 Welcome, and thank you to everyone that has joined us today for another episode of the nonprofit show. Julia Patrick is here, the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group, and we are constantly in awe and appreciation. We have so much gratitude to our presenting sponsors. Each and every one of these companies are dedicated to the nonprofit sector, dedicated to each and every one of you as leaders doing your part in the world. So please do check out our presenting sponsors. Again, we are so grateful to have their continued investment not only here in these episodes here at the nonprofit show, but truly around the globe in the sector at large. So thank you to our sponsors. And thank you to our guest who has joined us today. For those of you that joined us in the Chitty chat chat. You heard a little bit about Doris Vaught and the CPA journey that has taken her to become the president and CEO at Lifewell. So I would like to welcome you Doris and say thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Jared and Julia. I'm really happy to be here and excited to share my story and the story of our organization. Well, let's start there. Talk to us about what Lifewell does. Lifewell is not surprising a nonprofit organization. We provide mental health services and physical health services to people who are struggling with a variety of issues in their lives. And we treat individuals who have, you know, mild to severe symptoms. And many of our members that we serve are homeless, many of them have limited resources, limited income. And they also have limited social networks and a lot of cases. So what we really do for people, I think our vision kind of sums it up best as we offer hope, health and healing. So we really are here to help people live their best lives possible and to provide them with the tools and resources to do that. Wow, amazing. And what a time to really provide, you know, all of what your mission states because every single one of us has been touched by, you know, stress and anxiety, depression, we've seen domestic violence numbers go up and really just a really trying time. So I want to start by saying thank you. Thanks for your service, your team service and all that you've continued to do throughout such a tumultuous and uncertain time. You know, as we move into this, I really want us to start talking a little bit more about, you know, your journey and you shared a little bit about that. And so when it comes to being a leader of this organization as a CPA, you've been with life well before so you didn't just start as their CEO, you spent some time in, you know, in in the trenches or you know really in into the programs as well. Tell us a little bit about that Doris. Yeah, I've actually been with the organization for about 20 years. Wow. Not even base. I've seen, I've seen our organization evolve significantly during during that time period. So it's been really fun. It's been really exciting for me to see what the organization has become and to see what it can still become in the future. I started 20 years ago I started as a financial consultant, and I had kind of my own little business that I ran with consulting and worked with a number of nonprofits, and I, I really fell in love with this organization. And at the time it was very small. I had about 60 employees, the annual budget was about $2 million. And the organization had contacted me because they needed some help in figuring out, you know, how they were going to be able to keep the doors open the resources were very very limited. So, that's how I started my journey. And over the next, I guess, I consulted for about three years and then became an employee in 2004. And in 2011 we, we went through a merger with another organization, the organization that I started with was called New Arizona family, and we merged with another organization called triple our behavioral health. And it was really at that time that we were able to when we combine those forces we were able to become one of the larger behavioral health organizations in our area, and really gave us some substantial opportunity for us to grow our services and expand. So, I prepared for a number of years for the CEO position we had my predecessor was with the organization for a long time and was retiring. So we knew that that was going to happen. So, you know, I never ever felt like I was going to have all the answers when I started because I had watched how difficult the job is. I thought that I was, you know, pretty prepared for anything. So, you know, as luck would have it. I was about eight weeks into the job before, you know, COVID really kind of took over. And you're still here for not saying this isn't what I signed up for. Yeah, it was, it was, I knew that I was going to be faced with significant challenges as CEO I think you know that's just part of what you expect. I didn't really expect that you know my first major decision would be you know a world emergency a pandemic so remember the feeling very well of thinking, okay, you know, this is your decision, you know, and you have to make changes and you have to do it very very quickly. So, well let's talk about that that quickness and we've heard. And Julia I'm sure that this is a word we've heard quite a bit is, you know organizations have really become nimble, and I can imagine Doris because of your 20 years of experience within life well that has really helped you to navigate change with quickness. And I was, I was impressed with really, you know how quickly telehealth and that increased I felt like it was there but it really increased at a dramatic during, you know, early 2020 I would say, but talk to us about you know the quickness that you've been able to lead with your organization as well as getting your board on board for these quick responses. Yes, we had to make changes very very quickly and we embrace telehealth we. The first thing that we did was take a step back and say okay you know this this is serious we need to make sure that that our employees and that our our clients