 Thank you so much for all of you joining us for another episode of the non-profit show. We are thrilled to have with us the CEO of the League of Education Voters, Lori Hennessey. Welcome and thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. This is great. Yeah. Well, we also want to, of course, share what the title of today's episode is or the topic rather, Networking for Do-Gooders. The Lori has so many things that she wants to share with us when it comes to networking for do-gooders. And I'm going to share that Lori reached out to us just as many of you can to be a guest on our show. And she said, you know, I see a lot in this specific genre, but really not when it comes to networking. And I would really like to talk about that topic. And we said, yes, please, we welcome the diversity of the topics on our show. So I'm really looking forward to diving into this conversation with you, Lori. And of course, we start every episode saying thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts to each and every one of our presenting sponsors that you see on the screen in front of you. If you haven't yet, please take the time today to do so. Reach out to them via the internet or interwebs. I always like it when people say that interwebs, but find them online. Give them a like, thumbs up, some love, some good follow energy. These are amazing organizations that are elevating the good that you do in our community. So thank you for being here with us to support the nonprofit show. And of course, to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, for having this wonderful idea now almost 300 episodes ago. And thank you for allowing me to be on this journey with you. I'm Jarrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And we, again, welcome back, Lori. And I would love for you to start out by telling us a little bit about the organization and what you do in our community. Sure. So I'm based in Seattle and League of Education. Voters is a statewide organization here in Washington State. We advocate for a better education and it's everything from working on legislation and our state capital, creating community groups, organizing, advocacy, reaching out to the public, doing trainings. It's an exciting and obviously really necessary thing to get people to advocate for better education. And our goal is to make education more equitable for everyone. And right now it's not right now. So much of education depends on where you live, who you are. So it's it's an exciting thing to do. And I've been there 18 months. And I'm and I'm thrilled to be able to do it because I spend a year or a year. I spent an entire career doing public relations. I started in journalism. I did nonprofits, politics. People always say that my resume is kind of weird because I've bounced everywhere and I loved bouncing everywhere. But I always told people at some point in my career, I wanted to lead an organization that helped kids. So at this point in my life, I'm one of those lucky people who gets up and feels good about what I do and feels like I found my passion in my job, which is all you can really say in the nonprofit world. So I'm pretty lucky, you know, that that is remarkable. And I think your story is something that Jared and I have been seeing more and more. And I think we're going to continue to see that. And it's it's really exciting. We talked a lot about how we have this wave and the shifting demographic of retirement, people leaving the nonprofit sector than we have this wave behind it that should be a little bit stronger, but it will continue to grow. And that is young people coming into the marketplace who have been educated in nonprofit management, which we are very excited about because we see that as only a win win for our for our sector. But one of the things that we are really interested in talking to you about was why we need to know about networking. And it's to me, Lori, it's such a critical time because we're seeing this bleed off of the old talent and then this new talent coming in. So let's start off with what is networking just to kind of get us recentered? Sure. Yeah. To me, networking, I guess I always look at it this way. This the statistics show us and we all know that everyone had a first job. But many of us many of us get to a place in our careers where we forget what it was like to have that first job and how we got started and the humbling feelings in the experience. And more importantly to me, many of us and this one we do know from statistics have lost a job. At some point in our careers, you've lost a job or in some way had a bad job experience. And we don't talk about that as a society. It's something that we just all kind of ignore. So to me, that's the critical piece around networking. It's helping those young people who don't have experience, but maybe even more importantly, helping people who are in career transition when they reach out to you and say, wow, something changed. I'm looking to land somewhere. How do I start? And for all of us, I think that means tapping into our own memories and saying, wow, how did it feel when that was me? And can't I make some time to help this person? Because I've been there and my kids are going to be there. So it's kind of reminding, I think, ourselves on a day to day basis how networking is a very, very important thing. And it's up to all of us to be a part of it. Wow, I needed