 Hello, welcome. So glad you're here today. Another episode of The Nonprofit Show, but this week is Nonprofit Power Week and we are so thrilled to have with us all week, day in, day out for this five day series, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the tagline that they have here, forever families for children in foster care. So we're gonna start this week with a very special lady whom Julia and I really adore, Rita Sornan and she serves as the president and CEO at the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. And Rita's here to talk to us on today's episode about making research decisions. So stay with us and we're gonna jump deep into the deep end with her. But Julia Patrick, always glad to have you here. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and I'm Jared Ransom, your non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And again, we are always so very grateful to have the ongoing support and investment and trust from our presenting sponsors. So thank you so very much to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Fundraising Academy at the National University, Be Generous, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Non-Profit Thought Leader and the Non-Profit Nerd. These companies keep us going and growing and growing and growing, because we are here on our third year and they are here to help you elevate your mission. So they really have one focus and that's your mission. So please do check them out. And if you missed any of our almost 700 episodes over these three years, you can find us on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV as well as Vimeo. And for those of you that are podcast listeners like I am, go ahead and queue us up wherever you stream your podcast because we're there too. Well, Rita, welcome back. Real to have you. Again, for those of you watching and listening, Rita Sornan, President and CEO, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Check out the website. It's actually davetomassfoundation.org. Rita is not new to the show. She's actually been on before, but she is a phenomenal thought leader in this philanthropic space and the non-profit sector. So, so grateful to have you back Rita and to have your commitment to the episodes throughout the course of this week. And again, welcome back. Oh, thank you. You're too kind. I am honored to be back. You two do a phenomenal job with the show. I duck in as often as I can because there's always something to learn and you all have the right conversations moving forward. Oh, thank you. That means a lot. You know, I just think you are, I always think of like if there's this day that I run away and I leave my community and I join an organization, you're like, you tie with another organization. Yeah. Yeah, I always think, man, if I could live in the cold climate like you, I'd be there because I just love your work. We're always so inspired by the many things that you do and see. But I got to ask this question first and how did you come to this leadership position and talk to us about the nexus between davetomass and this whole path? Thank you. It was one of those circumstances growing up where I didn't think, well, someday I hope I'm a CEO of a nonprofit organization. It's been one of those paths that has come along the way. But I grew up in Columbus, Ohio for the most part and Dave Thomas, who's the founder of the Wendy's company, those square hamburgers and frosties also started this incredible international business in Columbus, Ohio. So I grew up watching the commercials where Dave was doing, if those that remember those commercials, incredible commercials. He was a nationally known celebrity because of his sort of folksiness in the commercials. I moved along my career path and was working in the field of child welfare and abuse and neglect and vulnerable children and families and advocating for them and had the opportunity to join this organization more than 20 years ago. And it became this convergence of who I knew at his daughters went to the same school that I did although I didn't know them as friends, but it became this convergence of the sort of local color of this community with the business that we all knew. And I didn't even realize at the time of his steadfast commitment to this cause. And he came into it naturally. He was adopted. He had an odd story though, although he was adopted, his adoptive mother passed away when he was five. His father was a bit of an itinerary worker and they moved from place to place. And so he was reared by his grandma, many frequently throughout his life, left home at 16, struck out on his own. The rest is history created this phenomenal and internationally known brand. But he always carried within him that notion of family, the importance of family. And so created the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption as an independent nonprofit public charity in 1992 with a very narrow focus. We were blessed with his sense of find one thing and do it well, is exactly what he did with his business, his for-profit business. And that's, let's focus on foster care adoption. Let's get these kids out of the foster care system and get them home. So it's been this incredible convergence for me of what I'm passionate about is advocacy for children, the local community sense of this legacy character that was Dave Thomas and learning a lot from the brand that he built and how we've sort of infused some of those notions into who the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption