 Hey there and welcome to the Nonprofit Show. We're really glad you're here today and we are thrilled to have with us Jana London joining us. Jana serves as the Senior Global Program Manager, AWS Global Healthcare and Nonprofit, Amazon Web Services Nonprofits. And I can only imagine your business card must be like eight and a half by 11 because that's a lot of titles that goes into there. But Jana's brought to us a conversation, are you leading with innovation? And we're gonna dive deep into tech, curious leadership. But before we ask Jana to share with us about her role and all of the great work she does in our community, we want to remind you who we are, if Julia and I have not had the pleasure of meeting you yet. So Julia Patrick of course is here. She is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and I'm Jarrett Ransom, nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. We are so very honored every single day that we show up for the show to say thank you to our amazing partners that allow us these opportunities like the conversation we're about to have here with Jana. So shout out of gratitude to our friends over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, 180 management group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd as well as nonprofit tech talk. You know, I really like to say their missions are your missions because they are here to help and support you do more good in your community. Today we have Jana London coming to us from AWS Nonprofits. Welcome, welcome, welcome Jana. Thank you, thank you so much for having me and congratulations again on the achievement. Thank you. A lot of amazing content and I'm honestly just so amazed knowing that the show really started as reaction from the pandemic and keeping people connected and engaged in learning and the fact that you all are still going strong and are bringing all such amazing diverse voices who are supporting the nonprofit community. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm happy to be here to have the conversation with you all today. So again, congrats. Thank you. I'll tell you a little something about AWS. When we started, I thought, oh, you know, this is a two week gig, we'll be good to go and then we'll get back to our lives. And of course now we're moving into our fourth year. But one of the things that AWS has done for us for the nonprofit show is because we have such a massive archive and we have such a huge amount of files and the connections that we've made all over the world, we had to move to AWS because we were like, what the heck? And again, Kevin Pace. Well, I'm giving Kevin Pace some love to me, huh, Jana? Yeah, Kevin, he's the one that connected us in. And so, you know, that was really an amazing thing to see how the AWS part of the Amazon family businesses, of businesses work. So talk to us before we get into the tech side, a little bit about what your daily life is, what you do, who you engage with and how you engage with them. Sure. So like you said, my title is a mouthful, but I'm gonna boil it down for you all. So as you all introduced me, I'm a global program manager on our AWS nonprofits team, just to boil it down. And that is working on programs that are really gonna support our nonprofit community members and those we're utilizing AWS. AWS is a very large company as you all sort of have kind of touched on, but we are that little oasis that left team here. And I don't even say small team, or very large team that is dedicated into supporting nonprofits in your mission. I say yours, I know there are nonprofit listeners and leaders part of the conversation today. And that's the team in which I represent. My work in particular is to expand programs that help nonprofits access critical resources to overcome certain barriers to cloud adoption. So through programs such as our AWS Imagine grants program, but also perhaps my most rewarding and what I'm very much in the weeds with right now is building community by creating events that bring together smart minds within the social sector and serve as a connector for nonprofit leaders to Amazon, to AWS and the experts and those who are here really to support the community. So we're excited to have the Imagine conference in March 20th and I'll talk a little bit more about that. But yeah, that's a little bit about me. And it's been such a privilege in order to sort of sit in this position and witness firsthand what nonprofit organizations are doing globally with technology to accelerate their mission and increase their impact. I love that you sort of shared your own anecdote here of sort of adopting AWS as a reaction to a problem and to an obstacle and something that I think many can sort of relate to and as we all went through the pandemic and sort of meeting the moment, meeting sort of the demands. But it's been really interesting and quite a wonderful experience to sort of see different organizations small or large and whichever their missions are doing really cool things with technology and really harnessing it in order to better serve beneficiaries, better serve people and the planet. So being part of this dedicated team is awesome. And I'm here to sort of share some things that I've been able to witness firsthand and maybe sort of just kind of talk through some best practices that I've seen and everything. But again, that's a little bit about me and I hope that I can shed some light on what we mean by tech curious leader. Yeah, great intro and overall of AWS nonprofits. Thank you, Jana. Let's start diving into the tech disruption and overall tech adoption. Why does tech disruption create so much organizational fear? And before you answer that, I just wanna share Julia. I really noticed how front and center technology had become in our landscape at an AFP icon a few years ago. I walked the halls and I realized there's a lot of fundraising, there's a lot of that going on, but technology was really front and center. So talk to us, Jana, what you're seeing and hearing from your community members of this