to hear that. I love how much you I love all of that and what you shared. I lost my first job, not my first job, but the first time losing a job in 2009 with the economic crisis. Ironically, that's also the same year I started my consulting firm. However, I said, you know, at that time, nothing prepares you for unemployment. Nothing prepares you for losing a position. All of the years of schooling that I did, all of my previous networking, all of my previous mentorship relationships, never one of them talked about when you are let go. And this time it was an economic crisis. I say this time because I have several times when I have either ended a position or the position has ended for whatever reason. So thank you for bringing this up and really, you know, just illuminating this topic. So we appreciate it. Yeah, I think it's and I think a lot of this is about stigma. A lot of it is about the fact that we don't talk about it. And then we carry around this kind of sense of shame. I lost a job and I actually wrote a LinkedIn blog about it later that said I was fired and it was kind of about reversing this feeling that we carry around because none of us have linear lines or most of us don't have linear lines in our career. And so to me, networking is being available when people need someone to connect with during that time of transition. And for a lot of kids graduating from college, this is so scary to be joining the workforce and your resumes short. You don't have all the stuff that you feel like you should have on there. Where do you where do you begin? And now that I'm in a generation where I have kids in the workforce, I see so clearly how scary that is for them and their first job. So for me to answer the question, Julia, that you asked, I think the networking question just comes down in two words. And I just realized, I don't know if this is two words or one word to LinkedIn. I think I think LinkedIn is key. I have so many students who reach out to me and their LinkedIn profiles aren't ready to go. I mean, they're either they have typos or they don't they don't talk about some of the valuable stuff that they might not have thought was valuable on the resume. And I always tell people as soon as you can start joining the affinity groups on LinkedIn, get in every group you can. So you start seeing the content and you start sharing the content. And then you learn about all the things like tagging people, thank you, thanking people that, you know, if someone spoke at a conference, thank them. There's just so many things that I know the three of us all see as intuitive that for students coming out of school, they don't see it as intuitive. So when someone reaches out to me, the first thing I do is basically like a LinkedIn tutorial on the phone where I talk through all of these things. But one of the key things with with that is if they don't have a job, they should be volunteering. They should be doing something with that time to build that resume and build it on LinkedIn. And to me, that's the first step when those students and obviously when people are in career transition as well to make sure that you're all polished up and ready for people to look at you and LinkedIn. Right. And, you know, I think it's really great advice because with this changing work environment, work from home, as Kevin Pace, our executive producer is coining WFB work from beach. I mean, you know, we have to be thinking about these things. And the platform of LinkedIn is really a powerful thing. I think a lot of folks are saying, yeah, the resume, OK, send me the PDF. But really, they're going on to LinkedIn and digging deeper to see what your community is and who you're going to bring along with you. Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned just a little side note. You mentioned in the beginning about the changing workforce and this kind of wave of baby boomers that are looking at changes in the next few years and the millennials behind us. And I talk a lot to people about how the millennial demographic, there's all these stereotypes that people have about the new way of working. But what I have seen in terms of research is that a lot of the values and the approaches that the millennial generation brings at work, Gen Z feels even more. And those those are things around quality of life. Those are things around being able to travel, being able to have a full life, having some sense of boundaries sometimes around your work. And what I always tell my friends who are, you know, I'm a young baby boomer, old Gen Xer, I guess, I always tell my friends who are in my place in life, you know, either I learn how to get along and support and appreciate the growing part of the workforce, or I might as well step aside, because in five years, I'm going to be by far outnumbered by younger people in the workplace. So to me, it's been an exciting time to get to know my staff and my colleagues who are from a different generation and change some of my work habits. I love that you said that. I think that's brilliant. And, Jared, I mean, we are really looking at this recovery. And that's one of those things that we keep talking about is how nimble are you knew you were nimble going into the to the pandemics? How nimble are you going into recovery? Right, because we're not just going back to where we were. Yeah, no one's going back, right? We're going all to the new territory. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. OK, one of the things I can't wait to talk to you about, because I think this is so interesting, is in terms of our conversation today and rules for networking, rules for coffee. Yeah, wow. OK, I'm not good at rules. I'm just going to throw that out there. And just so you know, rules does fit on the slide. But my the title of a LinkedIn post that I wrote about this was Read This Before You Ask Someone to Coffee. OK, OK, OK, that's a lot to fit on the slide. You can find that LinkedIn post. It really went viral. I think it was I do a lot of LinkedIn columns. And I think it was the most popular thing I ever wrote. And it was called Read This Before You Ask Someone to Coffee. And it basically gives people 10 recommendations before they ask someone to coffee. And at the time, you would both think it's so intuitive. I mean, it didn't at all seem like crazy observations to me, but I've heard from so many people who said that they actually read it before they went to coffee with someone and it was a guide. Love it. But, you know, a couple of things were don't cause the person work. If you're going to go to coffee with someone looking for tips, trying to find a job, you can't cause that mentor work. And I used to have people who would come to coffee with me where they'd say, so give me a bunch of ideas of people I should meet. And I would tell them a number of names. And as I was talking, it was horrifying me to notice they were not taking notes. They're just sitting there as I'm talking. And at the end of like 10 minutes, they'd say, great, can you type up all those names and send them to me? Yeah. So that's one rule. Wow, yeah. And one was bring a notepad just for that exact occurrence. Or put it in your phone, right? Like just put it in your notes or whatever. I'm guilty of that as well. I do a lot of note taking, like pen to paper. I love that. But I also just say, will you say that again? And how do you? I just want to make sure I capture it. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, however they wanted to capture it. But the thing was always my realization that they weren't capturing it. Because then I thought someone's going to have to write this up. Like when you're in a restaurant and the waitress asked like from the orders for eight people at your table and she doesn't write a single thing down. And there's so many waitresses to say that's totally doable. But some of us are stressed out the entire time. Why aren't you writing this down? Yeah, yeah, me too. And I was a horrible server for that reason. I would get back there and say, oh, my gosh, I totally forgot someone's order. And then I would have to do the rush order with the chef. And I didn't last long in that industry. Those are the rules for coffee. I like this. Yeah, so there's there's the thank you notes, which, you know, that's that's part of a genteel sort of culture. Some people think that's something that's in the past. But the reality is that so many people who are in hiring decisions do believe in thank you notes. So as long as we have people in those positions that do believe in thank you notes, I encourage people to do thank you notes. So there's that one already right here. So I branded mine for me, but growing up in the South, Emily Post etiquette was like that book was on my nightstand. I kid you not. I I do this and I love receiving them as well. Yeah, yeah, me too. And another one that I always talk about is the the the idea of when you go to one of these meetings, know your ask, know what you want. And so like some people will come to a meeting and they'll just kind of, you know, oftentimes they're beaten down. It's been a long period. It's been a tough period. So they'll come in and just kind of go, oh, do you have any ideas? And I encourage people to do their homework. So they come into that meeting and they say, hi, I looked you up. I saw that you're connected to someone. So organization, that's one where I'd like to meet someone. Do you have any ideas? Come into the meeting with some sense of doing a little research ahead of time and then actually know, here's what I want from you. Can you give me three names of people that I could meet? Just have your ask ready for that 15 or 20 minute coffee, because a lot of people don't have more than 20 minutes. So I have a question. And again, I told I warned you, Laurie, like none of this is scripted. It just comes like it just sometimes it flies out of my mouth. My schedule and as I say this, I feel I feel pretentious as I'm saying it. OK, but again, I have a feeling others are thinking the same thing. My schedule does not allow for coffees and for people to pick my brain, right? Like I'm in a place where my calendar, just the commute, right, is inconvenient. Are these rules for coffee, if you will, or read this before you ask someone to coffee article? Are these applicable to a telephone call? Oh, totally, totally. Meeting totally. Yeah. And and I would say, obviously, in this crazy year we're in now, everything is on the phone, right? But in the normal world, I live on I live on an island near Seattle. And so my coffees have become phone calls because I commute two hours each way in normal times. And and I will just book people in for half hour increments and we're sitting there and talking. And it's the same concept. It's the same idea. It's more coffee as the metaphor of someone reaching out. Thank you. Thank you. And for that, too, I might just want to eliminate that I'm noticing it has become very culturally norm for others to say, including me. Here's my calendar link. I would love for you to go ahead and take the initiative to schedule this coffee, right? Yeah. Whereas I feel like, honestly, a couple of years ago, I felt super rude sending that. Like, pointy, pointy, like, who am I, you know? I will have this calendar link. But now it's like we all have this calendar link. It's growing. It's growing. Yeah. The first time I got like a Calendly thing, I went, whoa. What's happening? Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Now, I know I feel like we need to move to the next slide because I know we have a couple of things that we don't want to miss. But I personally am going to check out this LinkedIn article. So I wouldn't be shocked, Laurie, if you see like a spike in viral share of that article, I know I'm going to to read it and possibly share it as well. Talk to us about equity when it comes to networking for do-gooders. Yeah, I just feel like equity is is the question now when we talk about networking, because I think so many people now see networking as a playground of connected people. So, you know, when my daughter graduated from college, I was making introductions to people that I knew in the field and all of us do that. And I would like to think even before the last year that we've been through in terms of our own reckoning around race, I would like to think already we were starting to talk about the downside of networking, the downside of people all getting jobs because they know each other because it leaves out so much of our country. And so what I'm now trying to look at is ways that we can do networking in a more equitable equitable way. And one idea I've come up with anyone can be open to helping people. So if you were to put on LinkedIn, are you graduating and are you looking for 10 minutes to talk to someone about what's out there in our community message me? I'd be happy to hear from anyone and give you 10 minutes of time. And anyone can do it. They don't have to know you. They don't have to have their parents know you. It's something that's open to people besides those we know. I think every time you help network someone who you met through a friend or a relative, you should try to find someone to network who you would not have otherwise known. So that's that's one of my personal goals, but it's it's something that's very important. I accept that challenge. I know you didn't challenge us, Laurie. I accept that challenge. And Julia, I'm challenging you right now. Publicly, would you also be willing to make that post? Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, this is a part of what I do morning, noon and night. I've always been a great connector. But, you know, when the way you just phrased it is, yeah, it's within my community or my social circle of people that I know. And I think you feel more empowered and more secure to do that. But the value and the being valiant in that process is for somebody you don't know. When one place one place where I've found a lot of a pathway to reach that community is through schools. So I do a lot of talking to classes about networking, where I'll go to some class and say some of the things we've talked about. What I have found is that it's a bit of an equalizer because after the class, I will have a lot of students reach out to me through LinkedIn. They don't know anyone. They just took a class. And to me, the the challenge in that is that some of those people who reach out to network with me are just so well qualified, where they have four or five jobs and they've done everything and they're together and some people are at a real different part on that continuum. So I have to sometimes take a deep breath and know that part of being that mentor is to slow down sometimes or to adjust what I'm expecting sometimes, because not every person looking for help is at the same place. But to me, that's very fulfilling to find students who reach out for that too. Perfect. Thank you. If that's your first one, I'm curious what the others are. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of first rule of equity, you mean? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I would say so the first one would be students. And then, like I said, putting the post and asking people to come to you. Another thing I'm finding is there are some groups where you can find people who are looking to get into the nonprofit world like there's one in Washington, it's a Facebook group. I'm sure every state has these kind of Facebook groups that support oftentimes women, oftentimes people of color who are looking to get into the organizations. So what I do now is when I have a job opportunity or a volunteer opportunity, I make sure and share it on networks that are different networks than where I've always been before. They're different networks. And I encourage people to come in and find those communities very, very deliberately. So that's also part of networking that I think we need to work on is advertising our jobs and finding people in different places. Yeah. I think it's being aware of it. I mean, I had and tell we were getting ready to chat with you. I had never thought of this of the issue of equity within the issue