 Welcome and happy six hundred. This is our six hundred episode. Yeah, the nonprofit show thrilled that you're here to join us again. You know, each and every day, Julie and I have shown up live and really just love being of service with you and for you in our community. So today we have Colton Strasser with us and Colton's going to talk to us about nonprofits as community leaders. So stay tuned. Right before we dive into this conversation, we of course want to make sure and honor ourselves. So thank you to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit. And it weren't for you and your idea of saying, Hey, let's do this thing. It'll last only two weeks. And here we are now dealing with monkey pox on top of COVID right so it's a little bit of everything, but I'm honored to serve alongside you as your co host. I'm Jarrett ransom the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group. And we also have to say thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors that have allowed us to reach the 600th episode milestone. So thank you so very much to blooming American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy with the National University nonprofit nerd, your part time controller staffing boutique and the nonprofit thought leader. I really need to say thank you thank you thank you much as gracias for all of these companies because they really have invested, not only in us and these episodes but you, your communities, your mission and everyone that you serve so thank you so very much. If you missed any of our episodes you can find them on Roku YouTube fire TV as well as Vimeo, and not long ago we bifurcated into podcast so if you're a part podcast listener, go ahead and queue up the nonprofit show wherever you stream your podcast would also love a review a lot of one of course that is. But yes it's been fantastic. And again, congratulations Colton I feel like Ed McMahon and I've showed up to this huge check. I, as I said I wish that we had confetti and balloons falling from the ceiling but we are so honored that you are here with us today. So welcome my friend. Yeah thanks for having me. Absolutely tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your consulting. My name is Dr Colton Strasser. I am a pracidemic, which means I'm a practitioner and an academic. So I started my career in the nonprofit sector working with smaller nonprofit organizations and rural communities throughout Indiana. I'm an education education, I worked at some foundations and that's time span and I was a professor. I still teach online at a university I teach nonprofit governance and fundraising as well. And yeah I do research now have a consulting firm based in Texas were a team of five, hopefully six soon. So it's a lot of fun we also have a senior vice president, my mini golden doodle Jojo, who you'll often see on our social media so she wanted me to give her a shout out or she was going to report me to HR and she's also at HR so a lot going on there. Well, pause up to Jojo that is fantastic. And I did see on LinkedIn that you were hiring another person to join your team so congratulations on the growth, the success and all that you do. I love what you called yourself now. Tell me what it was again it was a. It's a pracidemic, pracidemic that is fantastic. Yeah, is there a vaccine for that. You know, not yet there really should be there's a support group though so if you support group. Well, we are thrilled to learn from you Colton so again thank you. And I have to share as well that we've met through another consulting agency. And so we are of similar minds of collaborating with others to really support our community at large. But today we're going to talk about community leadership and how you know that really, I don't know just kind of flows within all that we do so dive in the deep end with us here tell us about community leadership. So my background is with community foundations and you know there's a three legged stool there's the grant making the fundraising and the community leadership. And so community leadership was actually added to the community foundation model and probably the 1990s, even though community foundations were created in the early 1900s. So they kind of added this late and they're like we're community leaders, and for years have been like what does that mean. And so my PhD is actually in leadership studies and as I was looking to write my dissertation. I told a professor who wrote the book on leadership. And like, I'm going to say community leadership and she just looked at me she's like what is that and I'm like oh, so I'm like we got some work to do apparently so you know basically community leadership for many many years was just like showing up. It was attendance. It was looking at things it was saying, you know we often label like if you go to any nonprofit but I who are your community leaders. They're pretty much going to list some business owners some elected officials and some rich white people. So, you know, I thought that was not great. So we needed to come up with a different model or really taking what people said they thought was community leadership and adding some definition behind it so you know there's a lot of different aspects to it where you're actually achieving something. I have my little cheat sheet book here to read to you my little definition, but when it comes to community foundations, community foundations