disruption and why it insights so much fear. Yeah. I think it's a fear of the unknown and the fear of change, right? I think we sort of touched on that in the introduction is there's a lot happening, there's a lot of demands both in order to better serve missions or better respond to board members and expectations and things of all that. I think there's also kind of just the change organizationally within nonprofits. It used to be kind of two sides of the house, right? There used to be the operational or maybe the more push and focus, the more pragmatic program focus and their job is really, let's serve for the mission. Then there's the other side, the technology side. You're here to make sure that our webinars are running, make sure that our websites aren't crashing, make sure that our content is easily accessible and those two sides necessarily weren't sort of talking. They had kind of their siloed ownership per se. That is all changing now, right? And technology is truly embedded in sort of the overarching sort of core strategy of organizations. And for those who don't wear that technical hat, maybe have that technical sort of piece in their name, it kind of makes a little, can make folks feel a little bit uneasy. And I think right now with the conversation of generative AI and sort of great equalizer as folks have been saying, generative AI allows everybody to write prompt send to chat bots and use this technology in a easier way, more easily accessible way. You don't have to code using certain gen AI and everything. So I think it's just accelerating the expectation that leaders have in order to fully embrace technology. And so that's why I really like using this term of tech curious leadership because we all sort of have this ownership of being technologically curious. You know, it isn't just the person who's building infrastructure, but it's having this sort of this mindset of, how do we do things differently and maybe sort of embrace and use technology to enable our organizations more. It's so interesting you would say that last night I had a conversation with somebody who is an organization and they were on about 10,000 volunteers through their program and they turn away volunteers which they just hate to do. And they're like, we need to get like a tech whiz or a volunteer services, whiz in and they decided on their own, the first thing that they were gonna do was start with technology. They're like, we need technology to be front and center and then we're gonna fill in with people. And I was like, oh my God, I was so excited about this because Jared, we don't hear that. We don't hear people say, we say, oh, we gotta get the body in first and then find the technology. Well, and I love that, Jana. And so what if we did approach every problem from that tech curious mindset, what might a technology system platform process, right? Like how would that advance our mission, advance our work-life balance, advance so many things? So talk to us a little bit more about having that importance of a tech curious mindset. And I would say culture, a tech curious culture. I like that word. I think you're right, Jared. Well, I think using kind of that volunteer recruitment as an example. So you wanna bring the people and everything and you don't wanna turn people away. And so it's how is technology going to attract those people, retain those people, right? So think about it kind of as you want to manage your volunteers. So how are we sort of gonna use technology in order to help sort of maintain the communication with the volunteers? How are we going to reach out to our volunteers using technology? How are we gonna sort of maintain that volume? I wanna kind of take a step back though and sort of define what we're saying by like that technology curious leader. It's someone who has that keen interest and that openness to understanding, exploring and integrating the technology into their leadership and into their approach, right? And so I think having that tech curious mindset, it means we're encouraging leaders to sort of ask the questions of how can we do this differently? So you use the example with the volunteers of, okay, instead of turning the people away, how can we do this differently and embrace the people and embrace the technology together? Doing that, it's how to engage the tech conversation and then the tech discussions and sort of all sort of leaning in together and learning these emerging trends and emerging technologies. And again, not being fixated on the fact that you have to be the technical expert. It's this growth mindset, right? We are in a growth period right now as there's very much a changing and dynamic landscape. And so I kind of encourage leaders to sort of put that learning cap back on. I always say and something that I always do in my work is learn and be curious, right? Lean in to what my customers are telling me and the challenges that they're telling me. Lean in and learn those best practices from the nonprofits are sort of paving the way. You don't need to be the expert but you need to be the champion. And that is kind of what we're sort of, we'll open the doors then to innovation. It's just being that champion into, let's just look at things a little bit differently. And I know that means change and change again. That's something that folks are being apprehensive but it's not let's wipe the table. Let's bring in this new thing. It's start small, you know, innovation is doing something you do every day differently. Right, so let me ask you about this because I love your approach. And it seems to me that over time as we've started to work with technology for profit and nonprofit, a lot of us thought, oh, well, we need to get the IT department. And that's gonna lead everybody and they're gonna tell us what we can do and what we can't do. And I'm wondering if we have just kind of grown a custom to letting somebody else deal with that and not engaging ourselves because I feel like, and Jared, I don't know what you think but I feel like a lot of us are so far