is. I love it. It's just remarkable because it speaks to the privacy and the heartfelt aspect of who we are as people, what comes behind us to make us be successful. And a lot of times it's that hardship that gives us the patina to move forward, but we're not always willing to talk about it. And so what an amazing confluence of talent and amazing things. I really appreciate you sharing that because I mean, who doesn't love Wendy's? I love it. Yeah, I love it so much. Cute story, my grandmother who was definitely a soulmate of mine, Rita, but I feel honored to share this. She loved Wendy's and anytime she was in hospice and we brought her some Wendy's. So every year for her birthday, we celebrate by eating a frosty. Yeah, and after every episode that you're on, I go visit Wendy's. Stop, I love it. Oh, we do, we do, we do. It's like, yeah, we go to one, yeah. Which is fantastic, but you have done so much in this space truly and the foundation itself. So we're gonna share a little bit about this Forbes Magazine because we wanna hear all about this. We're gonna pull up for those of you watching. It's a fantastic slide with some covers of the magazine, but tell us a little bit, Rita, about the Forbes Magazine, your involvement with that and kind of what we can expect. Oh, thank you. Well, I was honored to be selected to be part of the Forbes Nonprofit Council and allows a number of leaders. There's lots and lots of leaders across the country that are a part of this council. It allows an exchange of thought leadership ideas on all kinds of topics relative to nonprofits. And so I learn a lot from my colleagues and hopefully it gets out there through lots of platforms, just some of the thinking that's going on in the nonprofit world so that we can continue to learn from each other. Amazing. And this is such a critical thought leadership connection because Forbes is that media group that really tags individual wealth and corporate wealth to the philanthropic world beautifully, if I dare say so. They're really strong in that. So I'm fascinated and I'm thrilled and honored that you are doing this type of work for our whole sector. But let's talk about this a little bit more in terms of the impact of investment and how we can look at philanthropy as investment and not just the charitable nature of it. Right, and it is investment. And again, it's this confluence of for-profit thinking and not for-profit thinking. We're not as distinct perhaps as we feel at times because it really is about both serving our vulnerable populations, whether it's food insecurity or homelessness or medical issues, childhood medical issues or anything else that falls into the nonprofit world, ultimately at the end of the day, we have to see results and we have to make change. That's what we're in this for, whether it's solving a big issue or helping those along that we think, this is an issue that's always gonna be with us because we're humans and it's what, it's part of being a human. But in order to know if we're solving that issue, are we making the right investments in the right programs? Are we doing this in a way that's truly making change or does it just kind of look and feel good? Does it engage people and make them feel good? Are we truly seeing specific change for our populations? Are children less hungry? Are families more likely to live in comfortable homes? Are children for us going to add a more accelerated rate, leave foster care and go into adoptive homes? And so it's that impact investing, I think, both from the nonprofit's point of view, we're a grand-making organization. So we look at the same thing as we make grants to other organizations and from the donor's point of view, are my dollars being used in a way that's making a difference? I might feel good about this organization, but I need to know it's making a difference. And so you're saying we need to take that nexus and point it directly towards research? I think so. I think so because that's the only way that we ultimately know that we're doing what we're supposed to do. Look, we can set internal measures and metrics. Do we have X number of new donors every year? Do we, how many hits did we get on a media piece? And we can count those numbers and we can count those numbers to our board and we can put them up in the hundreds or thousands or millions. And we feel really good about that. And we should, right? Because it's competitive space. But at the end of the day, are those numbers then driving towards something different which is impact? Are the outcomes for our service populations better than they were before we had those million media hits or before we got those 15 new donors in the door? So that's the hard work of nonprofits because it can be expensive to engage in research or it can appear to be expensive. There are lots of ways to get around those big ticket items as well. And by research, we mean a deep dive. Are we doing something the right way? And if we're not, are we willing to change it because what the evidence tells us, what the facts tell us is, it's gotta be different. Absolutely. And you're so right because looking at the research on this, that is helping you make data-driven decisions. And that is what we need to all be looking at. And you hit the nail on the head, Rita. It can be expensive. And I think that's often the reason why many nonprofits, again, there's 1.8 million registered in the US. We'll say we're just gonna stick with our pre and post evaluations or pre and post surveys, but to go deeper to