are as protected as possible. We knew it was it was vital for us to be able to continue delivering service to services to our clients during this time so we knew that we were hoping that our doors wouldn't be closed and we would have the opportunity to continue. We shifted our services and our outpatient clinics where we really operated on skeleton crews at the site and tried to send as many people as possible home to do telehealth and to do telephone services with our members was easier for our admin staff because you know their positions kind of naturally lend themselves to that, but we do also have some residential treatment programs and some community living programs where we still, you know, had to be fully staffed at sites and we had to go, you know, visit clients in the community. So really making sure that we were as safe as possible so the first thing we did was you know try to figure out how we get the PPE how do we get extra cleaning services, you know how do we, how do we find Clorox. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I mean like so interesting because you're looking at your clients you're looking at the community you're looking at a health issue. I would imagine you're also looking at your budgets, knowing that. Oh my gosh, all these things that we're doing me you know we hadn't planned for and as a CPA I would imagine you put that hat on very quickly. There was there was a lot of stress around that because even before we were able to have the expansion of telehealth services and fortunately here in Arizona we have great support from our funders and great support from our you know our leadership so they did make moves very quickly that allowed us to do the telehealth services. But you know we didn't know how that was going to go because our staff had never done it are some of the members really don't like services by video so we were very unsure and we were even unsure as to you know the the level of services that we were going to be able to provide so immediately you know kind of saw probably our revenues going to take a deep dive. So how do we best protect ourselves and we did. One of the things that we did very quickly was apply for the paycheck protection program. I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. I'll talk to us about that a little bit because you know again having a CPA in the driver's seat. Oh my gosh. That made your board look like super geniuses. I mean talk to us about that. We had a long standing banking relationship with the bank that we had worked with and they were a large bank they had always been able to meet our needs and very happy with the services that they have provided. However they struggled with the paycheck protection program. And we found ourselves not able to get alone through the bank that we had a relationship with and finding out kind of along the way that you know kind of knocking on doors with other banks literally in some cases saying you know we have we have a need or is there any way that that we can get alone and fortunately we found one in the community who was willing and able to help us even though we didn't have a banking relationship. So that was that was definitely a learning process for us you know making sure that you don't keep all your eggs in one basket. We worked out and you know fortunately that that relief funding was there and available, and we've actually gotten some other relief funding through through Medicare Medicaid and other sources so it's been a life saver. You know truly without it we would have had to have taken some drastic measures that would have impacted our organization for a long time. So we're grateful. You know, this last two years I feel like we keep saying two years even though you know months continue to go by, all of us have had some insurmountable, you know, hurdles to jump. I cannot imagine because one of the things we've talked about almost weekly on the show is really about the return on relationships and as you just said Doris. One thing you learned is not to put all your eggs in one basket so I can imagine, maybe the fear and the stress when you find that your financial institution is having their own challenges. They have faced their own insurmountable, you know hurdle to provide, you know, these financial needs because at that point it was really impacting the workforce it was impacting the bottom line. And I can imagine maybe some flashbacks to when you started working with life well that says, Oh my gosh, are we going to have to consider what this does and what this means to our service and to the programming. So I cannot imagine what that was like but to Julia's point, you know, hurrah for the board because if anyone can navigate that it is certainly a CPA. Well that I think the board was really has really been helpful throughout this whole time period, really just allowing us to to lead the organization and make those quick decisions. They've been tremendously helpful. I heard from some of the most successful leaders and organizations that they are the ones that have the board that back them up and say absolutely whatever you need let's get in there they're rolling up their sleeves they're really leaning in to the obstacles and helping to provide their thought leadership to provide solutions right and one of the areas where we're all looking for solutions right now is the lack of workforce. And I'm curious if you would be willing to share how you have navigated the shortage within the workforce and as our labor market can continues to shift. How are you leading through this obstacle. Yeah, you know that was the second big surprise of covert I think, you know, first trying to figure out how we keep people safe and keep operating and then, you know, the number of people that have left the workforce has, I've really never seen it like this with you know, we, we, you know, publicly funded behavioral health organization, you know, we always struggle with resources, even though our state recognizes the need for mental health services and puts a lot of effort