 We are really, really excited to have both Rita Soran and CEO and president of the Dave Thomas Foundation, along with Jill Cronbacher, senior vice president of marketing and development. Jill, I got to witness to you after our session yesterday on the nonprofit show. I'm Jared Ransom and I were like, we need to meet up for coffee or brunch, whatever, because we had so many things to talk about and reflect on what we learned from you. Because we're just amazed that your organization can take two pieces and put them together the way you all do. And so it's very, very interesting. So we're delighted to have the two of you back to talk about how you harness growth and all of the things that can change with, I would dare say, a successful nonprofit, right? So we're going to get into that because this is going to be a really robust conversation. Again, if we haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. My trusty sidekick, Jared Ransom has the day off. We'll be joined with her shortly. Again, this is a very unique situation. This is one of the rare nonprofit power weeks we have throughout the year. We only have a handful of them. And we want to thank our sponsors who make this possible. Blue Morang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, be generous, fundraising academy at National University, Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader and the nonprofit nerd. If you have missed any of our nearly 700 episodes or you want to share this nonprofit power week, you can do so very easily. Find us on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube and Vimeo. And you can also queue us up where you'd like to consume your podcasts, because for this last year, we have been also podcasting all of our episodes. Okay, Rita Soranen, thank you ever so much for being with us. Why does this make, why is this month really, really busy for you? Oh, listen, it's my pleasure to be here. First of all, I love, I adore being with both of you. And this is a very special month for the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. Anybody that works in the world of adoption, it's National Adoption Month and Saturday is National Adoption Day. So it gives us an opportunity, although we talk about these topics all year long, it gives us an opportunity to really elevate the conversation, the messaging, the engagement so that more and more people can join us in this quest. Yeah. You know, Jill Krumbacher, I'm delighted to have you back on. And I think of this Saturday coming up, I think of like all these images that we're going to see from courtrooms. And your team must be involved with that in showing these, these new families being created before our eyes. That's correct. We have a whole website dedicated to National Adoption Day. We collect stories. And yeah, we help tell those stories. Sometimes it's a lot of times it's in the courtroom, a lot of times it's community celebrations. And, and often families sort of celebrate this day, right. And so a lot plays out on social media. So it's just another great opportunity for us to share about the families formed through adoption. You know, I've got to believe if you're in the judicial branch, and you get to be a part of this from the technical side, I'm, I'm going to use the word technical side, but from that judicial side, it must be like the best day of your career because it's such a tough business. And then to have all this must be really, I mean, just, it must carry you through the rest of the year. Right. So, it's so true. It's so true. I was at an event yesterday and call myself by the probate judge that stood up and was facilitating those adoptions literally said, this is my favorite day of the year when I work in this part. I get it. And I mean, just for me to witness it, you know, as a just a general consumer of news, it's powerful. So to be there. Amazing. Well, ladies, let's dig into this because we're talking about managing a growing organization. I would say that that's a result of success for the most part. But talk about the shift in culture. I mean, you are an organization that was founded through the vision of a single individual who had the resources and the foresight to navigate this bigger discussion. We've said this before, I can't imagine that he would have ever, ever dreamt that you would be able to achieve the things that you've been able to achieve. And that's got to be a shift in culture in itself. How does that look to you, Rita? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And particularly the last five years or so that we've grown significantly. We've more than doubled our staff. When I started a million years ago, we were a staff of about five or staff of more than almost more than 60 now. So just that piece alone, right. One, how do we maintain the legacy under which we were founded making sure that everybody that comes in the door, whether they're 21 years old or 60 years old understands who Dave Thomas was. What the impetus behind this is what our partnership with the Wendy system is so that piece alone can be a shift in culture when you get farther and farther away from the person who founded the organization. But just some of those other shifts, there are changing dynamics when you grow from an organization of 10 or 15 people to 60 people that are across the board from policies and procedures to age differences to belief differences and accommodating all of those things so that people are empowered and part of the whole but can maintain their individuality to it's it's it there's work to be done in in defining and maintaining and amending that culture as appropriate. You know, Jill, you straddle such a fascinating thing and that is you lead not only