The Nonprofit Fix
"The Nonprofit Fix" is a candid and insightful podcast that explores the challenges of the nonprofit sector and its potential to repair our broken world. Join hosts Pete York and Ken Berger, as they delve into the sector's issues, discussing solutions to foster a more effective and impactful nonprofit community.
Opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and not reflective of the hosts' employers.
The Nonprofit Fix
The Nonprofit Survival Guide
The Nonprofit Survival Guide
Welcome to this 2024 culminating episode we are calling The Nonprofit Survival Guide! In this installment, we bring together the insights from our comprehensive series, The Exhausted Sector, and distill them into an actionable survival guide designed for nonprofit professionals navigating the complexities of working with passion and purpose.
The nonprofit sector is one of incredible commitment and dedication, but it often comes with unique challenges that can lead to burnout and disillusionment. After exploring these challenges in depth, we’ve developed a survival guide with ten guiding principles to help you sustain your energy, foster resilience, and amplify your impact in this vital field:
- Humility is Key: Remember, no matter your position, everyone has valuable insights to share. Approach your role with openness and an eagerness to learn.
- Listen Actively: Great ideas often emerge from collaboration. Make space for diverse voices and perspectives.
- Value Fulfillment Over Wealth: Align your work with your passions and talents rather than chasing monetary gains.
- Maintain Work-Life Balance: Protect your personal life and relationships. A rich life outside of work fuels your effectiveness.
- Keep a Sense of Humor: Finding joy and humor in daily challenges can ease stress and build camaraderie.
- Foster Open-Mindedness: Avoid snap judgments and be receptive to ideas from all levels within your organization.
- Embrace Resilience: Understand that success and failure are part of the journey. Learn, adapt, and persevere.
- Treasure Smallness: Appreciate the close-knit dynamics of smaller organizations while bringing a personal touch to larger ones.
- Exercise Responsible Power: Use your influence thoughtfully and stay grounded by listening and collaborating.
- Balance Intuition with Data: Trust your instincts but validate them with thorough analysis.
We conclude with a reminder to assess your organization’s challenges with a strategic lens: start with the most pressing issues and address them with a focused approach. By following these principles, nonprofits can thrive amidst the challenges and create meaningful, sustainable change.
Whether you’re a seasoned executive or new to the nonprofit world, this guide is your companion for navigating the rewarding yet demanding landscape of nonprofit work. Stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to explore new ways to inspire and empower those who make a difference!
Welcome to the Nonprofit Fix a podcast about the nonprofit sector where we talk openly and honestly about the many challenges that face the sector where we will discuss current and future solutions to those challenges where we explore how the nonprofit sector can have much more positive impact in the world.
Speaker 2:A podcast where we believe that once we fix the nonprofit sector, we can much more dramatically help to fix our broken world.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone. Ken Berger here with my friend and colleague Peter York.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody.
Speaker 1:Yes, welcome. So now that we are at episode 15, we are finally concluded with the series of the episodes that we refer to as the exhausted sector, and I'm not going to list the numbers of those episodes Again, you can check the last episode for all of those. But there were about, I don't know, six or seven episodes or more actually, where we covered all of the challenges in the sector and we had some solutions to suggest, some short-term and some long-term ideas for how to address these problems, short-term and some long-term ideas for how to address these problems. But today's episode we are calling, I think, the Nonprofit Survival Guide, because I think this is a good way to round out this conversation, this part of our podcasts, in terms of how do you mitigate, how do you survive against the exhaustion that can come from all of these problems and challenges that we've been chronicling over the series of podcasts we've been doing. And so, a few years, back.
Speaker 1:I want to say how many. A few years back, I want to say how many, when I was a charity navigator, I was asked by LinkedIn to write an article giving advice to my 22-year-old self, or my college self, actually. So what would be the advice? You, as a supposedly seasoned nonprofit manager, what advice would you give to your younger self? And so I wrote this article and a lot of people read it and I thought it was because the article was so compelling. But it actually turned out that I put a picture of myself at 20 in the article and my hair was way down and people thought it looked like Jesus. So this is a whole other story, but at any rate, I still think that the truths that came out in that article still hold true for me today, and it's not just advice for somebody that's in college. I think it's advice that I still try to follow myself. I don't always do, but I think it's useful advice for all of us who struggle to manage and just not just manage, just work in some very challenging environments that many of us face in the nonprofit sector and many, many challenges from outside as well as within our organizations that we've chronicled here. So anyway, so that's meant to be the focus for today, and so I have a number of concepts and a lot of this.