toward making sure that those services are provided. We always have more need for our services than there are resources. And so, you know, because of that, and some of the reimbursement rates, we're limited by what we can pay people in these, you know, critical roles in these very valuable positions kind of all the way down to our professionals case managers all the way up to our psychiatrist and medical staff. So we had shortages before the pandemic it was something that we as an industry we're trying to figure out. But the pandemic has made it 10 times worse. So we are, we have experienced, you know, staffing levels that are really, you know, at the critical level. So I'm happy that you know it's larger than life well it's larger than our industry I know that our state leaders are taking on workforce issues and trying to to see how they can develop plans with the universities to develop career tracks and also, you know, looking for information from us on on rates that are sustainable going forward so I think there's there's a lot to figure out but but we're finding our way through it. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, I feel like this labor issue, the great resignation, the aging of our leadership population is almost like another wave of the pandemic and something that is going to put us into a topsy-turvy place for quite a while and I'm wondering. And again, this is get out your crystal ball and shine it shine it out. But do you feel like we're at the beginning of it we're in the middle we're on the downside do you have any sense of where we might be in this journey and that's a big question. Yeah, I hope we're at least in the middle of it. I can't imagine that it would get much worse I hope. So, but I don't think it's a short term fix I think you know we're going to be struggling with it for a while. And some of the things that we are doing as life well. We've actually taken a pretty deep dive into our workforce issues and we've hired an outside consultant to work with us. We've done surveys of our staff so I think you know the kind of the first things that we did were immediate fixes that we can put in place. As you see, you know, salaries rising in the community, we had to follow suit somewhat. So we, we put some recovery pay some temporary measures in place and we also put some permanent changes in place but we know that that's not the only issue and it's not the only solution. This deep dive we've surveyed our staff we've spent a lot of time compiling the results and really starting to focus on how we can make the changes, you know within our resources how we can make changes that really people are asking for. I think it, you know, it really starts with listening so we've really been listening to what our staff have to say, and we know that the jobs that we asked them to do are very difficult jobs. Yeah. So what can we do to make it better you know we know that we can do more training we know that we can, you know, offer like discounts for childcare, things like that so. But we're, we're really being thoughtful about it and I think it's going to take us another year before we're able to really see changes from the things that we're going to implement. But in the broader picture, you know, I, what I see and what I read is, you know, you know, workers are really, you know, in control, you know they're in short supply and it's a time where I think organizations really need to listen and see how they can better meet the workforce. I think one of the things I continue to hear and I know you had shared with us Doris about the, the demographics of those that you serve, you know, so severely mentally ill behavioral issues. Many of the workforce itself is also experiencing this on their own right at a different level. So we've heard often about fatigue, we've heard about burnout we've heard about, you know, alcoholism spiking and there's just so much going on as we all continue to carry the weight of this uncertainty, you know, and so I can only imagine that not only your staff but all staff, the entire workforce across the nation, you know, we're all struggling with their own challenges and coping and resources. I even heard on the news lately, you know, therapy and counseling has gone up significantly, so much so that the waiting time to get on to, you know, a counselor or therapist books, sometimes is not until next year we're talking January of 22. And so that's, that's really trying and really, gosh, it's just heavy right, it's really heavy for so many of us. But as we talk through this there are silver linings there are good happening. And so I would love for us to take a look at how are you recognizing opportunities when they arise and what have they been. Well, I think, you know, it's far from business as usual. As usual anymore. Right, define that. And that in and of itself, you know, has been an opportunity for us to, to again, you know, take a step back and kind of reevaluate, you know, why are we doing things the way that we're doing. We're going to have ongoing flexibility for staff where we're able to, where their positions allow to continue, really a hybrid model where some days in the office some days at home. We've, we've offered some like schedules, you know, not everybody has to work five days a week we've offered the four 10s and we've even done some, you know, in a two week period where you work nine days. So just offering different options to people and I think we were never really able to do that because because of the telehealth really was not at the place where it is now so as we staff up as we get our organization healed a little bit I think those will be ongoing opportunities that will be able to offer more and more. There's a lot of relief dollars out there available so just trying to figure out how we as an organization might be able to tap into those resources. There's grant opportunities. More dollars from the American rescue plan that will be coming down. So we're looking at our facilities, you know, are we using our facilities to