 that it's Friday. I would love for each of you as we get started to think about your win for the week. Julia and I just shared hours in our chitty chat chat. And so if you would just, you know, spend some time right now as we thank our sponsor for Ask and Answer Fundraising Academy and of course all of our presenting sponsors that support these continued conversations and continue not only the investment but the overall commitment to these conversations. We are so appreciative of our sponsors. So we'd love to know your wins and, you know, again, just just keep that in mind as we go through today's Ask and Answer. So Julia Patrick joins us, the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, also known as the Nonprofit Nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And again, today is Friday, Friday, and we get to celebrate by answering many questions that have come in from our viewers. There are several ways in which you can reach out to us, including for those of you watching live, you can use the the chat, is it chat? It's the Q&A. So the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. If you do have any questions, feel free to drop that as we are going through these today. If we can't get to your question live, we will certainly add it to a future episode. So thank you for being here with us. Hey, you know what? I think that we've got a great crowd and I say let's go. First question comes to us from Salt Lake City, Utah, Shondra. I want to get, this is Salers. I want to get my CEO on an upcoming episode of the Nonprofit Show. He is a dynamic leader. I think he would have a lot to share with others. Okay, Jarrett, you do a lot of the booking, so I'm going to let you answer this. I do, yes. And in fact, Shondra, if you haven't heard or maybe you did, I'm also planting some of my roots, personal roots and professional roots into the Utah community. So I would love to connect with you. If you go to theamericanonprofitacademy.com or thenonprofitshow.com, you will see a link on the screen on the website, rather, that you could submit your CEO to be a guest. And so this is a national broadcast and we are asking for those national leaders. And so while Julia and I live in the Arizona community, we both work nationwide and we are always looking for that national presence. We have realized, honestly, Shondra, through the last 18 months, how different these communities are being impacted based off of the geographic location, right? So in the beginning of the pandemic, March of last year, we talked a lot with our friends in the New York area. And then we really dialed in to our friends in the Pacific Northwest. And there's just been constant change in a variety of ways. But we always love to hear from national leaders. So thank you for thinking of us. And thank you for thinking of your CEO to come on and share the story of your organization. So you can find that submission on the website. And we're always, I mean, we're here to stay, honestly. So yeah, we'd love to hear from you. You know, Jared, before the show this morning, I was in my office and I was looking at the spreadsheet, the booking sheet that we use in the system that we created, which I'm really proud of. I mean, we really came up with, I think, an amazing system that we use to manage the nonprofit show. And just as a heads up, I think in the month, so September is booked out. In the month of October, I think we had like three dates open. That's it. Yeah. So, you know, it's, we say no a lot more than we say yes, which is hard, but that's just the reality. And so yeah, get get to us. We're always looking for interesting stories and people who will come on and share, you know, what they're doing, because it's a pretty powerful time in the nonprofit sector. Okay, let's go on to another question. Thank you for answering that so beautifully, Ms. Jared. Okay, you know how I love my name with El City withheld. You sure do. I love it. And I don't even know what this question is, but I know it's going to be good. Okay, if I take on some extra work at another nonprofit who works in the same sector as my main employer, do I need to declare this to HR? Specifically, it is substance abuse rehab. Yeah. Yeah, why don't you go ahead, Julia. So absolutely. And this is interesting. I'm glad that you mentioned substance abuse and rehab. You within that sector are going to have some HIPAA laws that change, that add another dimension to this HR equation. So absolutely. I think it's really important that when you take on something extra work, or even a gig issue within your sector that you declare it, because if there was ever a question about the transference of intellectual property, that could be procedures, client information, you want to be protected. And you want to have been forthright. You want to have been upfront. And if they're like, oh, we don't know, then I think your course of action is to say, well, what's the policy? Let's see it. And then from there, you can make other decisions. But I always think it's bad to go into another environment with a secretive thing. I just think that sets you up for more stress and potential problems. So I'm not an HR expert. I just blame one on TV. Well, and so that's where I want to take it is oftentimes our nonprofit sector does not have a designated HR person. And so I would highly recommend that you look at your employee handbook first and foremost to see what is mentioned in there. I preach and coach my clients all the time. And it's my family mantra, solutions, not problems, solutions, not challenges. So look at your employee handbook, come up with what you would think would be that ideal work scenario and why and how you are safeguarding both organizations with that intellectual property, then go to that HR person. Hopefully you do have a designated HR. And I would simply share with them, that you are looking to do some more work in another substance abuse rehab organization in your local community. This is exactly the work that you've been asked if you have a job description or a project description, even better. And then how