development but you lead marketing. When we talk about a shift of culture, I'm going to ask you, are you seeing demographic or age shifts with between people that are in, you know, the marketing which tend to be younger, and then development may tend to be older. Do you ever see that there's some cultural issues that way. Yeah, that's really interesting it is true a lot of our hires, even in the past couple years and marketing are younger, our development team, you know, you often don't come out of college and say I want to be a fundraiser and launch right into fundraising. No, you usually fall into it. Yeah, some other way so it's often and it's not really an entry level role to go sit in front of a donor, right. That's some time and so for sure I do think that difference and experience level and then what comes with that often age backgrounds can play out a little bit culturally just what teams want to do what they expect you know a lot of the younger folks, maybe they don't have family responsibilities yet and they want to go start a volleyball team, or they want to go to lunch a lot or they want, you know, those kinds of things, and, you know, the staff that might be further along maybe they have families and they just want to get in, get their work done and get home and spend time with family right and so those kind of cultural things that we found that there's just differences even in those kinds of preferences like what do you want your work family to be. How much time do you want to spend with that those kinds of things certainly play out. You know it's it's interesting to me too because on top of all this, you have such a strong founder story, but yet every year we move away from that people might know the Wendy's brand driving down the street. But they don't think like I do of, you know, all those commercials where Dave Thomas was the spokesman. And so how do you, you know you you mentioned Rita in the beginning, aligning what that history is to the new hires and existing but the number of people that knew him or could recognize him are getting fewer and fewer right. Yeah, it's true. Absolutely true and so it's our job to make sure we are the day Thomas Foundation production that there's meaning behind that name. Part of that is the Thomas family still sits on the board of trustees. So we keep it at a governance level. We, and that includes Wendy Thomas for whom the brand is named. And so we, as we can we include her in conversations with staff or invite her to meetings, make sure that she can firsthand tell that story. So how do the onboarding process is making sure that people remember or if they don't remember know who this man is, and why, what that link to the foundation is it's not just that he created a foundation in his name. He created it because it was personal to him, because it's about adoption and so that provides that blue but it's on, I think leadership's shoulders to make sure that that it's woven throughout all that we do it particularly you know for example this week that Wendy's is celebrating Founders Week. The first Wendy's restaurant was November 15 1969. So it's a parallel between the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption national adoption month, and Wendy's Founders Week that gives us another in in linking these to not just brands but Dave Thomas to what we do for the staff and for other people that are interested in who we are. Wow, it's really it's an interesting thing now I got to ask this Jill. In terms of talking about culture before we move on. And because you managed to incredibly different types of teams were rowing in the same direction. Did all of your cultural aspects and the things that you do to keep your team together, completely shift because of COVID and working from anywhere. Oh yes, absolutely we all had to get up to speed with technology, even after we came back in the building. We decided to allow some remaining flexibility so a certain number of days we want people to be in the office and a certain number of days. And so when we have department meetings. Now I've got to learn how to zoom some people in have some people in person. How do we all see each other meeting in person and not be classroom style against how do the people that are physically there I'll see each other and bring people in from home. And so, you know, learning technology getting up to speed it is very involved in our day to day now like in every meeting like it help this isn't working. You know we're calling on them so much more but that was that was a big shift it's not as simple as just all gathering in one room. We learned how to be together, totally not together and now we're learning how to be a mix. Some here and some there so so the learning it just continues. Now correctly if I'm wrong, right before the pandemic, or as the pandemic was starting, you had already moved into new offices as well right. So is that true. Am I remembering that we had purchased a building but we hadn't moved in yet we had moved into separate offices because we were growing so we were already split as a team and we were so looking forward to getting into the new building and being together and then the pandemic hit. So that cultural issue was hitting us before as a divided team, but the physically divided. And how do we how do we bring people together. Wow. Well, yeah, I mean that that in itself. That type of move is is such a cultural shift in many ways. I also want to talk to you about as you're growing and you're experiencing. Dare I say growing pangs or the things that go on. How have you been able to look internally and understand who the right people on the bus are as they say, and how have you navigated that because that's a