say why are we doing this, right? And then should we actually continue and to take that research, those true measures to say, okay, now we're gonna decide where North is on our compass. And I can give you a specific explanation. I just love that you do that because last nonprofit power week, I know you guys really talked about how you really investigated what you're doing and made some really big decisions. Right, and that's the sort of the guide that we've used all along. And it was really almost two decades ago when we were beginning this program that I think we talked about last year, the Wendy's Wonderful Kids program, where we were funding full-time adoption professionals across the United States to implement a model that we created that we thought would do better for those children who were most at risk of leaving foster care without a family. They'd been freed for adoption, but they leave at 18 in an alarming rate without an adoptive family. And so we were growing our numbers, we had a footprint in all 50 states, but we weren't sure at an evidence-based level if it was working. And so we began to investigate how can we do the gold standard, a randomized controlled trial evaluation comparing this against that for a long period of time. But my board said, wait a minute, if we have or if we can find the kind of money to invest in this, and it was gonna be north of a million dollars in 2007, which it would be way more now probably. Why won't we just put those dollars back into serving these children, get more grants out, get more silver as children serve? I couldn't argue with that except that on my board, because we have this unique relationship with the Wendy's company or a number of C-suite executives. And they would never put a product out in the Wendy's restaurant without consumer testing, without researching, without making sure that that product's gonna make a profit. And so once we kind of illuminated that, they began to realize you're right, for-profit and non-for-profit are not any different when it comes to evidence-based products, right? For us, the product, and I hate to say it this way, is a child successfully placed in the home. And if we don't know that it works, then we should get out of the business and we can't make it look and feel good. And there were lots of untested programs out there. So long and short of it is, we put it through a rigorous evaluation. We found that it works way better than business as usual. It allowed us then, the value added to that is not only were we serving children better, but we attracted more donor investors who wanted to say, now that you have an evidence base, we think our dollars will be used well. So it was an investment on our part that attracted additional investors. Congratulations. Yeah, it's amazing. And I gotta say, it kind of gives me chills. This is a really courageous thing to do because if you've got reaction, it doesn't come back the way you think. Spent this money, you're like, holy moly, you have all this trajectory that you now need to shift and change. Yeah. What a brave thing for you all to do. Thank you. And then that was the commitment to the board that if this doesn't work, then we'll either stop this and figure something else out or we'll amend this. And that's been part of, I think again, this sort of DNA of the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. Look, programs on behalf of children in the child welfare system specifically have not been stellar for lots of reasons. Lack of resources, overwhelmed, passionate case workers, but overwhelmed with numbers of children on their caseload, not because they don't wanna do a good job because it's not a resource rich endeavor. And so we said, we're not gonna continue to do something that's not working if we find out that it's not, luckily we found out that it was, but what I also had, and I know we're gonna talk tomorrow with a board member, I had a board that was willing to let us make mistakes if that's what was gonna happen or let us amend if that's what was going to happen. So I also had a supportive environment around me. It wasn't courageousness on my part. It's I had a team of people around me that said, let's try this, let's see what we can do. Let's see what we can do. I love that. Well, thank you for that and great teaser because yes, we do have a board member joining us this week. So great lineup for that. Let's move into the creative research sourcing because we talk about how these data-driven decisions are really where we need to put some focus, but how might we be creative in the sourcing of the research? Yeah, and first and foremost, look at what your cause is and who are the best and the brightest in that that do do research if you can afford that and make sure that you get those folks that know the conversation, but you can back up a little bit from, we use Harris Poll for some of our communications research. We use child trends out of Washington, DC for our program research, but we could just have easily have gone to a university and said, look, this is a learning environment in a university. There are people here that are skilled scholarly researchers and we could companion, do a companion work with the university and I know lots of folks who do that and find out a way to let the researchers who are there in an academic environment every day help with a piece of research that gives them a chance to write a paper or promote their and gain expertise in this field for that university. There are also smaller organizations