So really it's a beautiful relationship and we need both. And we're on a growth path to make sure that everybody can learn about the foundation. Thank you for sharing that cause I wanted to reiterate that, especially with you on our show today because again, when it comes back to that transparency, that is a big piece of the foundation. The two of you have been phenomenal, Rita Sornan and Jill Krumbacher. And again, we have selected this nonprofit Power Week with Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption because this month that we are in November is the National Adoption Awareness Month. And so we wanted to make sure that we brought this topic to light. And then Rita, tell me again what November 15th is because I know it as National Philanthropy Day. It's also the anniversary of the first Wendy's Restaurant opening in Columbus, Ohio November 15th, 1969. Wow, what a phenomenal story. We are so grateful to have the two of you on to talk about working together, having these relationships. I love that transparency is a big piece of the culture. I love how the two of you and your leadership styles really mesh with one another. We have Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption and Rita herself with us each and every day this week. These are episodes we do not want you to miss, but if you do, they are recorded. So if you also wanna go back and replay, I know there's quite a few episodes that I wanna make sure that I heard all of the nuggets of information. So these are the topics that we have for this nonprofit Power Week. So grateful to have the two of you with us. And Julia Patrick again is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. She let me have full reign and control today to have this conversation. And I'm so very grateful because I got to nerd out, which is my favorite. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And we are so grateful again to have this week dedicated to the Dave Thomas Foundation. And we are ever so grateful as well for our continued investment from our presenting sponsors that you see on the screen. Now would be a great time to check them out. So if you have not checked them out, please make sure that you do. We are just really excited to have their continued support to continue these conversation with thought leaders like Rita and Jill. Thank you both so very much for your time and for your dedication to the great work that you do. Again, I have learned so much through these conversations. And I will now look at the adoption and foster care differently and be a little bit more educated. So thank you both for joining us. Thanks to everyone that joined us live or watch the recording. And as we sign off every episode, we do like to ask you to stay well so you can do well. Thanks again everyone. And I hope you'll join us back here tomorrow.