dicey thing as well. Rita, go ahead and let me start with you. Have you been looking around throughout this growth phase and tapping people on the shoulder. What's your approach been everybody or I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. It's been a combination of both because what we do want to do is recognize the talent that we have and we have an incredibly talented staff. When we were small there weren't a lot of promotion opportunities we could change the title but maybe a little bit more pay but there wasn't really any greater responsibility other than the day to day job they were managing more people or learning those kinds of skills. As we grew we wanted to tap into that and we've developed a fairly robust system of not only annual review that everyone has to do and recognizing what people do, but talent identification as well as part of that. So let's understand, in addition to what we see every day, what are your skills, what are your aspirations for growth, where would you like to go in this organization, how can we provide support to help you get into that, perhaps a different position or a management position, we can't guarantee it, but let's all be open about it and talk about it so we've developed a pretty. rigorous process of identifying talent and promoting talent within when we can, and if it's not there then certainly looking outside of the organization. Right. Now Jill, you said something fascinating. Most people don't like, jump out off campus with that diploma and say, I'm going to be a fundraiser. This is hilarious because I hadn't ever really thought of it in those terms. But you're right. And we have now more and more opportunities across this country to get a higher degree at higher ed degree in nonprofit management philanthropic studies, more than ever. How do you answer that same question I mean, looking and finding fundraisers. What does that look like for you. Right well you know I think we've got a couple different channels of fundraising and so we're looking for different things amongst those fundraisers so. And for the most part our fundraisers that are looking to grow our mass sort of public support tend to do come from other nonprofits, again it's usually not an entry level role so they've learned something about fundraising. There's usually a transition between a chapter organization, or you know we're a national headquarters and so there's a different level, a different game there not just doing local fundraising you're doing across the country. We also have a fairly significant team that works with our corporate partners, and the largest of, of which of course is Wendy's and we've really found that the most successful people there look different than the successful people in our mass public public fundraising role. And typically they are people who come from corporate environments, they might come from sales environments business development. They're people who stand up and give presentations they know how to talk to a corporate audience and so I think you're looking for different things depending upon who you're fundraising from, and we really tried to fill some of those corporate positions with traditional fundraising folks and it wasn't a great fit. And we, you know we really learned in that sense that if we can bring someone in who knows how to talk to a corporate audience we can teach them the fundraising basics versus. You know the mass public you really need to understand fundraising basics to work in that so we've got a couple different channels going on that's kind of how we've, how we've navigated. And luckily we've been able to keep our, our slots full. We haven't had a lot of turnover so that's a blessing. You know so then go to that other side of your brain with the marketing side with the pressure of digital, and certainly how we've ramped up to a degree that I can't even believe, because of the pandemic. And that kind of takes a younger employee, because somebody who's come through that study of digital communications. Are you finding that that's pushing down that that age group on that type of employee. I think I think it has to a degree. And so we've certainly brought in internal staff another decision for us that has been when do we hire externally when do we hire agency support and I understand that not every nonprofit has that the benefit of being able to do that. I get that that can be an expensive investment but when you're talking about technology and some things change so rapidly that you exit college you're out three years and now you're outdated. And so, keeping up with that we've found in some instances we need agency support where all they're doing is this all day long for different clients. And they're keeping up with all those technology changes I mean, we have partners where they have staff where all they do all day long is make sure that our emails are deliverable. They're not being delivered why aren't they being delivered. We notice they're not being delivered in a well they are in GM Gmail, and they're in there figuring out why we can't. Our staff could never keep up with the how to have that we could never have a staff large enough to do that so it's it's a balance of the work that we're doing and we're not recognizing younger but also recognizing. Sometimes we can't even the young folks can't keep up with the technology just changes so fast that we've had to decide to go external on a few things. So read it up that leads me to another question which is kind of interesting it's like, when you started out all hands on deck you had your five go to people, and everybody's working hard. I see, and economically make that shift to say. Okay I'm crying uncle I need the outside help