act as a community leader, when they engage individuals or groups within a particular community to collectively establish goals, guides them towards the achievement of those goals to achieve a civic outcome. And so when we talk about evaluation and all this other stuff, really making sure that, you know, community leaders, like community leaders actually have to do something to be a community leader. It's not this like blessed, you know, appointment that you know you just give yourself so that's kind of what my research started with. You know, it's just so interesting to hear you talk about this because I think a lot of times, we have thought you can't be a community leader until you've gone through a certain trajectory or had history in your community. But it sounds like what you're advocating is something that we can educate ourselves in we can be young and maybe singularly focused. Would that be a better, would that be accurate. Yeah, so I think if you think beyond sort of the self appointed community leaders, you know there's, you know, the person on your street that just like knows everything like it brings the community together. You know, really advocates for things, you know, people can be community leaders in different ways and so I think within the nonprofit sector, you know nonprofits, you know, worth trying to be community leaders at some point. Other times they're just kind of go with the flow. They think if I ever made small and quiet no one will like hate me. And I always say, you know, the number one thing I always hear from nonprofits is we don't want to make our donors angry. If they tell me that I said well I guess we know who controls your agency then don't we. And then, you know, they're like, Oh, and so community leadership really, you know, the way I describe it really embraces that, you know, being bold being courageous. You know, you're not going to be able to change something if you're just quiet about it. Hope is not a strategy. So, you know really working to embrace these components of community leadership, which are civic leadership, collective leadership and community engagement. So you combine all that together civic leadership being you are focused on this particular community or place, collective leadership you're working together to make a change, and then community engagement which is more than just showing up actually being part of your community building capacity. When you put it all together that makes you a community leader, and that's what makes you effective. And within my research actually everyone that embraced that community leadership framework raised more money. People like we're going to make our donors upset. Maybe, but you're probably going to get some better ones back so go forth and you know be the change, rather than just sitting there. So I love the end of your statement that you read for us and I'm paraphrasing but I know you have it in front of you and it's really for the better good of the civic community. Could you just phrase that or say that again. Yeah, so basically the shorter version of community leadership is actually working together with your community to identify an issue, and then to address it. And so that means addressing it collectively so rather than you just a little organization doing what you do. So my former bosses is doing an evaluation and they asked the nonprofit have you done a needs assessment, and their response is well they don't know what they need. And I'm like, I got some questions. So, you know, really looking at including the community, whatever that community means whether it's, you know, community of, you know, geographic faith, the identity whatever that community gains. There's over 80 definitions of community out there so you know there's there's a lot done back but you know really bringing people together to achieve, you know, a common goal. So it sounds like to some people rocket science like they're like, Why are we doing that already I'm like, Yeah, we're kind of not really doing that we are a little bit. So my argument is be bold be courageous. I just did a talk called the bold brave nonprofit. And, you know, if you're going to change a systemic problem, you need to change the system, and you can't just change the system by being like, please change. You got to get in there and do something about it. And I'm curious why we don't discuss community leadership and you mentioned this Colton by saying, you know, well if we upset your donors I guess we know who runs this agency. I just had this conversation with a client of mine that during June they recognize LGBTQ and you know just pride month, and they they had some disgruntled donors. So there was a very small population of disgruntled donors that you know actually spoke up. So why don't we discuss community leadership at this broader level. Yeah I think primarily it's like the donor hesitation. You know there, I think nonprofits have come afraid to have an opinion, which my argument is your mission statements inherently controversial. Your organization was created because you saw the problem and you're trying to address that problem. So really saying, you know, oh neutrality and you know I say neutrality now is a choice and it's not a very good one, because people will call you out on your silence. And, you know, yeah you might support something but, you know, I just like that example you gave, you know, it happens, but I