Speaker 1:I think Peter we were talking earlier. Peter was saying it's sort of like a life lessons kind of advice. That may hold true more broadly, but I think they're all the more important when you're in a very high stress, challenging work environment. The first concept is to have humility, and this is whatever your position is, whatever your salary is, your title, whatever never, ever have the view that you think you're smarter, better or in some way the keeper of some unique knowledge or expertise. Because I think and in my experience, that's the way to ultimately isolate yourself and it can lead you on a path that can lead to career destruction and personal exhaustion and you can get pretty miserable. It can be pretty empty, because you're not open to other people in the way that you should be.
Speaker 1:And I have also found, as I've worked through different positions, the quote-unquote and I use this term advisedly the higher you go in terms of your title and your role, the more likely it is you're going to run into people who will tell you how brilliant you are, how talented you are, and give you all kinds of compliments as you become, you know, in a senior position, and I think you should never take that stuff too seriously, never take the notion that you're superior to others, because I think you know that's foolishness. And you know some people may be genuinely giving you that feedback that you may have done some good things, but a lot of times it's not accurate. People are, you know, seeing you as someone in authority and so they're giving you that kind of feedback because they want to, you know, to have your power and influence in a positive way towards them. But even if it is true, the point is in those instances where it is, you know, there's a saying that you know, I believe oftentimes it's the smartest people you know are the people who have the most humble view of how much they know.
Speaker 1:The smarter you are, the more likely it is for you to realize how little you know, that there's so much to know. And so some of my best friends are people who think they're stupid, and I know that they're not. But you know, and I'm not suggesting that you think that you're stupid either but the point is you should have humility about your abilities and about what you can accomplish, and I think that when you have that kind of demeanor and when you have that approach, it also draws people to you because they see that humility and I think they feel safer with you, knowing that you're open in that way. So that's my first concept for survival have humility.
Speaker 2:So along those lines, and one of the thoughts that comes to me is wanting to probe a little bit further on this idea of humility and how it plays out in the nonprofit sector in particular. And I would throw out that as I think about the role of humility, I think a lot of times about why people are motivated to go into the nonprofit sector. Oftentimes it's a very it's a somewhat different motivation If they're intentional about it. Sometimes we go to the nonprofit sector just because of jobs and roles, but there's times we go into the nonprofit sector because we're trying to make a difference, because there's a social impact element. I think it's interesting how sometimes kind of humility plays. It's sometimes challenging, especially in a sector where it's not always about the pay. It's a lot about the impact and the passion or what we're really there to accomplish. It's a lot about the impact and the passion or what we're really there to accomplish, and as such, sometimes it has some unique elements of how it's.
Speaker 2:We all struggle with humility if we just think about the power of our egos and just different things, especially as you rise up the rungs of leadership and everything else.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes because we come into this sector with that kind of social impact mission, if you will, or that impact mission front and center, it becomes a different kind of challenge sometimes because in some ways it also gives us permission, sometimes in our egos, permission to almost say, well, because we're in the sector, we kind of come with this natural disposition to, you know, making a difference in the world, and sometimes there's a certain different kind of unique challenge around humility that I think comes with that. And so I think you know one of the things that's interesting about this concept of humility, I do see it play out a little bit, or potentially play out a little different, in the nonprofit sector, for why we come to it. I know that sometimes when we talk about how long people stay, sometimes how long leaders stay, there's a lot of things there and sometimes it becomes difficult to you know, get that humility. Or there's unique elements. What are your thoughts about kind of you know, especially given your leadership roles in so many nonprofits that what makes it, if at all, unique, our sector unique, or what elements are unique with respect to achieving humility?
Speaker 1:Gosh, wow it's. You know, I know that one of my go-to responses sometimes to some of this is this has been where I've been at. Sometimes to some of this is this has been where I've been at. And so when I try to compare it to other sectors for-profit, public sector, government, what have you? Because I haven't lived there to the same degree, I'm not entirely certain as to what differentiates it. I mean, I think all I can tell you is from my experience in general. It's more. What I've experienced is things like this that you know you get a bigger office. You get more people who are accountable to you and can help or support you. You get more money. You get more benefits. You get more attention.
Speaker 1:People tend to listen to what you have to say more. You know they think you really there's an old song from Fiddler on the Roof. You know. They say when you're rich, they think you really know. It's sort of like you know people turn to you for that and of course, hopefully there is some truth to that that if you're seasoned and you've been in the role for a period of time, you're going to have that some level of knowledge and experience to be valued. But I still turn back to the fact that if you don't have humility, if you don't realize your own limitations and how important it is to engage others, it doesn't lead to good places. And I've seen people who are in these positions who don't have that humility, and you know their ego is it's very hard for anybody else to fit in the room at times because their egos are so large. So I don't know that there's anything, particularly when I think about it.
