 Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad that you're here. Today is my absolute favorite episode day. It's Friday, Friday, which is our ask and answer. We're so grateful to have Fundraising Academy at National University here to support us each and every Friday. I love MUJI that no one yet from the Fundraising Academy team has told me to stop referring to it as Friday, ask and answer. I really appreciate that. Today, we do have back with us, MUJI Kwaja joining us. MUJI is a trainer, as I said last week, the trainer, but he's one of the amazing trainers there at Fundraising Academy. He's also co-founder of the American Muslim Community Foundation and brings to us years of experience in the sector, a really good perspective and lens from all of your lived experiences. They're really excited to have you here. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. We also want to give a great shout out to our amazing presenting sponsors that have allowed us the opportunity to have these conversations. Thank you to our friends over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, again Fundraising Academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. These companies, many of them, have been with us for this four-year journey. Thank you so much for their support. Really honored to have them with their help. They have helped us to expand where you can find our content. All of this is free, more than 800 episodes. The latest and greatest is the app. Go ahead and take out your smartphone now, scan that QR and you can download the app or you could just go to App Store and pull up the non-profit show, as well as the streaming broadcast and podcast. Because I have a big road trip coming up myself, I'm going to have to make sure to tune into some of our podcasts that we've done. I'm looking forward to that. Hey, would you mind me telling us a little bit about what's coming up here in June, which is literally right around the corner in San Diego? Yeah, next week. It's crazy that it's already here. In San Diego, you go together live. If you are close by and still many get out professional development budget, the registration is only $99. I highly recommend you come spend the day with us to learn best practices around bug-raising and the relationship building. We're really excited to be hosting in person again. Me too. I'm excited to be there. As you can see, the theme is cultivate. It's going to be a really good one. It's an all-day conference, inaugural conference. So come join us in San Diego. We will be there where I'll be broadcasting live both days, Thursday, as well as our Friday. There, Muhy will be joining me as well as LaShonda. So I'm excited for that. Well, without further ado, we now have our questions. So you know how this rolls, Muhy, but for our viewers and listeners, we do have a series of questions that have come in from you, our amazing viewers and listeners. I will read them aloud. Muhy will jump in with his lived experiences and I will likely add to that as well. So we're going to start off here in Boise, Idaho from Rich. We are trying to get our board members to meet IRL in real life and not only on Zoom. They are a bit resistant to this. We could use some advice on how to bring them back to our campus. Muhy, this is not a new question. I feel like I've heard this over the last 18 months from a lot of different clients. What are you hearing about this? Yeah, I think in terms of creating a hybrid opportunity might make sense, letting people know that they can come in person and you may get a few people who want that in-person interaction. I think there's a big benefit to a board meeting in person, even if it's only once a month, I'm sorry, once a year. I don't know how often these board meetings are. If they're quarterly, if they're monthly, it might be a bit much for their calendars to schedule in the time to drive into the campus and leave. Our daily lives have changed so much since COVID. There is great value in the camaraderie, in the networking, in the ability to sit face to face. But I think sharing some more on what is the draw to come to campus and encouraging that and maybe setting precedent that the board chair or the leadership team are in person and leading by example with it. Yeah, great response. I love meeting in person. I really like and appreciate your answer to at least come together once a year, maybe for an annual meeting. I have seen, as I said, this question come across several times for many of our clients and I recently presented to a board and it was all about how to increase their board engagement. And what I really appreciated was the conversation went to a place where the entire board membership shared their thoughts on what engagement looks like to them and how they were willing to show up in their position. And so I really appreciated that. Another big thing that came up for this and I'll just share because for Rich, maybe it's applicable to this as well. Maybe they're showing up on Zoom but they're showing up without their cameras on, right? And that's been another big one I know. And so maybe having a conversation about what engagement looks like for the board and how you want to set that culture of engagement, I think just resets that expectation for everyone. So I do appreciate having the option for Zoom meetings. And so I'm one of those that's like, the hybrid is a good transition, I think. So Rich, we wish you the best. I think when it comes down to it, it really is that engagement and how can you best support and work with one another? So we're all struggling right now with this of what is that new normal? Which we talked about a couple of years ago. So good stuff there. Well, this is from my local community and I don't know who sent this in but we are going to absolutely answer this for you. I was a volunteer at an event and I saw an employee act poorly with another volunteer. They were super dismissive and actually offensive. Is there any way I should report this and who would I even talk to about this? Interesting. What do you think, Muhy? Yeah, my first thought is like, who's the volunteer coordinator? Hopefully that isn't the employee that was acting poorly with another volunteer. But bringing it up to somebody in the senior leadership of the organization, if you are familiar with other people at the org. Yeah, those things should never happen. It's unfortunate that it did, especially at an event where other people could see. Yeah, I'm in agreement, not sure who the volunteer coordinator is, manager, but whoever's the one responsible for the volunteers themselves, I think would be the right person. And hopefully it wasn't that person, as Muhy mentioned to you. And yeah, if there was maybe a volunteer survey that came out and they asked for any other comments, that could be a place where you could mention it. And as Muhy mentioned, maybe even going to that senior leadership, the development person, development director, I would want to know as an organizational leader that something like this has taken place because that could also inhibit the engagement moving forward, not only with that volunteer, but you as the one who witnessed this, if it's not handled, as well as other observers who have witnessed this. And so I think really, I come from a place of transparent communication. And so I really think having that transparency and being just upfront that this is what you observed, it was of concern for you and you wanted to bring it to their attention, I think is definitely worthwhile. So yeah. Well, sorry that happened. I know that oftentimes stress is high at some of these