behind on the fundamentals because we've expected somebody else to carry the water. Yeah, well, my thoughts and Janna, definitely wanna hear from you. You know, I am in my mid-40s. My son is a teenager. His knowledge of technology far surpasses mine, right? Far surpasses. And when we look at our workforce and the demographic of ages and generations, right? I think regardless of age, there's so many of us, not me, that gravitates to technology first and then there's others that are saying, I want to get there. I'm gonna need a little bit extra help, right? And so Janna would love your thought on this. That's just my perspective, Julia. Yeah. Yeah, so first to kind of address, Julia, it's bringing the lunch table together to sort of address the fact that it used to be the tech team's problem and solve it and absolutely experts, right? But the programs will only be as strong as those who put into practice what the technology teams build. And if they're building and not communicating to those users, then you're not going to have that solution that is truly going to maybe meet the needs of that volunteer recruitment problem that that volunteering recruiter might be facing. Again, use that sort of analogy and vice versa. So that's why I like using the lunch table. I know we all sort of live in this hybrid and remote work and we're not physically sitting at the lunch table together anymore, but it's still having those diverse minds and the different perspectives and really working backwards together with both the technology leaders or the technology champions and those sort of in the field per say, or those fundraising leaders who are going to be putting into practice what's the infrastructure that's built. So that's that everybody is a technology curious leader. Again, regardless of the title or regardless of the position because I would love and highly encourage the fundraising team to go ask the technology team, hey, how can we get a better 360 view at Julia, this donor in order to better understand what makes her get. And so having that conversation and having both teams, all teams part of that solution I think will sort of bring elevate and sort of again bring technology as integral as part of the fundraising or the recruiting but also sort of enable the tech team in order to sort of bring together that best practice or bring together that best solution by hearing the problems or the challenge that they want to solve for. Now, Jared, to respond to your problem or your question about this generational divide. Yeah. Again, I think it's technology has always been there. It's just there's new technology but this is just embracing new technology and emerging technologies. And to shore the Gen Z and the young sort of emerging leaders might be more adaptive to jumping on because it's new to them and they're new to the organization or whatnot. So they may not be kind of stuck in maybe some old habits or anything like that but we've always been sort of embracing. And so I think it's pace that might be the intimidation right now. Interesting. And so I think it's one of the things of just starting again, what is something that we do every single day that we want to do differently? And those leaders who are in the organization and know things that have worked and don't work, they have this really keen eye in order to be like, we've done this every single day and it's not working. So let's look and see what are these tools that we now have available that can make this work harder for us, make us work smarter for us. I love the phrase work smarter, not harder. So for me, I really challenge and say that it's not, technology is not for the young and emerging leader. It's for all of us in order to sort of, again, just think a little bit differently on how we might be able to integrate it into that core strategy. You know, you said something that's magical and we have not had anyone say this and you use that word pace. And I think that's fascinating because that gives permission for everyone to come at this as they can. And to their best, their ability because I think with change, a lot of folks get freaked out and they're high performers and then they're like, oh, well, that's just not for me. They dismiss it because it's easier to dismiss, right? And just keep knowing what you know, just keep doing what you know. And that's crippling for an organization. And so I so appreciate you kind of layering in the reality of who's gonna be doing what and how do we bring it to the table? You know, this is one of, we don't have a lot of time and this is probably one of my big questions for you. And that is, how do we know if the rest of the organization is ready to adopt or do we even concern ourselves as a leader? Do we just say tough it, we're moving forward? I mean, how do we balance all those voices? Great question. And I'd say every organization will obviously have their own sort of key indicators and of what's going to be the, ah-ha, okay, we all have everyone on board. I think it's really fostering that culture of innovation, right, being that champion. And again, to kind of build on sort of the conversation at pace, it's starting, it doesn't have to be the shiny thing that's on the show. It's starting from the basics and starting from the basics together. You know, maybe it's centralizing data organizations and everyone has been centralizing data for a long time and there's still sort of these best practices of how do we just tighten that even more? How do we get that foundation together in order to then build together? So I think it's, I always say, I like to say, working backwards. So I think we know that the rest of the organization is ready to adopt when we're all coming together and we're working backwards from what are we, what is the problem in which we are looking to address? I think another sort of indicator that we know that the team is really ready to adopt technology is that you're starting to see that technology is part of the core strategy within the organization. It is not just the