that will do sort of one-off. Sometimes, for example, in our marketing research, we don't need to do a whole blowout of our entire marketing and materials and messaging. We might just have one question that we want answered and we've done that a number of times. We want to get a survey of Americans attitudes on X and so it costs much less than doing a full-blown every five-year survey on all of Americans attitudes on X, Y or Z. So lots of ways to think about partnering and that's where board members become useful as well. I had one board member who worked with an organization that did lots of consumer research and he was willing at any point if we needed it to use his researchers to help us with a program or with a question at no cost because he's a board member. So lots of ways to look at, where do you find those resources to make sure that your program is grounded in facts and evidence? So let me ask you this, because I'm fascinated by this major, major commitment financial, emotional, and let's say potentially career ending for you and your leadership if it didn't come about, right? How do you then embrace that level and not feel like, oh, okay, we have all the answers? Like how often are you doing more research and how often are you saying we don't know the answer and then having your board say, well, wait a minute, we spent a million bucks and you should know the answer? Yeah, no, it's all the time. It doesn't stop with one piece of research. We may be rested on our laurels for a day or two after that research, so we've got this great research and we still tout it. Nothing else has surpassed that yet and we'll continue to look at that. But for example, in one of the states where we're taking this program to scale and it entails a co-investment of the state and the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption, the state said, well, let's test it here and that's one of those university examples where they engage their local university and said, let's test this same program that you have evidence for at a national scale, but let's do some testing here. And we found really good results, but it's chronic, it's ongoing. We don't have all the answers. We have an answer here for now. That research now, it was released in 2011. It's a little bit old. It's probably, and we're different. The program's different. So within the next few years, I can imagine redoing a relatively significant evaluation of this program in order to make sure. We also engaged in some post adoption. So our field is foster care adoption. What happens to these families after they're adopted? Are they just as successful? These children come with layers of trauma. They come with special needs at times. They're older when they're adopted. And so there's lots of stuff that follows them as they continue to grow. So are these families getting everything they need post adoption? So we engaged in a small post adoption survey of adopted families that were adopted through this program to see what are their long-term outcomes, because it's one thing to know, yes, this program works getting them into families, but is it successful as they continue to grow into adults? Is it a success? So that's something else we're looking at is probably a much larger longer-term outcomes survey or evaluation of these families. So we're constantly in thinking about or testing mode. I love that. So we're talking about measuring realistic program data. And one of the questions I'd like to ask you, because I heard you say, we're gonna go back and revisit this. How often do you recommend we do look at this realistic data? Is this annual? Is this four years? Like how often are you really looking at this very rich research? Yeah, it depends. We're certainly looking at it regularly. It depends on the kind of research that you're doing, the scope and size of the population that you've been able to engage in the original research. If it was a tiny piece that just gave a snapshot and then you wanna expand it, it would probably be very quickly. Ours was national, it was across 26 states. Not much has changed in the child welfare world since we engaged in that research. We've quickly embedded this program. And so there didn't appear to be a need until maybe the next couple of years forward to really do a full-blown national research on this program again. If it's brand identity, for example, we do that annually because things and messaging changes regularly. Non-profits are getting the word out constantly. And so we have to know whether or not the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption brand separate from the Wendy's brand, separate from the Dave Thomas name, the organization is visible. And so we do that regular sort of testing of the brand. So it really just depends on what it is you wanna know and how quickly you need to know it. That's really good feedback. That brand is, I feel like that's one that I don't know, Julia, I don't hear nonprofits talk enough about if even at all about, right? The brand for their nonprofit. So I love that you look into this annually because it can speak volumes and it does speak volume. So looking at the different research, how many times do we go there? What is it that we're researching and measuring? And then I just wanna add too, there's so many opportunities nowadays to include the measurement, to include the research into the funding opportunity. So for instance, when it comes to grants, right? Like you can add into the program cost, program evaluation. So I really