events, but still, right? There's still some manners, I think to uphold. So all right. So here you are in Chicago, Muhy, name withheld. I think our finance department should be sharing more financial information about our entire organization and not just our revenue side of things. This seems controversial for some reason. However, I truly believe we all need to know about the financial help of our nonprofit in order to serve thoughts. Ooh, this is a packed one, Muhy, take it away. Yeah, so a few initial things come to mind. Every organization has to file a 990. So there are statements in there that you can share publicly. And I think if an organization is creating an annual report, it is part of the due diligence to be reporting expenses. So I think there are certain ways in various formats that you can be sharing that information. And I would say it's a best practice to be including that in your reports. Yeah, I agree. I love a 990, right? Like that is just good nerd material. We could nerd out on that probably for hours because there's many, many, many pages. And I would say to the board reports have the financial information. So I'm not sure your position in the organization. Maybe you're not in attendance of the board meetings. Maybe your supervisor's not sharing some of this information and it could be shared with other levels within the organization. So without knowing truly the position and kind of what you're looking for, I do understand, right? Like that revenue and the expense really helps to shape that full picture and not just seeing one lens of it. So I feel you and I hope that this provides some answers to you. And I would say, go to the finance department first of all and ask them, is there any way that you could receive these expenses, see what they are and just go from there from an inquisitive curious place. So hopefully that will help shore up some answers for you, some curiosity. All right, we're moving over to Tampa. Jason, I like this one. This is probably one of my favorite ones for today, Muhe. But Jason says, I do not have a college education but I want to grow my fundraising position within the nonprofit sector. Honestly, how much will not having a degree hinder my advancement in the nonprofit sector? What do you think? This is really interesting. I think that there's a lot of ways in which you can still get a lot of experience. Whether you want to do a certificate program in nonprofit leadership or specifically in fundraising, there's a whole host of resources. Of course, even fundraising Academy has free monthly webinars for you to learn these best practices of fundraising. But I would say it's probably organization dependent. In job descriptions, yeah, there's still a lot around requiring a bachelor's or even having a master's preferred. But in other industries, it's not as common anymore. I wonder if the nonprofit sector will catch on that trend or not. But I would say it's not necessarily necessary. Find mentors who have been in fundraising if you can be in a position and if you are currently and you want to expand further down the line, see what professional development opportunities there are within your organization to move forward. So if you're currently working in an organization where you don't have a degree, it shouldn't limit you in moving forward. Yeah, I agree. I did take a traditional route. I didn't go through nonprofit management as an undergrad. I actually went through mass communication and theater as an undergrad. And then I went on to earn my master's in business administration. But I will tell you as someone who often is a decision maker in hiring development team members, I don't always look for a degree. I look for that natural ability to build relationships, to have conversations, to speak passionately. And there's two questions I always ask and I love to ask them. The first one is what do you love to do? And the second one is what are you great at doing? And you could have different answers to those or it could be the same. But it kind of takes us to that. I'm now remembering Moohi, our icky guy, conversation and episode. And it's like, find that passion. And if serving in a nonprofit and a fundraising space is passion for you, I think you will be extremely successful. There is so much opportunity for advancement in the education realm of this, fundraising academy, absolutely. We here have tons of episodes you can go back and listen to. I've done some executive coaching at Moohi and I just love this one answer from one of my previous clients. She says, I have Googled my way through my career of being an executive director of a nonprofit. And we laugh because we know it's true. Like there's so much out there to really get our hands on. There's a lot of information. So I'm not one to, I did take the traditional route but I'm not one to say that's the only route to take these days. So I think there's tons of opportunities for you, Jason. And hey, maybe you can still make it to the Fundraising Academy Cultivate Conference June 1. Yeah, even like resource groups like Association of Fundraising Professionals get a mentor there. There's so many ways in which you can still further your career. I'm so glad you mentioned AFP. Early in my career, I did the mentor program and you're paired. So Jason, for this, you're paired with a CFRE, a Certified Fundraising Executive. And so they really work with you. And I still keep in touch with my mentor from that opportunity. So I'm glad you mentioned that. The other group that I personally enjoy is YNPN, Young Nonprofit Professional Networks. And the youngest objective. So Jason, I'm not sure you're age but don't let that hinder you from getting involved. So it really, for our chapter here in the Phoenix community, it's really about young in the career, young in the tenure, the space of non-profit. So it's not necessarily your birth date. But good stuff. And hey, I welcome you to the sector and in fundraising, we need so many good, passionate people. Moe, you are one of those good, passionate people and it's always so great to have these dialogues with you. I learn from you each and every time and I really appreciate seeing your lens and your perspective of your career on these answers. So, Moe, thank you for joining us. And for those of you watching or listening, Moe Kwaja and look at these, I always love it. MPA, CFRE and CFRM. Moe is also a trainer at Fundraising Academy, National University and will be in San Diego, June 1 for the Cultivate Conference. So, Moe, thank you. It's always so great to spend any time with you. Also wanna thank our presenting sponsors. So thank you so much to Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit thought leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, non-profit nerd and non-profit tech talk. These organizations help us get through some of the greatest challenges that we've been faced over the last three years and we are so grateful to have their support. Moe, do you have anything fun planned for this weekend? You know, I've been traveling the world and now I'm just gonna be with family for Memorial Day weekend. And I think that's a great way to spend it. So I'll just be on some family time and enjoying it. It's always great being here with you, Jared. And I look forward to next week as well. Yeah, absolutely. I will see you next week. And thank you for all of you that joined us today. Have a wonderful, safe Memorial Day weekend. We are taking Monday off, so we will not be on here Monday. But as we end every episode, we ask you, invite you remind you to please stay well so you can do well. Thank you, Moe.