always find that, you know, the few voices and few people you're afraid to upset are really the people are getting in the way of your progress, like sure they bankroll you but if your donors are helping to fund an organization that's maintaining the status quo. And so I find that in every agency I've spoke with about community leadership and my dissertation, I said did you upset any donors they're like oh yeah, I'm like okay did you get more donors that mm hmm. And did you make more money. Absolutely. I'm like, do more people know about you in the community. Yeah we actually stand for something now. And so it just really shifted it. You know I've heard some stories of people upsetting folks but you know it's, you got to ask yourself why are we upsetting these people. And then, are they even a good donor for you in the first place, because a nonprofit can have bad donors, you know, not all money is good money. And so I think that's where I'm wanting the conversation to go versus the, well they give us a million dollars every year we can't celebrate pride month. No, no. I see that as your next episode, not all money is good money. You know, it's interesting. I think that it is really an important aspect to ask yourself the question. What is it that you're going to tolerate on the fundraising side, in order to supposedly navigate forward. And that's a big, you know, as we say in my family, Vanga Jesus moment, where you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, Are we going to do this or are we not and it seems to me Colton that this might be generated through a gifts policy. Yeah, or not. So, you know nonprofits have donation acceptance policies, I'd like them to accept a donor acceptance policy, you know, what type of person are you going to take and not take. And I've worked at some places where we've had some donors or I'm like, Why, why are we entertaining them, you know, and then some places I've been at we've said no right now we're good. Thank you. Give to someone else. So it's just sort of figuring out how much, how much pain are you willing to tolerate or how many flaming hoops is your organization willing to jump through in order to get $10,000, $100,000, you know, running that, you know, American Ninja Warrior race to get just 10,000 at the end. It's not really worth it sometimes, you know, it's easier to go, just spend some time doing some other stuff because sometimes pain is not gained within the fundraising space. You are so right. And yeah, go ahead Julia and I'll tag on later. A follow up question to that is how many nonprofits are you seeing thinking about this before they have to think about it or address it. Is there is this just something that's more reactionary. Yes, so, I don't know, it's a little bit of both. I always say if your organization is not going to be a community leader, someone else will, and then your relevance is limited. So, you know, I said that in front of a group of 800 people last week and you could just said, ooh. So with that, by that I mean, you know, if someone we're seeing some of these new organizations like national organizations kind of step up and like take a stance. We're like, oh, well they've been doing that for 30 years but they haven't said that out loud. So, you know, sometimes the voiceless growing groups are achieving more than, you know, the sort of old guard status quo, you know, people send us big checks versus, you know, trying to engage new generations of donors. You know, I feel like some of those older nonprofits are sort of used to the silence. And, you know, I think with younger donors are like, No, I'm going to have an opinion I'm going to tell you. You know, I'm like, we're finally talking about things and unpacking it versus, you know, some other nonprofits just have like a storage room of luggage and baggage that they're just holding on to like, and we're not going to open that. You know, and so Pandora's box is sitting somewhere out there at nonprofit closets everywhere so. You're so right. How do we, if we are sitting in an organization that is not really ready to, you know, open up that old baggage closet. How might we change that like in engaging conversation what can we do to kind of be the one that pushes the envelope, you know, more and more and more. Yeah, so for a nonprofit to get involved in community leadership, I just don't like roll out a red carpet and hang a banner. You know, really, it's all about doing the research, you know, doing a community needs assessment. We work with a lot of different organizations, particularly community foundations because this is kind of what they're committed to some do a better than others but, you know, looking at what is the data in the space. Understanding how to be an informed leader. So collecting that data, engaging the community. So whether you're doing community surveys whether you're attending conversations. You know, being a community leader doesn't mean you're the loudest in the room. Oftentimes it means you're just paying attention to things making connections connecting dots, pushing things forward, and then asking really good questions. You know, asking questions is hard. I took multiple courses on it in my PhD program on how to ask a good question. And so trying to figure out how to communicate well with people. Because when you're unpacking social issues you don't want to ask well why did you do that, you know, so they're going