that is compared to your current job description and responsibility description, I would say I would address anything that may be overlapping and of conflict. But I would highlight those areas that are very different, perhaps, and what you intend to do if there is any potential challenge. Yeah, I would really address this like at a much higher level. Yeah. No, I agree. I think you've got to be, just as you said, Jared, you've got to come forward with what the opportunities and the challenges could be, but you've got to do this up front and not when there's a problem. And especially in this arena. And I want to also add like think through this fully because what I would imagine is that your current employer may ask you to resign as an employee and perhaps move you to a contract employee. And I think that is just something you want to be aware of. Is that something that you're willing to do? And just know that the HR person might actually come back and say, so technically we can't have you do this as a full-time employee. However, this would not be a conflict if you were a contract employee. And here's the difference. Super crazy smart. You are the non-profit nerd. Stop it. I'm loving that. Okay. Well, name withheld, city withheld. Wow. We gave you some good information. I can't wait to find out how that works out. And if you are watching this, which I think you are, then I hope that you let us know because that's really interesting. Okay. Tamron from St. Louis, Missouri. I work in the communications department of my medium-sized non-profit. How do I set a policy that tells staff that only team members from my shop are to speak with the media? This is a really big, big issue. Yeah. And this is your bailiwick. So I'm just going to sit back and drink my coffee. Well, Tamron, okay. I know you're a professional because you use the word shop. And that is the word that we in communications, we use that word. It's so weird. I don't really know how or why we use that phrase, but you know, I'm a big believer in this, that when you have a communications plan, a protocol, a strategy, all of these different things in place, you need to communicate this to your entire organization because your shop is going to be armed with the best information, the latest information, probably going to have been trained on how to work with the media, deliver a message, as well as having trained or worked with your senior leadership so that they can be more efficient and more representative and accurate on camera. So yes, I think this is a big thing to be able to communicate to everybody. Hey, folks, we have a team dedicated to this. If you are approached by somebody in the media, not a problem. No need to be stressed out about it. Just turn it over to us and then we will administrate that. If we think you might be somebody that's, you know, good to share our story or go on camera, then we'll interact that way. But yes, you need to create that policy. But more importantly, you need to be communicating that to your team. How do you communicate that, Julia? So I'm a big believer. And so thank you for asking. That's really important. I'm a big believer, especially if you're a medium-sized nonprofit. That means you're probably moving beyond 60 employees. And so you should be having a company e-newsletter that goes out. You should have a company built, you know, bulletin board, some basic tools like that. You should have an interoffice system method of communication through email or text. And that's one of those things you can say, hey, remember, if you've got an idea for a story or you've been contacted by the media, it runs through our shop, through the communications department. And for a lot of people, this is a new concept. It's not that they're trying to undermine you. It's just that they don't know, right? And so you just have to reaffirm that that's the protocol and that's how you do it. I think that should be a part of the onboarding for all staff. And I'm thinking maybe quarterly, like quarterly reminders, because you have talked a lot and have presented some masterclasses on that leadership list and also that fact list, right? Like identifying what are our latest facts. And you have coached to say, you know, update that quarterly. So I would imagine just this, you know, add this into that communication, that in intra communication with your team at your shop to know that this is something that, hey, just want to keep this top of mind. If something does come up, this is who you would route that information to. Right. I think that's great. I think that's really good advice. And to your point, it's a piece of constant reminding education, whatever, because also your team, especially with a medium-sized nonprofit, you have come and go with your team. Right. Right. I mean, there are a lot of things going on. So you want to make sure that you're always updating just because you create a policy back in the day doesn't mean that everybody's up on it. You're going to have to reinforce that. Okay, Tamara, I hope that helps. Okay. Oh, name with help, but Los Angeles. So, Julia, pull up the questions. I'd love to see them too. Oh, well, gosh, with that help. I mean, we can hear them, but I also like to see them. Perfect. You read this one, sister. Okay. So another name with help. So thank you to those of you that are really trying to get on Julia's good side. PTO, personal time off. What is the nonprofit standard for this? I find that some of our staff have more days off than I do. Have they negotiated this in their contracts and how do I get more PTO? That is interesting. So name with help. I'm going to say, go to your employee handbook. Right. Like that is where it should list your vacation days for your work, for your employer. It should also allow you your sick, your vacation, any other personal, you know, in medical leave. I have worked before where there were absolutely people that had more time off than me, and that was associated with their length of employment. Right. So if you were with us, let's say, you know, day one until two years, this is your allotment. From two years, it increases, I don't know, maybe like a quarter per 25%. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Don't hold me to this. But then it's like based off of the tenure within the organization, and sometimes within the title or the position. Right. So like the CEO might have more time than another position or something similar. But I also want to bring to mind that there is cop time. And I feel that cop time is something very, very much used in our sector, because many times we're working 24 seven. And so it may seem like an employee has time off, but he she or they have negotiated that time, right, with their direct supervisor in lieu of other hours spent. So again, like I'm going to say name withheld this perception of what you are experiencing or seeing. I understand that's your reality, but you don't truly know how this person is taking their time off and what category it would fall under. But I would I would go to your employee handbook and I would take have a conversation directly with your supervisor. And if you've watched right like Katie Warnock with staffing boutique has absolutely given examples of how to best negotiate your working arrangement with your current employer. So if you haven't checked out, you know, our sponsor staffing boutique where she right here. Make sure you do check out staffing boutique because Katie provided some great insight on negotiating. Well, do you think that that's going to be something that people are going to be gravitating towards? And we've been talking about the great resignation. We've been talking about all of these different changes in our sector through the lens of, you know, HR. You think people are going to be saying, I don't need more money, but I need more time or yes, this might be to your point negotiated and it might so might look different across the landscape of the staff. Absolutely. I am hearing of more people taking, you know, for 10 hour workdays and therefore having a three day weekend, a four, you know, four day week, three day weekend. Just talked to a CEO yesterday and he shifted his personal calendar that way. But I also see a lot of unlimited PTO, unlimited PTO by so many employers. And so that means that you, if you need a time, if you need a day off, you take a day off. If you need some hours off, you take some hours off. I think boardable has one of those policies and a wonderful company to work with. So we are seeing more of our competitors or collaborators within the space, if you will, providing this unlimited PTO. And so that is going to become a competitive commodity. Interesting. Interesting. My boss gives me unlimited PTO. I just don't always take it. I need cop time. Holy moly. Okay, I appreciate you looking and giving us that lens. That's interesting. We're going to need to be monitoring that because that's part of all these changes that we're going through. And even at the beginning of the pandemic, we would have never thought some of these things would come to pass. Well, I will take too much more time, but I will say that I personally have negotiated that when there wasn't, there was a full-time position and there wasn't the salary that I had hoped for. So I negotiated a work from home on Fridays. So it wasn't additional time off, but it was that flexibility. And this is well before the pandemic. I mean, this is like a decade ago, right? But like having that work from home on a Friday, for me, allowed a bit more flexibility in my schedule. Yeah, I like that. And I think that's a good thing to think about, especially when we have so many people that we're concerned about leaving our teams. It's a much better decision to be looking at what you can do to retain a healthy and viable employee versus just letting them go. Well, and to be honest, and I'm sorry I continue here, but I just heard from another board member. She's a younger, you know, in her 30s, but she's a young mom. And her daughter went back to school on day one and they received the notification that there was a COVID positive student. And so now the entire class, I guess, is now back home. So as we again continue to navigate this variance, that PTO, that comp time, that flexible schedule is very important because it really has come back to the front line of how are we serving our team? Right, right. Interesting. We're going to be hearing that more about this more and more. Okay, Jane from Orlando, Florida writes in, I'm using my cell phone more and more for work. However, my nonprofit is not paying for this. They expect me to be available and use the smartphone I pay for, which is probably expensive if it's a smartphone. Can you give me some strategies to help fund this expense that I'm actually now donating? You know, we've been getting these types of questions with technology. And I think there does need to be a tech stipend. And I think, you know, Jane, be more than prepared to provide your cell phone receipt, to provide that invoice, you know, that bill pay. What is your percentage of personal use versus, you know, company use and see if your employer would provide you a stipend. This is, and now this is not tax advice, but I just had this conversation yesterday. You can do a pre-tax stipend. So the employer could provide you this as a pre-tax stipend, perhaps through your payroll. So I would address this, and I would address it with your invoice in hand. Yeah. Well, it's really a good question because who doesn't, especially now we're going to go back into a more restricted work environment. We are using our personal technology to do our jobs. And this is the same for home internet, right? It's the same for like printing, toner, you know, ink cartridges, paper, things like that. And so I do think that this is something a bigger, much bigger conversation is again, you know, we had generate impact and Brian Greenwald was amazing and talked to us a lot about what are the systems that are in place to support me and my work. So what are the systems? What are the policies? What are the success factors that I am allowed and provided like your cell phone, like your internet, like