Speaker 1:Based on my limited knowledge, I don't think of there being anything in particular, necessarily in this particular instance. That's that unique. You know the noble goal of social impact that they are working toward, that you know that they are better than or more compassionate than, more wise than some other person. That can be something of a trapping. That's unique to nonprofits, um, but you know it's funny because more more often than not, the people that I've seen who are the biggest problems in the sector which we sort of covered in in some of the earlier episodes, are people who you know they have very big egos.
Speaker 1:But it's funny because it's typically not so much about social impact, it's more about selfishness, and you know self-promotion. You know selfishness in terms of stealing from companies. You know, just you know cutting costs elsewhere while you know bolstering their own benefits. Those have been the more typical scenarios I've run into that have been the most disturbing, but there's definitely a tendency at time for some people who sort of had this view if you don't hold the views that I have as it relates to the nonprofits and social impact, then you are lesser than I am. I have seen some of that.
Speaker 2:Well, the other piece that I was thinking of as well, and I agree, I think that that's kind of the dimension of it. I think there's another piece to this which is oftentimes I've also experienced and encountered folks who are coming from the private sector or have other experience and then they come to like deign to help a nonprofit. They change their career late in life. It's like now I have time, now I've got the resources, I've been successful, so I'm going to bring all of my success and everything I know how to do in the private sector. This happens in philanthropy a lot and I'm going to come to the nonprofit sector you know this very, this very. It almost counts like a downtrodden sector and I'm going to come and I'm going to give this and it becomes very different and I think there's a lot more of that in the nonprofit sector than we acknowledge, which is folks that are coming in with other experiences.
Speaker 2:I happen to have been in both for-profit, non-profit organizations. It does feel different. Non-profits are often a space where people either come to in the beginning because they just always have that kind of drive and passion for impact, but a lot of folks come to the non-profit sector almost as a way to finally give back because I've done so much. And then they bring their egos in there and think, ah, because I've actually made something of a company that has grown to some size, whether it's locally, regionally, nationally I can now come into the sector and basically bring this wisdom, as if it's the same thing. And there's a certain lack of humility there too that I sometimes see.
Speaker 1:Well, and then the other thing is, I agree with that. And then also, what can happen is, if they do happen to get into leadership positions and if they do not have the sensitivity to some of the differences and some of the requirements that are unique to the nonprofit sector, the quality of the programming that they can provide and the culture of the organizations that they create can be pretty inadequate, let's put it that way. Anyway, they need more humility when they come in. So then, if I can, I'm going to move to the next concept for how to survive, and that is something that of technology, the tools of technology that can help us with data analytics and the like.
Speaker 1:There is a downside, I think, to technology, at times where I think there have been studies and I defer to you on this, peter but where our attention spans seem to be shorter than ever. You know, I think of TikTok and some of these other places where it's like every few seconds you scroll to the next thing. But putting that aside, just more generally, I've had people that I've worked for and with where, after about 20 seconds, you can see their eyes sort of fading. They're not listening anymore, they've left, and if they're not the one doing the talking. They're just not engaged, they don't listen.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think for nonprofits especially certainly when it comes to direct service nonprofits teamwork and getting input from everybody, those team discussions and getting buy-in from everybody is incredibly important and if you're not listening to what your staff are saying, if you're not listening to those you serve adequately, you're really missing the mark and it can help you so much. I think it can help you to survive because you know if it's just about you and what you think, you're getting one perspective, those that are being served, and others. They can come up with an idea or help to evolve an idea and take it to a whole different place and level and solve problems in a way that you might not have even imagined were possible. But you have to have A the humility to know that other people, like we said earlier, have ideas that are of value and to listen, to really listen.
Speaker 2:So I think it's yeah, please go ahead. That you're sharing, ken, are so spot on. I think we have a challenge, though, and I think and you're acknowledging it in the sense that you also talk about how important it is to listen to those we serve I actually think, as a sector and as organizations, I still think we are really not listening to the community, we're really not listening to those we serve as well as we could. So let me be specific. What I mean is that and this is where I think that, when it comes down to it, it's like I still think we have a long way to go to engage all the clients, customers, beneficiaries, whatever you want to call them in terms of being able to get a sense of like what it is they're really needing, really engaging them in program design, engaging them in ways of really listening to what they need. When we're developing, what outcomes we're striving for and what we want to measure as results of success, do we really ask them what they want?