tool that we're gonna use in order to put content online, but it's how are we then going to see who's watching and what content do they want to, what additional content do they want from us? You know, I think it's sort of integrating technology throughout an entire strategy and sort of framework that I sort of seen the most success, I'd say in the adoption of cloud technology. It's not a little here, it's not a little here. Maybe that's how we start building, but the roadmap is really woven through and that all just starts with again, that tech curious mindset, the growth mindset, the jumping in and not being intimidated by the pace and just kind of bring it back to, again, your story, you all sort of jumped in with utilizing cloud technology and AWS as a reaction. Let's not have to be reactive. Let's start thinking about this and being a little bit more intentional and proactive and sort of laying that framework. So I really, that's why I really sort of love kind of having this conversation because that's where we see sort of these next generation nonprofits coming. And they say that not that they're a brand new nonprofit, but it's some of these legacy organizations who are doing some really awesome things because they have taken that time and said, hey, this can be a game changer. And especially in sort of the expectations that we have now of beneficiaries, of volunteers, of donors and everything. We're in this world where content is at the, at your fingertips and it's moments, moments, moments notice. So it's true. Well, you have been really magical because I think that Jared and I have really been, trying to put these concepts forward to our viewers and our listeners and we just even the number of people that connect with us about wanting to come on the show. So many of them want to talk about technology, how they're using it. Maybe they've created something. I mean, it's a really, you need to be there and you need to be there with confidence and to realize it's a process. It's not a one and done. And I loved what you said. It's a tech curious mindset. This isn't just doing something different for the first time and one time. It's gonna be a path. And my big takeaway too, I love the pace. I echo that from Julia. Thank you, Jana, bringing that to the forefront and really bringing tech curiosity and tech culture to the forefront so that it's not a reaction. It is part of the process as we grow in that mindset. This time goes by quickly, but we would be remiss if we didn't have you speak just briefly about the March conference that you mentioned earlier. So imagine nonprofit, this is a conference. Is it virtuals that have like, tell us all the details. Yeah, the whole thing. Okay, so I'll give you my quick little spiel. So imagine nonprofit is our conference that we host dedicated for our nonprofit, Technology Curious Leaders. So this is inclusive of those in the C-suite and those who are boots on the ground. But it's really this conference meant to inspire nonprofits about how to use cloud technology. So I've come here and we shared all this sort of insights. Again, from those nonprofits in which are doing the work. And this conference is an opportunity for you all to see your peers and leaders in the space and sharing their stories and their best practices and their challenges. You know, it's a very open dialogue, open conversation. We have all sorts of sessions from TED Talks to fireside chats to some demos and getting your hands in it a little bit too with some of the emerging technology. It's gonna be on March 20th in Arlington, Virginia. So in the Washington DC area at the Amazon HQ2. So if you are curious to see what an Amazon office space, an Amazon campus looks like, come or we're opening our doors to you. And it's gonna be really exciting. This is our eighth year. I'll be there, my team will be there. Again, I represent a large team of Amazonians as we like to call ourselves that support the nonprofit sector, the social sector. So come say hello, see this face in person. So yeah, it's gonna be great. I love it. Well, this has been just a thrill for us to get you on to share with our viewers and our listeners and just everybody that connects with the nonprofit show. You know how important this topic is and how to start with a mindset before you start with anything else. And you have to back up and really look at this. Janet London, Senior Global Program Manager, AWS Healthcare and Nonprofit. Check out aws.amazon.com forward slash npo. And you will get to that point where you're gonna find more of the information about all the things that they're doing and specifically the Imagine conference. You know, just being able to be at Amazon HQ too, what an amazing thing. That doesn't happen every day I would imagine. It's fun, we got dogs all over the place. It's a lot of good energy. I mean, you had me at dogs but you really had me, you know, for the whole nonprofit. So this is fantastic. Jana, thank you for your time, your expertise, your knowledge. Julie and I both, I just know we've been together long enough. To see each other's reactions. So thank you for bringing your insight to this conversation. My pleasure. Thank you again for having me. This was a lot of fun. It's been great. Well, you know, what also is great is the amazing support we have from our sponsors and our partners. They include Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, the Nonprofit Nerd herself, Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that join this day in and day out so we can have these amazing, thoughtful, insightful and very forward-thinking conversations like we've had with Jana London with AWS today. So Jana, every episode we end our time together with the saying. And it's really interesting. It means different things all the time but today it means something else because I think of talking about tech, how it can change our mindset and our workload and how we see ourselves and we see our work. And our message is to stay well so you can do well. Thank you so much everyone.