access to a printer, if you're not, you know, in the office. So this is all, these are viable, viable questions. Well, and you know, I've even been reading about organizations that are now coming up with a one-time kind of, I'll use your word stipend, but a financial arrangement that will allow people to retrofit or modify their homes so that it is more conducive to working from home. That's wonderful. I mean, you know, because this is the reality and very interesting, Jane. Okay, well, let us know how that works out. Okay, Russ, we have this one quick question. Russ, how long is the average board term? Is this timeframe different from the term of officers of the board? Oh, good question, Russ, Denver, Colorado. Take it away, Julia. Most board terms are going to run two, four, sometimes six, but that is not really something that is advised. Two, three, four, you see more of that. Now the officers of the board, that's true. We see that being a different timeframe because for a lot of officers, you need them to be moving through different cycles. It might be for financial reasons, for, you know, relationships with your accounting team, your external accounting team audits, maybe your legal outside legal counsel because you're involved in something, especially for those organizations that might have a really heavy lift, like let's say they're enacting a big physical campaign or physical project on their campus or something like that. You don't want people coming in and out after 12 months. It's really disruptive. So those officers of the board might be elected to, you know, concurrent terms or something like that. So yeah, good question. That is a great, great question. Can't get great out right now. That is a great question, Russ. And so your bylaws, that is where your board terms, you know, lie. That's where they exist. But your question in particular is how long is the average board term? I think that's, that is a great question. And it might be worth revisiting your bylaws to see if your term limits are still fitting the demographic of your current board and where you're looking to go. I like to, I've been saying go and grow lately, like where you're looking to go and where you're looking to grow. And I do think that having, you know, your term of the officers, the term that they serve as an officer is within their overall board term limit, right? So if it's a three year board term, perhaps they're serving as board chair. Two of those three years are, you know, board chair for one year, vice chair, and then move up to board chair. So there's a couple of ways, but that's my understanding. And I know that you're huge on Robert's rules of order. And that probably maybe has some information to share as well, Russ. It's yeah, I think it's really, you've got to look at your board policy and your bylaws. That's number one. And it sounds to me, I mean, I just assumed you're like looking at maybe you're in the discussion of how to change these things or whatever. But you got to look at that first, because that's going to dictate what you can do. Now, you can modify that, of course, but understand what the current structure, legal and fiduciary structure is before you just go and say, Oh, well, that's not working. There, there are definite ways for you to change that, those bylaws. But yeah, good question. Great question. We have like smart people here today. No, and it's not just us. No, of course not. We have amazing, amazing viewers. It's been, it's been really fun. And like we have seen Julia, the questions that have come to us over the last 18 months continue to evolve as our landscape continues to evolve. So kudos to all of you out there doing the great work. I'm so proud of you. I know you're exhausted. We're, we're all exhausted. We started earlier talking about everything that's on our plate. So this is Friday, and I hope that you all rest. I do too. I do too. Hey, again, if you haven't met, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, been joined by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven group. We've got four main ways you can get your questions to us. So ask away. We love hearing them. And we'll get to you and respond as quickly as we can. Again, we want to thank Fundraising Academy. They did a really interesting thing stepped up to underwrite this Friday episode every day, every Friday, moving through for the next year. So we're really, we want to make sure that everybody understands that they saw value in this and stepped up because this is a different show for us out of the whole week. And we think it's a lot of fun. We also want to thank all of our presenting sponsors. Again, if you are not with us on this, we would not be here with you. And so we say, thank you, thank you, thank you to this. Wow. Another great week, another interesting week. And next week heads up, Jared. I don't know if you got the company memo, but I'm going to be out of town for a couple of days. Oh, no, I didn't. Does that mean I'm flying solo? Flying solo, baby. I'm going to actually be in Montana working with a really interesting group on the credit union executive society. I'm going to be running some trainings for them. And these are the highest level executive directors and CEOs of credit unions. And we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics. And that is cultivating next gen board members. And so it'll be very interesting because this is a group that is wrestling with this. You know, the industry is wrestling with this. And so we're going to be spending some time together in a lodge. Way the heck up to the north part of our country. So I will wish you well. You're in great hands. You and Kevin will keep this boat growing in the same direction. And I'll see you towards the end of the week. We'll have a wonderful time. Thank you. It'll be a lot of fun. Hey, everybody, as we like to end every episode and we really mean it, given where we are back with COVID-19, we want to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. Thanks, everybody. Have a rest full weekend. Yes, get some rest. Thank you. Thank you.