 Welcome back everyone to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're really excited for a lot of reasons. We can't wait to talk to our guests and we have one of our new co-host members of the cohort. I've got to figure out a better way. We need to title that so it rolls off the tongue, do we? Yeah, we do because it ain't rolling. But what is going to be really rolling and rocking for us today is a conversation with Deb Mayer, Executive Director of Wow Hall. But she's going to be bringing us her perspective about nonprofit turnarounds post-pandemic. It's a different ecosystem. It looks differently. And I love Deb, the idea of moving forward and upward. It's like super positive, right? Yes. Right. It's a spiral. Yeah. It's an upward spiral. I just love this. Well, we're, as I mentioned, super excited. We're rolling out over these next few weeks our whole new group of co-hosts. And today we have Sherri Kwam-Taylor of Kwam-Taylor coming to us from Chicago. Sherri, you've been on the nonprofit show. I have. It's like riding a bike. I hope. But I'm on the other side of the desk. So we'll see how this goes. But thanks for having me. Oh my gosh. We are super excited to have you. You've always been one of my favorite guests. I think you're super brilliant. And so this is really a fun thing for us to have you joining us. And again, as first time as a co-host. So we're really excited. Thanks, Julia. Hey. Well, go ahead. Yeah. I'll jump right into presenting sponsors then. And gosh, I think some of these have been with you for so long. Let's go through these. Bloomerang, American nonprofit academy, staffing boutique Inc., fundraising academy, 180 management group. Part time controller who I think was on yesterday, JMT consulting and nonprofit tech talk and nonprofit.leader. Thanks for supporting the show. Thank you. Yeah. Great. So so far you're doing great. Give me a report card at the end, will you? You know, I'm a mom. So gold stars is perfect. Gold stars. Hey, another gold stars joined us, Deb Mayer, executive director of Wow Hall. Talk to us, Deb, about what Wow Hall does in the beautiful part of Eugene, Oregon. Well, first of all, thanks very much for inviting me to be on your show. Wow stands for woodman of the world. And the Wow Hall is actually a historic building on the National Historic Register in downtown Eugene. It was built in 1932 for the cost of $10,000. And it was the highest quality architecture of the time and materials. We are known for what is called a floating dance floor. We have a hardwood dance floor made of strong hardwood maple. It's one of two in the whole state. And what they've done is create lathe work underneath the floor. So when you dance, it's a very special place. And there's so much energy that's gone into it. So in 1932, it was built as a fraternity for woodworkers, woodmen, they were called. And then they had woodcraft, women of woodcraft. And it was founded as a fraternity to take care of families. If somebody had an accident in the woods, they took care of the widows and the children. And it was very family oriented and all of that. And over time, it became just deteriorated. In 1975, it was going to be demolished. But in 1975, there was a whole bunch of concerned citizens who got together. And in five days, they had a wellathon where they raised money from bands 24 hours a day to make a down payment of $10,000 that saved the building. And in 1984, the mortgage was retired, so it's debt free. And from 1975 onward, it became a nonprofit called the Community Center for the Performing Arts. And it's CCPA, Community Center for the Performing Arts, will be 50 years old as a nonprofit in 2025. So it has a very long history. It's beloved in Eugene. It's a community cultural anchor. It's a community institution, heartfelt institution in Eugene, Oregon. Just this last week, it was highlighted in Money Magazine when Eugene was noted as one of the most livable cities in the country. And the Wow Hall was specifically called out as one of the things that create a strong sense of community here in Eugene. I love that. I love the example, maybe is the right word, of community members taking a look at something and saying, this is what we want. We're going to step up and we're going to really activate our community. I mean, that's, to me, that's like the story of America. Well, to add to that, we are a membership organization, okay? And it's a very interesting model. It's not the typical nonprofit model that I would be used to where boards go out and recruit from the community. This is a membership organization where the membership elects the board and the membership has ownership. But the board, of course, has fiduciary responsibility and creates the budget and that sort of thing, but is accountable to the membership. So I kind of see my role sort of as a church minister, you know, how churches have congregations like the membership is the congregation. And then there's the board, right? But we also are run by volunteers. We have over 600 volunteers in our database who we use to and they get experience to provide support during shows. We are a performance venue. So our income streams come from performances from membership from selling beer downstairs to our beautiful merchandise to donors to grant. So we have a number of income streams that can support the organization. But our volunteers are key. And what happens is they get to learn about the music industry. We've had so many kids were in all ages venue. So the alcohol stays downstairs and kids can come without parents age 14 or whatever. It can be volunteers and they've learned about the music industry. They've learned about community. And so many of the young people that have come through the well hall are now hot shots in the music industry. One is a professor at the Berkeley School of Music. Another is in charge of marketing for McMenamins, which is a major entertainment restoration organization in Oregon. And he's in charge of their marketing started the well hall. We have a comeback story that we just hired our new marketing consultant. This guy started out as a scrawny teenager, bullied, no place to go, couldn't play sports. The