because that's a growth issue that I see with leadership, it's really hard. And sometimes your board can't understand that as well. Have you seen that in the trajectory. We have, we have, again, particularly over the last decade, I would say, and it started as we talked about earlier with research, we can't do our own internal research you have to have an external independent source for the kind of research we were looking at. So that showed us that yes we could find the resources for it gave validity to the programs we did it helped attract other resources. And so I think we were able to parallel that to the other areas of the organization. So I think we have two parallel missions here, not only to move children out of foster care into without its homes, but how do we raise awareness and we can only raise awareness by doing the best possible job with marketing with fundraising communications with digital communications. So, and there are times when I said wow. So, let's back down on this external source, you know, maybe we can do that internally but it's so it's a constant tug and pull of, do we need to spend this kind of money in order to get this job done. But what Jill and her team do excellently is provide the support for here's why we need this. Here's what it will cost here's the return on investment. And, and then we see that and can continue to grow it so, but it absolutely is a tug and pull. Should we use this for this budget or should we use it for this budget. Do we have internally that same resource or do we really need to stay external. Yeah, it says it's such an interesting question and I think it is going to only increase. I mean, the speed with which we're adopting new technology. I mean, just the AI component of fans. It's just fascinating and so that's like a whole nother. That's like a whole nother week. You know, I'm, I'm really interested in this. I keep thinking about you Rita with your 5 soldiers ready to go. And then you're like, you're up to 60 and now it's a legion and you got to make some things go into process. I mean, people can't just like come into your office and pop down and ask what you cooking for dinner. I mean, how have you explored process, but then also I went to ask Jill to follow up. How have you communicated what the new processes. And the good news is, I think we've always been innovators at heart. It's, it's who we are at the core. And so we haven't been afraid to test poke prod and find out what the best process is, but I can give a specific example that Joe can speak too much better. There came a point not so long ago where so many projects were on so many different people's tables, but they all had interactions in those projects that we finally had to move to a project management system. And we were handling that as individuals, we needed a platform that allowed that to become much more efficient. So, by moving to something like that and continuing to look well where do we need that kind of different process with with perhaps the finance team, or with with the legal team, you are constantly looking at what will make us as efficient as possible we want every dollar to be used as effectively and efficiently as possible but we also don't want to overwhelm staff and teams who think at the end of the day I've got 15 things on my checklist that didn't even happen. When there is probably a processor platform that could help that go better. Jill, internally, you're communicating to your teams and you're trying to get a cultural shift, a technological shift, a mental shift, and in almost an intellectual shift. As the grand communicator, a lot of this must come back to you right. How do you do this. Sure. So I think, you know, I think what usually makes it obvious to us eventually that we need a process change is there's a problem, like you can feel a problem. And, and, and, you know, we can sit and talk about it now like it was oh this great oh yeah it was clear to go here. No, I mean I think I how it usually plays out is something's not working. You see something's feeling overwhelmed or deadlines are being missed, or my day feels chaotic and I cannot keep up, or, you know, whatever it is, and then you start to try to find the solution to that problem and you find your way through it until you find it at work. So, I think when you're trying to communicate a process change. We, we communicated. Here's the problem we're having. Do you all feel it. Are you feeling this. Yes, I'm feeling this. Okay, we're going to change this process. I'll get try to get rid of this problem we're hopeful that this will alleviate all of these problems for you. And for all of us and I think that's the way we communicated and people are much more receptive to we're not just doing it to make it, you know, another system you have to learn or something like that. We're doing this for a reason because you know we're hitting a wall we're struggling with something and we need to find a solution and we're hopeful that this is the solution so get on board with us and hopefully it'll pay off for all of us. That's how we, that's how we communicated and it's worked really well. I think our teams now where we've had process changes, technology changes, project management systems, everyone's really grateful for it. Now, now, well, that's the thing I find too, especially when you have any interface with a board to a funder nonprofits are really, really reticent to say, I'm having a problem. It seems like you're weak or it seems like you can't do your job or whatever. And so to navigate through to recognize problem, navigate through it and then create a whole new dynamic is not for the faint of heart. But ultimately, it's a part of growth. Another piece