Speaker 2:When it comes to our data, you were talking about technology I think that, in fact, we're not understanding that when we gather, extract information from people as we're serving them, entering all that data into our systems.
Speaker 2:These are people.
Speaker 2:Every row in the data set is a person's story and you're asking them questions.
Speaker 2:Do we really engage them in a way and then help them help us to learn what they're saying?
Speaker 2:So I really do think that there's a large amount of work that still needs to be done in the sector of who we listen to, and the reason I say this is because by not listening to those we serve and the communities we serve better, I believe that a lot of us are basing what we should do and our prioritization of decisions and designs based on our education, based on our experience, based on our biases, if we don't listen.
Speaker 2:So I still think there's a long way we really need to go in terms of listening to the clients, the customers, and I don't just mean extracting data from them, but I actually mean an engaged listening way, and I think that there's when I do work in the data side, we see there's really not good data that listens to the, the, the, those we serve in the communities and and it's getting there's some getting attention on that, but I still think we've got a long way to serve in the communities and it's getting there's some getting attention on that, but I still think we've got a long way to go in the sector on the listening to the community and the clients, yeah, and I know that one of the techniques that some have been promoting is the notion of constituent voice, the notion of beneficiary feedback, and how important that is and how we still, as you say, have a long way to go with that.
Speaker 1:And I guess what I'm also saying is in addition to that, when it comes to I'll give you a scenario you have a janitor in a program that has observed something in the program and has an idea or a way to improve that program. Or you have somebody that's a parent of one of your students that comes up with an idea, their position and, to your point, one of your students uh, in the case of a school, has a suggestion or an idea that, to be as porous as you can be to listen to those suggestions, is incredibly powerful, incredibly important, important and can help the survival, this part of the survival guide, because you can make your organization better than it could ever possibly be. If it's just about one or two people in leadership, and I have to say, just like you said, otherwise, I've got a long way to go. I think most organizations have a long way to go, but I think, if you hold that out as one of the concepts that you try to strive for, it's incredibly important. I think we have.
Speaker 1:You know, when we did our recent strategic plan. You know when we talked about our core values. I think the notion of listening was an important part of that conversation too. But yeah, I agree with you when it comes to those we serve, it's probably one of the areas where oftentimes we're the weakest, ironically when it should be one of the places, one of the first places we go, because those people should be the North Star of everything we do. And so I completely agree. All right, let's go to number three money. You know it's been said that money is the root of all evil. I hear Pink Floyd.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So actually you know well, I won't go into that, but I don't want to go too far down that road.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I didn't mean to distract. Yeah, money, money, money.
Speaker 1:It's all right, but so anyway, it's a tool and it can be used for good and it can be used for not so good. It's a tool, it's not an end, and a job where you feel fulfilled and it allows you to have a meaningful impact is precious. And I would caution people to not get drawn away by the trappings of money to do something other than where your heart is. That's not to say that you shouldn't have a comfortable existence and you shouldn't have adequate money to get through and have a personal life and all the rest of it. But the most important thing is a job that aligns with your interests, your passion and your talent, and it's far more important than having disposable income.
Speaker 1:And you know, I've seen that happen many times. You know my wife and I, back in the day, we were both middle managers at one point and we both were not happy in the jobs we had at the time. And you know, have her to start her own company where she didn't have to manage people because that was not something that she wanted to do. Um, you know. So each person should know what they're, what they're most interested in, what they have the most talent and interest in doing otherwise Sorry. So anyway, but I've seen that happen a lot, where people get led astray by that.
Speaker 1:The good news in some cases is we've had people recently here at Spectrum 360 where they left, went somewhere else and they came back. There was an offer of more pay and benefits, but they were not happy there. And you know, I've seen a lot of people that get stuck and feel caught and stuck in places because of the money. And I would just you know you don't want to look back years later with regret because you sort of got yourself stuck in a holding pattern of not really doing the things of your heart because of money, and it has to be balanced out. As I said, I'm not suggesting that you wear a sackcloth and don't have certain comforts, but it's a question of degree.
Speaker 2:I think that you're bringing up great points and I think that, when it comes down to it, it is a tool, it's not an end. I think, as you talk about it in terms of pay, I do want to bring up that our sector still has work to do with the challenge of you know valuing our work, of you know valuing our work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that. I think you know I mean part of the reality that's unique to the nonprofit sector is the fact that the pay and the benefits are typically not the same as if you were in the for-profit sector or in government, for that matter. You know, sometimes, when it comes to benefits and so forth, yeah, nonprofit sector is often, you know, in third place in terms of the different sectors, and so you know that's all true. But you know it's funny, because when I was in high school, my guidance counselor, when I told her I wanted to go into the nonprofit sector, she said but you'll be poor and you know, for a period of time that was true, but it's not a universal truth and I think increasingly you can have a decent income you sector, and I'm not in any way excusing it or saying we shouldn't advocate for better pay and benefits in the sector.