well hall was his safe place and it launched an incredible career where he worked for music record label labels in LA and has done film. He's come back to Eugene and we just hired him because he wanted to give back to the kids that were the scrawny ones. So there is an intergenerational sense and connection here. And there's an incredible story that we're building on because there is this deep passion about this place. I love it. Well, it's really fascinating because to me, let's get into the conversation at hand. And that is talking about, you know, these nonprofit turnarounds, which so many of us have to face over the trajectory of our career or our community involvement. And certainly, wow hall has experienced that as well. Talk to us about the importance of a compelling vision because you did a beautiful job of taking us through that arc of wow hall and making making me want to know more or participate. How do you have that compelling vision or figure out what it is even? Well, I'm going to tell you I come with an operating system, a founding philosophy that I use in organizations and in coaching and leadership development and board governance training. And the model is called appreciative inquiry. It's a strength based model and it's based on identifying our dreams, but it starts from the position of what are our strengths. It's a strength based model. I'll talk more about that in a minute in a minute, but the compelling vision is based on our passion. What do we love? What do we care about? And we create where we want to go and we call it forth in present tense. We are we are it's already happened. Okay. And that begins to give it power and I have a very fun process that's involved that involves art and improv and storytelling that is about divergent big thinking and then converging and grab grabbing everybody's ideas so it gels and synthesizes and everybody feels a sense of commitment and buy into it. So once you get the compelling vision about where you're going and you can take an old example, John F. Kennedy, who said, you know, we're going to go to the moon and bring a man back safely in tenure. Well, at the time that that statement was made, the technology did not exist. Okay. It was it was political will and because the vision was so compelling, it mobilized people and what became true for me. I came I came here as an interim executive director and was asked to stay on to bring it back after the pandemic. And the starting point was to say, what do you love about this place and how do we connect all those people who love this place. And then I took people through a process that got them to put in words, the emotions, the heart, and when you can put in words, the emotion and heart and be authentic about it. Now you have the hook and you have the thing that people want to be part of so we're not bailing the Titanic. Rather, we're saying, you want to get on the train. We're going to a great place and it's fun and you want to be here and we're offering you an opportunity. We're inviting you to be something that's amazing that's going on in this community. And guess what? It happens in increments and in stories. We had our local TV station, for example, create a commercial for us at no cost with a with a sponsor where members now never before members of the chambers of commerce. We are we have an ad in the local visitors guide that goes to 120 different locations. We just we just hosted in Oregon. There's a thing called the Oregon cultural trust, which distributes money to all public sector cultural organizations. We hosted them at the well hall and they brought 10 different funders and we invited over 200 nonprofits in this county to come and get to meet funders. So we are offering services as a as a cultural hub. We're also reaching out. It's not we're not just a venue that puts on shows, although we do some dynamite shows. We also are a community venue like we have a group that's called dance ability. People with disabilities come in and they can dance. We have done salsa classes. We've done Cuban salsa. We've done weddings and memorial services and board meetings. So the more versatile that we can be and the more that we can participate in the community, the stronger we are and it's about reaching out and connecting and saying, here's what we bring. What do you bring? You probably heard the stone soup model, right? You know, the stone soup model, right? So we've been making a lot of stone soup and and now we've got traction. We got back on our feet and now we're working on staying on our feet. I love it. You know, it's you're saying so many of the right things, things that I love to hear. I mean, Sherry, you've been a part of this. Don't you think this is an amazing thing? I love it. I love your clear cast of that vision, your North Star. You know, as a person who does fundraising, I'm like that not only attracts volunteers, but that attracts funders who really want to be on mission with you. That's incredible. Talk to us a little bit more about creating a strength based culture. I love how you described your work in that area and the journey you went on. Talk to us what that phrase means to you and how you've integrated that into the organization. Sure. It's an underlying paradigm shift. OK, we live in a culture that's based on negativity. We swim in the water of negativity, OK? Nobody walks in the room and says, hey, what's working here? They walk in the room and they say, hey, what's wrong? What do we need to fix? OK, and so our typical model is problem solving, which is about identifying the problems, getting clear about the problems, then identifying like two or three solutions, doing a cost benefit analysis of whatever, deciding which one's the best, creating a communications plan and cascading it through the organization and change happens, right? So we live in this world of problem solving, which is about fixing and blaming. And it's about saying, no, that can't work. We did that last year. Oh, you know, we don't have enough money for that. Or what are you talking about? That's, you know, I hear this every day, Deb, right there. I'm hearing it. That's the downer. That's the downer. Rather