of growth, which I want to kind of end our time together on is the issue of equity and inclusion. This is an interesting piece because you have been so Wendy centric and your, your teams and everything, you know, like, when we've talked about your board coming directly from that part. I know that they're not diverse, but they're from a certain group. How have you opened this up or had those discussions. Is it ongoing. What are your what are some of your thoughts on this Rita. The communication is ongoing the discussions are ongoing. The tactics are very specific during the pandemic, we all were kind of slapped in the face with the recognition that none of us, none of us across the country were doing enough with racial equity and inclusion and so we started very quickly with putting the staff and we were still fully remote putting the staff for an intense of 30 hour training with an outside consultant on racial equity history of racial equity all of those issues that we needed to begin to very much we then created an internal equity team that's made up of staff, so that we can explore all the areas of the foundation from at equal pay to attracting staff diverse staff to, you know, all those issues that we, we were conscious of but we weren't being very proactive about, we are very proactive and accountable for making sure that we are an organization that someone from the outside could look at and say they're very much committed to racial equity social justice. Look, we're in a system where the over representation of particularly black children in the sought child welfare systems profound. So we can't any longer have a blind eye to that, or not know if we're contributing negatively to it or if we're contributing positively to change so it started internally will continue that externally and the board is all in on that as well. Okay, so then, Jill, I got to ask the next level of that question and again we don't have a lot of time but did that inform changes with your marketing and communications. Oh, absolutely. All of our areas of our external communication and internal but external communication were one of the things that we watched within the committee so we set up a number of goals, and those goals were internal goals and external goals. You know, we wanted to make sure that employees here felt that you know equity and inclusion within our walls but then we also wanted to affect the child welfare system knowing that we have a voice in it. Part of that is making sure that all of our external communications are using that lens. And so we're still going through a process of auditing all of our materials all the way that we talk about everything. And, you know, it's a company wide cross department sort of employee led group of people that are taking the magnifying glass, again getting external help when necessary of what is the right way to talk about these things and what isn't and what word should we stay away from which we use all of that so it is an ongoing it's not like we just looked at it and it's fixed. So it takes a while to go through with all of that but I think the important thing is that we're committed to the long haul of staying with it and continually auditing ourselves and trying to do better. Well, you know, this is a fascinating conversation because I would have never thought that that would have been something that would be a part of growth and understanding, you know, the wellness of an organization, but it makes abundant sense. And it is not only the right thing to do, but it's structurally the right thing to do for you the health of the organization right so it's really been interesting to hear all these different components. Again, Rita El-Sornan, President and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has been with us, as well as Jill Krumbacher, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Development, everybody. And development. It's just fascinating to us. Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Really cool. I love to see your energy. I love to see how the two of you lead and work together. It's just been, it's been fascinating for us. And this is not the only conversation we've had. It still remains extremely fascinating to both Jared and I. And so to have you all on for Nonprofit Power Week has just been amazing and it will continue through tomorrow. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. We'll have Jared Ransom back with us shortly, the non-profit nerd. Again, our thanks and tremendous gratitude to our sponsors who allow us to have the Nonprofit Power Week. And I will mention this without any expectation or management of what we talk about. We talk, you know, we tell them that we're going to do this, but they never impose any parameters on us. And that's pretty powerful. Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, be generous. Fundraising Academy at National University. Of course, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Nerd. Again, these are the folks that have joined with us for this amazing week. Okay ladies, I know you have a lot to do, so we're going to let you go, but we'll be back together again tomorrow for our ask and answer. We've had some really interesting questions come through this week that you've spurned and so it'll be fun to have those conversations. And again, thank you for all you do across our country and in into Canada. This is, I know, a very, very intense time for you and we are delighted that you would share that time with us. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. Hey everybody, we like to remind ourselves, our viewers, our listeners, our sponsors, our guests to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow everyone.