Speaker 1:I definitely think that somebody who is doing the kind of amazing work that's required and the efforts that's required has, you know, pay that's really minimal is really unacceptable and we should continue to advocate for better pay and benefits. But I guess I'm you know this today is more sort of like your inner workings, of how you view things. And I'm just saying be careful as you go, and perhaps as you go further along and there are opportunities for better pay and benefits Just be careful that you don't end up going astray because the trade-off is such that you lose the passion and the value and the sense of impact that another position might offer you. That's all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I understand that. I'm just to me. I think it's just important that we acknowledge some things. There's another problem. I feel that is inherent to the nonprofit pay. It's so funny because that is the cliche. It's like oh, you're going to go to the nonprofit sector, you're not going to make as much, you're not going to make as much. Oh, you're overly sacrificing. Oh, it's a good thing, your first career has already ended, where you made all your money. Now you can go work for the poor nonprofit sector.
Speaker 2:Part of this is actually facilitated in my mind by also this perpetual culture and we talked about this in a different episode of the way our money comes to the nonprofits. It's really subsidizing. It's the proxy buyer syndrome I've talked about before. It's the idea that a lot of donors don't want a single dollar to go to anything for what they perceive to be the benefit of the beneficiaries. To some point where people like when they find out how much your staffing costs are, which might be 80% of your budget, which is acceptable in the private sector, but in the nonprofit sector is, oh no, we're not going to pay people. So at the end of the day, it's like how the donations come in, how the philanthropy comes in, how overhead is low. All these problems just keep creating and I think we have to talk about it. I completely agree with you. It's a tool, it's not an end.
Speaker 2:I love the nonprofit sector, regardless of the fact that the pay may not be quite as high. Okay, for a lot of the same type of jobs. At the same time, I'm a huge advocate for we've got to stop the madness, because I do believe that if we're ever going to create parity where people say nonprofit for profit, it's not about that, it's about what you want to do. And I want to be able to go to the nonprofit sector and not feel like, oh, I've got to wait for the nonprofit sector until I've established enough money in my bank account by my for profit business or I've got to have a side business or a gig or a side hustle in order to go do it. I'll just volunteer.
Speaker 2:That's the best I can do. That's my work for the nonprofit sector, which, by the way, is another financial factor in all of this, because the value of volunteers and all that kind of stuff. So it is a very listen to some of our past episodes. This is about survival and I completely agree with you in the sense that I hope that nobody makes money and the making of money, the reason you don't do work that is so fantastic that can be done in the nonprofit sector, I think is unique in the nonprofit sector. My only hope is that we also don't lose track of some of what I perceive to be some of the barriers the cultural, sociological and even psychological barriers with the way money is, how nonprofits are funded, as to why we're not doing that, and we should try to change that as well.
Speaker 1:No argument. Just today, I was, you know, more focused on the personal side. Speaking of which, the next item is the importance of having a personal life and this, you know, this relates to having boundaries, setting boundaries around your work life. You know, I've run into people who are very proud of the fact that they work 24-7 and you know, call me anytime, day or night, and I'm, you know, I've worked here late into the evening and that has never impressed me. I think it's unhealthy.
Speaker 1:I think you need to have a personal life in addition to a work life, and that at a certain point, because in my experience in many nonprofits, it's just never-ending flow of challenges that you're going to face and things that you could justifiably work well into the night, day after day after day, where you know we're under-resourced, all the things we've talked about before. I still think, with all of that, it's so important for you know, it's like you know I told you before one of my favorite albums is the Tortoise. It's like slow and steady. You just got to take it in a manner that you also take care of yourself. And so, you know, beyond, you know, I typically say, you know, if I find people who are working more than, let's say, 45, 50 hours a week at most.