to get all defensive and so, you know, thinking about well what are some better ways. You know, what are better approaches that we can maybe take to this or, you know, have we thought about doing this or looking to see what other communities elsewhere are doing, and just kind of being the, the devil's advocate with like angelic tone is kind of important in this process. That's, that's a great, great. Yeah, yeah, definition for that. So let's go to what some might think is the basic like leadership is dot dot dot right like how would you define that Colton. Yeah, so like community there's like 800 styles of leadership. So there's good leadership there's bad leadership. There's mediocre leadership. So with leadership, I define it as an action result in a process. So in some cases being bold making a decision, you know, taking a leadership action, whether it's large or small. I think oftentimes leadership is kind of like a dirty word because we feel like only certain people can be leaders. It's the same thing with sort of philanthropists only certain people can be philanthropist. I worked at an organization where we had a philanthropy program for preschoolers. So, you know, it's, it's something everyone can do, and the same thing applies to leadership so it can be an action leadership can be a process, you know, it's not going to work every time there's no magic wand. And then sometimes, you know, getting results is leadership. So, you know, it's not this, you know, leadership is both. Yeah, it's both a noun and a verb. So it's both a person and it's also a thing that you can do. So, you know, it's, it's sort of this weird thing that changes meaning over time. And that anyone can practice leadership skills they can become a leader nonprofits can practice those skills and become leaders. There are some nonprofits in my community I would say you have no leadership role right now. And there's some that I'm like you have a great leadership role, then every once in a while I'm like you're kind of hogging the mic you have too big of a leadership role so you have to be mindful of your size and volume. Because you don't want to be the all things to all people the only place where people go, because then you kind of create sort of this weird hierarchy type thing, but you don't want to do so you want to want to share that leadership wealth with others. That is a fine balance how do you recommend that you know we find that balance in the space what are you seeing that works well. So nonprofits or nonprofit organizations are specialists in their own right on their mission. So, yeah, if you're going to practice community leadership as an early childhood education organization. You know, really collecting what it means to be kindergarten ready, having that data, bringing in, you know, different community members to have conversations about maybe how we can connect to different things. Also, social issues are connected. You know, if you care about, you know, food insecurity, you care about veterans you care about mental health, you should also care about affordable housing. You know it's all ends up being linked all together so you know what nonprofits can do is figure out how does their issue early childhood education. How does that connect to an economic issue. I worked with the community foundation where we had an early childhood education program, and we were able to say well this is the economic cost of not having childcare. Here's the cost benefit of having it. And so framing things in different ways to get people to understand it. I was working on a bill recently with a nonprofit, and they're like, Oh, well this is blah blah blah I'm like no you're in a red state how does this improve the economy. I'm like, you got to piece multiple perspectives. And it's the same thing with fundraising some people care about those numbers they're like let me see your impact others are like oh just tell me a story and I'll write you a check. So you got to do a little both. And same thing goes with community leadership is, you know, having a little bit of data, a little bit of story a little bit impact. That's what's going to kind of get people to be on your side but it goes back to having a goal. And, you know, having a goal of leadership and what you want to achieve is definitely important part as well. Professor we don't have much time left but I'm really curious it seems to me that nonprofits within each sector have a hard time working together and collaborating. And that seems like a big leadership issue. Do you have any words of wisdom for us on that. Yeah, so I think part of the challenge is nonprofits for a while have seen each other as a threat. The foundation we call it the fundraising hunger games, where people are just willing to, you know, roll over a different organization to get the money. And I think, you know, collaboration and collective impact which I talked a little bit about in my report is sort of the way to get things done. You know, you're not going to improve one thing without improving the other that whole, you know, rising tide lifts off boats. It applies really well to the nonprofit social sector, where, you know, yeah we can have all the affordable housing in the world but if we don't have like job training food, you know, food pantries like all these other things. You know, you're then going to get out of poverty. So that's why sort of these comprehensive wraparound