than saying, what are the possibilities here? What exists that we haven't seen? And it's about creating and inspiring. And so if you want to think about it, it's the yes and model. So you accept everything as a gift, as an offering, and you add to it versus the no but. And and so the philosophy is you create change by creating the new. You carve out a place, a small place to create the new and have success. Don't take on the whole thing, create success, create the new. And in doing that, you do two things. You create the new, while at the same time you negate the old. So if I have a limited amount of energy, do I want to spend my energy being against something and resisting or do I want to spend my energy on creating and finding other co-creators to create strength? So we have two models. We have a deficit model, which is based on problem solving. And we have a strength based model, which is based on solution finding. And you will find that when you engage in possibility and solution finding, the energy just cranks up. And that's what the spiral is. You learn, you discover your strengths, you dream about the future, you design to that future, you go do it, now you evaluate again. What did we learn? What are the strengths? We dream again, we design, we go do. And it's an upward spiral of constant learning so that there is no mistake. There is learning. And I will tell you, I wrote the employee handbook and I put a phrase in the handbook that says straight out. Nobody gets thrown under the bus. Because if you cannot create a safe, creative and live in culture that celebrates what people bring, you will not create energy that people want to be around. I'll tell you right now, when people walk in the door at the wow hall, you feel the joy. You feel the engagement. It's a feeling and it's joy. And that's what we want to promote. And we are the community anchor in that part of town of Eugene. And it stimulated actually the manifestation of two new businesses on that street parallel, two new businesses adjacent, and the city has just finished doing a new streetscape across the street. But it starts with human will. It starts with belief. It starts with joining with others that are your positive spark plugs, because that's where you get, that's where you get the synergies and you get all of the connections going so that you can create more together. And there is a very important word and the word is together. Together. And there was a study done in Stanford in 2014, where they gave two study groups, two control groups, the same task. In one task, they said, we want you to go into this room and create solutions. And you should come out and tell us about your solutions. The other group, they said, we'd like you to go into the room together and create new solutions together. And when you come out, we'd like to hear what you have to say together to us. The big difference was the use of the word together. And you know what? The group that heard the word together came out with 48% more solutions than the one that was working alone. So there is no such thing as a strategic plan that somebody goes into a room and writes themselves by themselves and says, here you go, that's not how it's done. That's not how it's done. Yeah. I hear the word, Julia, I don't know if you were thinking. Like it's like this abundant thinking. It's like, what is the potential? What could it be? Which so few people, I hear that. So few people come with that mindset. It's really that scarcity mindset. So I love that. It's kind of you're giving me a segue to the next slide. But I set you up. Well, let's talk about that because when you think about this and you are trying to align everybody and getting everybody to row in the same direction, this is one of those big stumbling blocks for so many people. How do we do this? Once we set the parameter and we open the door to positivity and engagement and collaboration, then how do we get everybody recognizing that? Well, the first thing, there's a wonderful phrase I didn't, you know, create it, which is, Peter Drucker was asked toward the end of his life of all of the things that you've taught and all the things that you've learned, what's the most important thing that you can offer? And he said, when you combine strengths with strengths, weakness becomes irrelevant. And so when I talk about alignment, you know, I will tell you right now, there's no drama on our board. None. We've got high morale. Last night we had a board meeting and I brought in the staff, the new staff people that were just hired to introduce them to the board. And, you know, I give highlights to the organization, but last night I didn't do that. Last night I said, I'd like to use my time because you guys, I gave you the written, you know, highlights, whatever. I'd like us all to go around and just introduce ourselves to the new staff members, tell them what brought you to the Well Hall and what's your story and why do you stay? And I'd like you each to take a couple minutes. The reason that I did that is because there's so much common passion and the new staff got a context and a history to see what they were walking into. We don't have, the other thing that's really important is clarity about roles that the board understands that they set the strategic direction and the policy, but they do not do operations. When I first got there, the board members were coming like this to the staff and it was total dysfunction. And I've created a model that's sort of a fluid model that a lot of cutting edge nonprofits are doing. Do not have nine standing committees. What you start with, what you have is the board and I have three committees, internal affairs, governance and external affairs, only three. And then within those, we have working groups based on topics. So for example, if I need to create a budget, that's internal affairs. There's a work group that I call on that can be from the community, can be from the board, can be from a member. And I present them what we're doing, what do you do? We create this budget, the work group presents to the internal affairs committee where they all talk, whatever, and then the internal affairs committee