Speaker 1:I worry about it and I actually feel like we are doing them a disservice if we expect that to be the norm. We're going to get people sick, we're going to get people alienated, we're going to get people burned out. And you got to pace yourself and that's part A and part B personal life. You know, having other interests, having other things that you do. I was just reading a political writer and he had a bio of things and people in your life and and other ways of of hand, just just having other things going on, let's put it that way. And so for me, you know, one of the things I do is it's like at a certain point every day, I put everything down. Unless it's an emergency, I'm not bringing any of it home with me in my head and in my briefcase. I'm not doing that. I'm going to go home and I'm going to do other things and take care of myself, and so I just can't. I can't say enough how important it is to have those kinds of boundaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're highlighting something, ken, that I think is really important to talk about, which is also you may actually also you may actually drive home at 5, 5.30 every night, work a normal set of hours, but the kind of work that sometimes we do in the nonprofit sector, especially in the human services, direct services, we will often take our clients home with us, we'll take our worries, we'll bring that home with us, and I think there's an element of this that you're talking about too that's really important, which is it's not just about the actual hours you're in the office, so to speak, or hours on the job, but it's also making sure that you can find a way to unplug, and that includes if you're going to find that personal life.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you might need some help, even therapy or other things, to be able to learn how. If you can't, if you're struggling, you're bringing your work home, you're bringing your clients problems home, you're spinning and thinking and worrying about, you know work. That's across all sectors, but I think in the caring sector, especially in specifically human services, a lot of the direct services that we're talking about education, things like that these are stuff that in the nonprofit sector, are also challenging. And then you add on top of that, like we talked about, a lot of people feel that you'll put in the extra hours because of that worry that affects your personal life, you're not going home on time, and I just think the nature of what we do. We really have to be thoughtful about that.
Speaker 1:And actually you know if I could take it a little step further on a personal note, one of the things that I think Peter and I have in common, one of the ways that I think both of us try to also create those boundaries and to try to not carry this stuff. We both, in one way or another, have a practice where we meditate and just try to empty our minds of the stress and the strains. I do it right before I go to bed, because sometimes I'll find when I'm getting ready to go to sleep that the stuff starts, all the stresses and the worries and fears they come creeping in. And, you know, just finding a practice of some kind meditation, prayer, whatever your practice is to have some peace and to put boundaries around these things, I think is incredibly important.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree, more I couldn't agree more Next up, one of my favorites.
Speaker 1:One of my favorites have a sense of humor, have fun, for goodness sake. That was what we first called this podcast. Got to be able to joke around, don't, you know? Laugh in the face of danger. Be fearless, don't worry about it. Joke around, take it easy. Have some fun fearless, don't worry about it, joke around, take it easy, have some fun. I can't say it enough. A lot of times I'm at meetings and people are getting really, really heavy and really serious and sometimes it can really, you know, sort of lift the mood of everybody, and sometimes it also just sort of pulls you back and it's like wait, we're getting way too worked up over this thing. You know, let's take it slow. You know, more often than not things don't turn out as bad as we sometimes fear. Let's just lighten it up a little bit and have some fun. No-transcript, but also just generally to keep it light. I think is really important to help you get through the day.
Speaker 2:A big thing that I remember too from a lot of the work I did when I was on the front lines just having time to eat together for lunch, you know, and just relaxing, checking in with each other, laughing, sometimes even laughing about something that might have happened at work that, just you know, struck your funny bone.
Speaker 2:It's the kind of thing that can really be super helpful.
Speaker 2:It's one of the things, actually, I think, since COVID and I do a lot of work virtually now, that we kind of miss there's an opportunity to like just sit down once in a while, as you were just talking about, and being able to, you know, have group activities and things like that.
Speaker 2:But sometimes it's just a matter of lunch, coffee, 15 minute break together, you know, and take that time to unplug, check in with each other and to the sense of humor point or have fun, you know, really, just you know, take some time and joke around a little bit. Oftentimes, to be able to have some of that sense of humor show up, you have to get to know each other a little bit, obviously with appropriate boundaries, but for the most part you are sharing eight hours a day, five days a week, depending on where you're working and how much you're working, but you're sharing this space together. That's significant. It's good to get together and tell stories and talk a little bit, laugh and get to know each other enough so that you can find those moments of humor For many justifiable reasons.
Speaker 1:There's much more sensitivity and there are certain types of jokes that in the past would have been permissible and they aren't anymore, for good reasons. You know they were inappropriate and you know they were in bad taste. Let's put it that way. So one area, though, that I have found is universally permitted is self-deprecating humor. So when I tell people that I get up every morning and I look in the mirror and I say, sparky, you look marvelous, you just look marvelous. It's really nobody gets offended by that kind of humor.