approaches are becoming really successful is because you have multiple agencies multiple things working together, versus the everybody for themselves. Shocker nonprofits share a lot of the same clients. So, like, y'all see the same people. So maybe you should work together to address some things comprehensively. Well and just as you said if there's an if there's an educational issue there's an affordable housing there's a lack of, you know, food security and access. We have a question that came in from one of our viewers so I'm going to read it aloud for you. I know we're kind of shorting up our time here but they write in and want to know are you seeing white folks, especially men stepping aside so more black and indigenous leaders can be heard and get heard. What are you seeing in your space for this. Yeah, that's a lot. Let's unpack that in like two minutes. I have seen some organizations do a really good job at, you know, creating additional opportunities. One foundation in California actually started initiative for black led organizations to help them become stronger agencies get capacity building get that leadership training. And so there there's definitely opportunities to have that happen. You know, there aren't necessarily a lot of examples where I've seen the stepping aside of sort of, you know, the white man. I say that as one of them. And so, you know, I think that's sort of the thing I'm looking at to is now that I have sort of this methodology I guess of community leadership and this definition, really looking to see how it applies in other contexts. So I think it can be done. I think it should be done. But, you know, figuring out how to, I think, enhance the work that's already happening within communities of color with this model. You know, hopefully there'll be more success versus some of the agencies that aren't really taking on a stance and so I think there's hope within a community leadership model, and you know, be an early adopter and you know, it'll be great. Absolutely. And this is a friend to our north, the Canadian friend of ours that joins us quite often. So thank you for this question. Well, let's pull up Dr. Colton Strausser's information. I would love to know Colton what your professor said once they read your thesis or your, you know, dissertation. Yeah, thank you. So I actually took her leadership definition and I changed it and she gave me permission to do that. Okay, I'm like that and yeah so I had that I'm like yes and and so she's been a real good champion for me. So, you know, I'm just her book on leadership her name's Austin a not have on the, and she's just amazing read her stuff she's great. She just wrote a new book on cultural competency and leadership so you might want to check that out. Yeah, so it was a fun conversation and she wrote it back she's like me I'll do. And so I, I've been testing it out and it seems to be working so I'm sticking, sticking my stake in the ground and saying this is what community leadership is. I love it and you, you put your stake in the ground here for our 600th episode, you heard it from our very favorite and maybe only prachademic that we've had on our show in the 600 episodes so Colton. Thank you so very much for being you and all that you do to lead within our community across the globe so thanks for sharing this with us today it's been a wonderful conversation. Yeah, well thanks for having me for number 600 I look forward to 600 more. Thank you. Me too. You know, it's gone by quickly we, Jared and I have been very open about how we thought this was going to be a limited thing and that it's really just captured the imagination of our communities ourselves. I was getting on a flight the other day and somebody recognized me from the nonprofit show. I mean it was it's really been an interesting thing and it's because we have people like you that come on, give us a lot of good ideas, share their wisdom and so we're incredibly grateful. Again, if you don't know or you have forgotten who we are, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy have been joined today. And I am so grateful, Jared, that you are here day in and day out the CEO of the Raven Group, Jared Ransom. You know, I called Jared the Friday that the nation closed down and I said hey, sister I got this idea. We really didn't know each other that much. Can you be ready to go on Monday? We'll try this out. We had four viewers. One of them was Jared's dear mother and it's grown from there. So, Jared Ransom, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's been a fun journey. It has been and you've been a delight. Again, we want to thank all of these folks, many who have been with us from that very, very beginning. I want to give a shout out to Katie Warnick of Staffing Boutique. She picked up the phone and called me and said, hey, can I be a sponsor? I've heard about this. And then we were like, oh yeah, okay. And then from there we started getting other calls and we have these folks that have been in with us on this Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, of course the Nonprofit Nerd, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique and Nonprofit Thought Leader. These are the folks that make the difference day in and day out. And as we end every episode, we want to remind ourselves and we want to remind all of our viewers and our listeners to stay well so you can do well. Thanks so much everyone.