the best use. Do we have too much space now that you know people are working at home. Do we consolidate so lots of things I think that that we're able to do that are really setting us up for for growth in the future. Have you seen technology. One of the things we continue to talk about is really the advancement of technology. I've said Julie and I have said that you know of coven the pandemic and hit even two years ago or three years ago we don't know that we would have been equipped in a technological standpoint to really provide the services. Now your services are also with this telehealth so how has technology been an opportunity or has it been a challenge. It's both. Yeah, yeah, I mean we've seen huge opportunities with telehealth and I think you're right. I think if this had happened a few years earlier, we probably wouldn't have had enough laptops to provide our staff with to work from home, you know at the time that we needed it. So, I, I credit our focus on technology. We've always been an organization that's focused on advancing technology. So I think that was part of what prepared us for that but part of it was also just timing, and we had just ordered a lot of laptops to use in our training for our new hires. And so we were able to pull all those laptops out get them set up, and our it department was was great but the fun one of the funny stories. During the time was, you know I was sitting with our chief information officer and we were going through all this and he's like okay okay yeah we can do that we can do that. And he's like, by when. Yesterday. Right by yesterday. So, so that was that was just a fun story but then on the for our clients, I think there's both opportunity and challenge with with it on that side as well some of our, our members and our clients have really embraced the telehealth and telephone services, you know they don't have to worry about transportation. They don't have to take a half a day, you know to come into the office and have an appointment. And then others, you know because we do serve members with limited resources, many of them don't have the technology available to them they don't have the laptops they don't have internet. So, there's still, you know, there's still things we can do you know we can have those members come into one of our clinics, and see one of our staff that is working remotely but it has presented some challenges and that way. You know this has been a fast, pardon me fascinating conversation on many levels, I think your personal personal journey of leadership and your education and the way the lens with which you lead, I think that's fascinating. But I think the thing that's so riveting is that even a leader with 20 years experience within the organization, eight weeks before a calamitous situation. It's fascinating that you have been able. It seems like successfully manage this. And it's the hits keep coming as they say, you know, like the labor when we were talking when we first started almost two years ago. Everybody was like the experts that we had on were like, don't let go of your job because you'll never find another and I mean, isn't that true Jarrett. Yeah. So many things so it's been really exciting to hear your perspective and your success. What an amazing thing I think we need to sit down and figure out where we can have you back on and like another eight to 10 months to figure out okay. So what has also come about. What are some of these things that occurred, because we will have those hopefully those recovery dollars coming back in. And again, I feel like that's going to really put a whole new layer of opportunity and stress on organizations. You know, and that's still being defined and everything but still I think built back better it's going to be a huge, huge. Yes, and it's, it's kind of funny, even with that, Julia, because there are lots of opportunities out there but being short staffed it's hard to you know, find the resources to apply for those opportunities so it's definitely it's definitely a juggling act but I'd love to come back I really enjoyed speaking with you this morning. Well, it's just been great and you know I have to say Doris, when I know there are leaders like you in my community. I'm doing the hard work during the work that I could never do, nor even understand it is it like makes me realize how blessed we are to and loving loving the work that you do with so much passion is. It's hard to come by but it definitely shines through with you so thank you for all that you do and continue to do your leadership is needed during this time so. Thank you for spending some of your very valuable time with us today and to join us here on the nonprofit show. Thank you very much I appreciate it and just a quick shout out to my team members and all of our team members here at life well because they really do the hard work that makes a difference in people's lives so. So we're very proud of the work that we do. It shows and you know it's it's good to work, it's easy to work hard harder when you have a good leader. I think that's one of those things. Hey we've had a great great episode, I always love all of our episodes Jared, but today I'm really engaged in a new and different way of thinking about leadership. It's been fabulous. Again, we want to thank all of our partners in our new sponsor this without their buy in and commitment to us, we wouldn't be able to have these amazing conversations so we hope you've been as inspired. Thank you so much for today, as you are hopefully every day, but this is one of those times when we need to remember some of these lessons that we've talked about. Wow, Jared, I love love love these conversations you know I'm a leadership geek and so this has been great. It's been wonderful. Thanks again to everyone that has joined us I hope you will come back and join us again tomorrow. Until then, we will sign off the way we sign off each and every episode by asking you to please stay well, so you can do well. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you tomorrow.