of networking. And it seems to me that we spend a lot of time in our world or I should say I do teaching young people that want to come into our profession just how to network and what to do and how to behave. And and some of these like very introductory things that in my mind, they should have been taught in college or in school. But they're not. And so then it's really, really hard to even get to that point where you can even get to the same starting line because you're so like, what? I mean, as a young kid, unless you have somebody that can pull you along. And it's really hard because we haven't had the nonprofit sector really organized in a professional way like this. There are some of the groups on LinkedIn that I have found and joined have some great dialogue on these issues. There's a couple of women's kind of focus groups on LinkedIn that I found a couple of those that are focused on nonprofit marketing. And I really like having some of these dialogue groups that you can go to to talk about this. And I'm seeing more and more people actually do this. Hi, I'm available if anyone's wanting to meet me. Here's I think it's a nice. I feel like we're in a place as a culture in the nonprofit community that we're all becoming aware of how fortunate many of us have been. I know I'm very much aware of that. And as you become more and more aware of that privilege, I think there's this need to to do better at at bringing the folks in behind you. So it's an exciting time, I think. I love it. I love it. And I love that we're having this discussion, given as Jared mentioned, you know, we are in the time of graduations from high school, from college. I mean, it's really, really the right time to be having this discussion. And as we go into recovery, you know, Jared, think of all of the different people that have come on recently from everybody from, you know, Katie was staffing boutique to nonprofit HR talking about how hard it has been or it's going to be to find this labor ready to go. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is such a timely conversation. And again, for those of you watching live or recording, so appreciative of Laurie reaching out to us. Any of you can do that, or you can also, you know, recommend someone to be on the nonprofit show. But Laurie noticed a need for this conversation on the show. And I'm just so grateful that you brought this up because I am leaving today's episode with a sheet full of notes. Honestly, and I know you didn't challenge us, but I wanted to, like, take the challenge wholeheartedly. I'm all about elevating other people, being of service, right? Like, that is just my jam. That's what I'm about. So Laurie, CEO of League of Education Voters, I just, like, I just want to breathe in so much gratitude and just say thank you. Thank you for reaching out to us. Thank you for all that you do. The organization is lucky to have you 18 months new with that organization. Phenomenal. So thank you so much, Laurie. I'm going to look at your read this before you ask someone to coffee. And I just loved everything that you talked about. So would welcome you back, of course, another time, because this was just really insightful. Thank you. This has been really wonderful to talk to you both. And you really energize me on a Monday. Good. Well, when I leave my studio and get back to my office, and I'm going to do what you said and offer, you know, a connective point for for somebody that wants to talk about our sector, because we need that. We need to be building greatness and excitement and bringing people into our sector. We need it as a community. We need it as a nation. And we have this talent coming out of schools and talent that's shifting within the American population that wants to serve. You know, if anything, these pandemics have taught us that a life of service can be a very, very good life. And so this has been just amazing, Laurie. Really, really cool. Hey, I'm sure what a great way to start the week. I want to thank you for for being with us as always and with me. We are coming up just a note on our 300th episode, which will be celebrating Friday. And so look for for that, because that's going to be a lot of fun. Again, we want to thank our presenting sponsors without you. We would not be here having this conversation. And Laurie is just one of many folks that have come on. I think I figured out, you know, we've had like over 250 guests. Wow. So think about it. I mean, we've had some people back on, but I mean, it's been really a cool thing to get in front of all these brilliant minds. And Laurie is just a prime example of that. So thank you to our sponsors. Wow, a great way to start the week, Jared. I'm excited. Yeah, I know. I want to go into LinkedIn right now. One, read your article and to make that post, I think that's really wonderful. Ironically, later today, I am a podcast guest talking to or sharing the topic about how professionals might want to change their career into the nonprofit sector. So I wrote down some of these things and I have a feeling they might come up again in conversation and just so grateful for you to bring this again to light and to illuminate these ways and to introduce equity into networking. Thank you. Amazing. It's been great. Well, hey, everybody, as we like to remind everyone. Stay well so you can do well. We're going to see you back here tomorrow. Have a great day.