reports out to the board. So we don't have a board meeting that says, should we upgrade to Spotify? Right. You know, it's fluid and you bring in and people get the experience, they go away, they come back and it's orchestrating. It's orchestrating and it's communication and it's acknowledging and using the strengths that everybody brings. It's orchestrating. I would say my role as executive director is conductor. I will tell you, I never had running a venue on my five-year plan. I've never in my life, never in my life done a venue. I don't even know the names of the bands that come to the hall, but I don't even know how to run a sound board or sell tickets. But that's not my job. My job is to make sure people are happy, that they're productive, that they have what they need, and that they're recognized for their gifts and their strength and given credit. I just give it away, just keep giving it away. And the environment is transformed. I'm telling you, people walk in the door and you feel it and you know it. This is not a hierarchy. This is not a power trip, you know. And we're all packages. I have an incredible background, you know, whatever. And that package, all of our packages land someplace. So what are the gifts that you are bringing? Right? And what freedom and leadership to bring your strengths and for the board even to carry the weight of, ugh, you know, we gotta do these committee meetings. I mean, what freedom to use your strengths in something as neat as this. I love that model, Deb. Yeah, so we have fun too. I mean, you know, and we get to know each other. So it's really, what we think I think what is most important, I think what is most important is that we've managed to make the connection between the individual and the community and that people know that they are part of something larger than themselves and that we've created a positive place that people are wanting. People want connection and belonging and sense of place and how do I matter? It's not just go out and raise the money. What I'm telling you and how I'm talking to you is what people wanna be part of. And so money comes. It's also, I think, Julie, you mentioned it shifting or maybe Sherry, shifting from scarcity, fear head to abundance possibility. And it requires risk and it requires stepping through fear. And we tend when we're fearful to get small. And so it's counterintuitive to be expansive and possibility and abundance when we're surrounded by so much fear thought and it's courageous to do that. And that's what we're doing. We're standing there and we're being welcoming and embracing and abundant. And it's happening. I mean, we're not out of the woods. We're reducing our deficit, but we're proceeding. Yes. We're proceeding. I love this. And I think that your mindset is so powerful. And as we end up our time with you today, Deb, how are you able to express this and communicate this? Cause it's somewhat of a visceral situation that's going on, but how do you get back then out to the community and dare I say funders and your legions of volunteers and start sharing this story so that you actually keep building this momentum? Yeah. Well, I've been on a local public, public radio. I participated with lobbying the state for more community based cultural arts program funding from the state. And that was challenging. I participate, it's about being visible. You know, what they say 80% of life is showing up for 90, whatever. This morning, I was supposed to go to a chamber meeting at 7 a.m. and I didn't because I was coming back to you. But the point is it comes down to relationships. It comes down to good word of mouth. It comes down to volunteers being ambassadors and speaking with one voice and the board being ambassador and our volunteers. For example, these jobs that we just hired, I am calling all candidates, even the ones we didn't get, all resumes personally and I'm thanking them. Good for you. Because you know when you apply for a job, whatever, it can go the ozone and never hear from anybody. But people need to be acknowledged. We had a total of 68 resumes come in for two different positions. I'm calling all of them personally to thank them. Good for you. Good for you. It's like we get lost in the metrics and the spreadsheets and the database searches and all that stuff. And ultimately systems are created by people. I love it. You have been, I mean, I've loved your mindset and your approach. We need to get definitely a road show broadcast. So wow. I was just gonna say, we're headed up your way. It's a new host. We glad to host you. We can do live streaming. Well, it's really been great. Dev mayor, executive director of Wow Hall. Wow Hall.org. Check them out and you can learn about all the different things that they're doing for the community. And I love the trajectory of your story, the historic nature of this when, you know, a community didn't give up on the building and the people and transformed the use of the space because society had transformed. And so just really been fun, Dev, to learn from you. And thank you for reminding us about how we can embark upon tough things with joy and spark that community effort and creativity. Really been fun. What a great day for you to start your first show. I love it. Thank you for the inspiration, Dev. I'm leaving here on a high note for the afternoon. Thank you. And check out our shows. We got a lot of dynamite, amazing, amazing things coming at the Wow Hall. We will check it out, even if we don't know who they are either, we'll check it out. Speaking of inspiring, we wanna give a final thank you to our sponsors, Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Staffing Boutique Inc., fundraising academy, 180, management group, your part-time controller, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Tech Talk, and Nonprofit Thought Leader at the Nonprofit Show. This has been amazing. I really, really enjoyed this. Okay, Sherry, as your first and awesomest debut with the Nonprofit Show, sitting on the other side of the desk. I love it. I love it. I'll sign this off and I feel like Dev could even write this, but we wanna tell you stay well so you can do well. Thanks for tuning in.