Speaker 1:The only thing I would caution about that kind of self-deprecating humor from my experience is if you do it too much, people can think that you're giving them permission to make fun of you, and I've had on a few occasions to have to say to people okay, listen, I can make fun of myself, but you, I'm not giving you permission to do that. You want to make fun of yourself, that's fine, but don't be picking on me, because that's not giving you permission to do that. You want to make fun of yourself, that's fine, but don't be picking on me, because that's not. You know, um, but anyway, that's just an example of one area. The other, the other thing that from my past that I know is still permissible. One group that is still okay to pick on are hippies. Uh, I personally like hippies and I don't think that they were all drug addled and, you know, lazy like in a Big Lebowski, but so I sometimes make fun of myself when it comes to that.
Speaker 1:But at any rate, I digress. Enough of humor. That was my vain attempt at a little bit of humor about humor. All right, next up, have an open mind, and you know we talked about listening before. But the nuance here is do not judge based on outward appearances, regardless of whatever you want to identify as external characteristics of people. The bottom line is you should base things on being open to you know it does get back to listening and I think you will find that you can find the skills and abilities and the knowledge and the wisdom that everybody has is so important, and I think people who don't have that openness again they pay a real price for it in terms of the organization and what it's going to do, I think, right now in this space, and I think there's a lot of backlash around DEI.
Speaker 2:I just want to bring up the one of the DEI letters that and I still value it very highly, by the way I hate the fact that there's a big backlash around it. But what I will say is this what you're also speaking to, and I think it's really important, is just an attitude of inclusion. Right, it's about being able to make everyone feel welcome regardless, not being exclusive, not letting your title, your position, your office rather than cubicle, your whatever the case may be, separate you from other people in the sense of believing and and and gendering an idea that better, worse, different. You know, if you're in an environment and we've been in these environments before where you feel like you have to ask permission to participate, you feel left out of certain things. Now, obviously, there are certain things around business that different roles and functions have to have, and there's sometimes not everything can be completely inclusive, but this is much more of an attitude and a disposition. It's just such a better work environment. There's some more creativity, more innovation. I mean everything is better when we can really be inclusive ideas.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean that we don't have a hierarchy in some settings and everybody makes decisions. It's not just complete kumbaya kind of thing, but at the same time, what it means is not making anyone feel like they don't belong. Right, and that's. That's a. It's a balancing act. It's easier said than done, but that then also is something. Again, if we think about the work that we're doing and and the, the communities and the, our clients, our customers, the beneficiaries we work with, this is something that we can't be effective without it at that level. So you got to walk to talk if you can't really do that internally as well. So I think this is a big survival mechanism that I don't think we can ignore, and I think it's one that is unfortunately right now in the media because of a backlash, is losing.
Speaker 1:Its not losing but it's not getting highlighted as much. And I just want to say I want to have jobs in the community. They have autism and, as a consequence of that, a lot of employers, if they have any jobs for them at all, they see it as a charity job, as a favor that they're doing at all. They see it as a charity job, as a favor that they're doing. And then if they are open they clearly were not initially, but if they eventually open up their eyes and see, they can see that these can be some of the most valuable, effective workers that they can have in their organization and that some of the stereotypes that they have and preconceived notions that they have preclude the inclusiveness that there should be. And hopefully we can.
Speaker 1:You know, over time we try to break through those barriers, but I, you know again I just want to circle back I'm also talking about how we become self-aware of our own biases and our own tendency at times to not be open. And again I just want to say over and over again, with all of these things that we're talking about here, peter and I I know it's not just me, it's Peter too we're both a work in progress. So we have not, you know, reached nirvana and have achieved all of these things. Hey, now, now speak for yourself. So we have not reached nirvana and have achieved all of these things all the time. Hey, now speak for yourself. No, it's absolutely true.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely true. We're bringing back the humility. There you go. Actually, we're bringing some of the self-deprecation in here too. I mean, hey, I'm positive. There's many times I have not been as inclusive or inclusive as I should be.
Speaker 1:You've heard it here first, everybody this is being recorded All right, next up. Oh, one of my favorites. Some good deeds are rewarded and some are punished. I have in my career there have been times where I felt that I or we did the right thing and we got in all kinds of trouble In one case got fired for doing the right thing. And then there are other cases where you're part of a team and all of a sudden you're getting rewards, you're getting accolades oh what a wonderful and you're like I was just doing my job. I mean, I don't know what the big deal is here. And so you know.
Speaker 1:I think the point of this is that you know it's the nature of others that you may fail, but you know, just do the best you can and don't worry about the rewards or the lack thereof. It's just the nature of things that other people's view can vary tremendously, and just always do the right thing and don't worry about it. And you know. Actually, I want to take this a step further and a step deeper.