love, yeah, I just think it's so important that we do this. And again, like having realistic measurements of program data, because as our world shifts and changes and we know that it has, right? Like we need to keep looking at this. Yeah, and there are more funders out there. You know, it's an excellent point. There are more funders out there willing to not only include it in part of the grant, perhaps be, you know, just fund research. And other organizations, they're willing to just fund research, which was not the case 20 years ago. So take advantage and do your research on, your own research on those organizations that are willing to make a commitment, not unlike overhead to research. And I love that you brought up the university, Rita. Thank you for that, because there's so many universities across our nation and across our world. And that would be such a wonderful partner to dive deep into the community and to use the skill set of the students and the professors to pull in some of this data. That's, I just wanted to call that out again because I didn't want that to kind of go in one ear and out the other. Well, and I think Rita too, you know, we're gonna have some of your team on later in the week to talk about the issues on a deeper dive with branding and messaging. But this research really becomes such a focus or can become such a focus of your content, building stronger relationships with donor investors, with policy, all of the things that we're gonna touch on throughout the rest of the week. It seems to me that this is an untapped resource that can really help you strengthen your sale, if you will, right? It is, it's not just about thumping your chest and thinking, oh, people know who we are. That's not the issue. The issue is can your brand credibility continue to better serve your constituents, better serve your vulnerable populations and leveraging that brand in order to do so? Absolutely amazing. Well, this is gonna be, I love that we started here, Rita, because I think this is just a super powerful aspect to everything that we're gonna be talking about. It's so foundational, understanding how we have this data, how we navigate it through our stories and where we're going is gonna be a big part of this week and it really needs to be something that we focus on across all of our nonprofit sectors. Again, Rita Soren and president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, one of our great thought leaders in this nation, it's such a cool thing to be able to say, I know Rita Soren and I think it's also really powerful to watch her, where she goes, what she's doing. Not only is your website powerful and amazing, but also your social media, where you show up, where you speak nationally. It's really, I think, no matter what your sector is and Jared, don't you think this is true? You can learn a lot of wisdom. I mean, you could be working in a completely different field, but so many of her truths come back to filter through us all, don't you think? 100%, and I still speak about you and Jill and your affinity to collaboration. So I'm so grateful to know you and to have this connection to have you back here this week. Again, nonprofit Power Week here at the nonprofit show all week long, Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and November is special for your cause. Is that right, Rita? It is and thank you for saying that and it's why again, we're so honored and delighted to be with you this week, November's National Adoption Month and so it gives us just an added boost of highlighting the 113,000 children who are in foster care waiting to be adopted in this country, the 400,000 children who are simply in foster care. It allows us to elevate those messaging, those messages in a way that hopefully entices more people into thinking about these children. Absolutely, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, those are powerful numbers and I know we will hear them again. A half a million children in this country nearly in foster care, 113,000 in that process of ready to be adopted. Yeah, a lot of kids, a lot of children that we need to pay attention to. Yeah, stunning numbers and we are so grateful that you and your folks are with us on that journey. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors that are here with us day in and day out, Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Staffing Boutique, Fundraising Academy at National University, Your Part-Time Controller, Bee Generous, The Nonprofit Nerd. Hey, what a great Monday, don't you think, Jared? Yeah, I think it should be called Monday. You know, again, Friday gets all the fun. But this is gonna be a fantastic week and again to kick it off with Rita and the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. Just so grateful. And again, to share the awareness this month throughout this week, the Nonprofit Power Week. So Rita, I know we're gonna have you back on and then tomorrow, is it tomorrow we have a board member? It is tomorrow, yes, a board member, you'll love him. Fantastic, well, thanks to all of you that joined us. Rita, thanks for kicking off Nonprofit Power Week with us today on Monnier. And again, for all of those that did join us, come back and join us tomorrow. But if you missed any of the episode or you're so inclined to share it, you can do that on all of our streaming platforms. And until then, as we end every 700 episodes for the last three years, we invite you to please stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Thanks, ladies.