Speaker 1:One of the most profound lessons I learned was in a situation where I knew that I was doing what was needed and what was right for an organization that I worked for and I got fired at that organization, and the lesson that I learned from that is along these lines, which is basically if you know that you've done your best, if you know that you did the right thing, that needs to settle the issue for you. Don't get caught up in how other people judge you, judging yourself, hopefully with humility and compassion towards yourself, and you know relative objectivity. If you know that you've worked hard and you did something good, that should be the end of it. So, whether people compliment you, whether people don't, and come after you, have peace in that. Just do your best every day and have peace. And again, this is a hard one.
Speaker 2:It's a hard one there are times when you know you want to get the approval of others. It's easier said than done, but I do feel like it is a golden rule. You know, um, sometimes we do face tough decisions. Um, I've been a consultant for a long time. Uh, there have been times that, um, I've done a, an evaluation, for example, or I've been asked to do an evaluation, Um, and what you find out quickly is that the desire was to only hear good news and so we didn't want it to be objective. And if I find that out soon enough, you have to realize sometimes you I'll talk about it this way. In some ways, you talked about being fired, but part of integrity is not being willing to do something that you know is wrong or is going to hurt somebody.
Speaker 2:And that's about integrity, and so I always like to turn it around a little bit. When you're fired with integrity, you fired them. Okay, At the end of the day, that's really what we have to understand. Integrity is not compromising your values. Have to understand integrity is not compromising your values. Um, your, you know your, your guiding milestones, your guiding lights for how you will and will not do something. Uh, on the record here for this podcast, if anyone's announced to hire me as an evaluator, I can't promise you great results. Okay, that's on you, that's on your program and hopefully you want to learn.
Speaker 2:But just like you're talking about, Ken, sometimes, as a leader of an organization and you have your bosses and boards and other stuff like that, and we all have bosses and supervisors you shouldn't compromise your values If you really believe strongly that something's going to hurt, not help. It takes integrity to be able to say no. It takes a lot. It's easier said than done. Like you said, Ken, it's actually some of the most difficult. It is one of the most difficult things that you can encounter, but when you do it, you know, because when you look back on whatever happened, you don't look in the mirror and feel bad about yourself because you know you still are who you want to be as you look in that mirror. So it's important. I think a lot of it really is about integrity and, like I said to me, I look at it as Ken, you fired them.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, I like that, I like that a lot. Yep, yep, I like that, like that a lot. Next up, you know, I think there was a book written by EF Schumacher many years ago. It's called Small is Beautiful and the premise was that you know that as things as organizations, as anything gets larger, it loses some of that beauty, and so for a number of years I looked at organizations that were more than a certain size. As you know, the bigger you get, the more bureaucratic you get, the more you can have mission creep, the more you can stray from the core of the organization, could say, where I think that there's a sweet spot somewhere in between, that if you're too small, your capacity as a nonprofit to do things can become so limited and talk about burnout, among other things that it's just not enough.
Speaker 1:We've talked in the early episodes about the long tail of the nonprofit sector, that the vast majority of nonprofits are tremendously small. That is a reality. And if you're in a small organization I'm not saying this is and what I would call mid-sized organizations and small I think they all have their problems and that you know there are different stages of development of nonprofits. But if I were to, you know, come up with a simple overarching rule. It varies from circumstance to circumstance, don't get me wrong, but as a general rule, I think there's a place in the middle where you're not so large that you become super bureaucratic and there are so many layers that you lose track of people and services and things can deteriorate that way, but you're not so small that you don't have the bandwidth and the resources to provide a certain level of impact, you know, like using consultants that can help you with your outcomes and things. There's a place in the middle and you know, I think that is that's the place to get to. So, in terms of survival, you know, eventually, or you know when you can, to be in an organization that is somewhere in that middle size.
Speaker 1:I think is, in my experience, the place where you can get the best balance of having an impact, seeing the direct work, because you're not too divorced from the day-to-day but also not, you know, not so small that you're burning out and you just don't have the bandwidth to do the things that you need to do to provide the services that you want to survive to provide. So that's my sort of mid-size is. Small is beautiful, but mid-size is better Big. I don't know. Again. There may be certain organizations where you know they can preserve that social impact and that value when they get very large. But generally what I've seen, it reminds me of what sometimes people say about kids Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. Little organizations littler problems. Big organizations can have big problems. I haven't worked directly for really large nonprofits but I've been on the board of them and my goodness, it's like the problems that we're seeing are oftentimes to the 10th power.
Speaker 2:When you have thousands of employees and thousands, incredible complexity of services, it can really be very hard to maintain the quality, to stay in that right size and sustain in that right size. The problem is that if you reach the right size, oftentimes you've found your effectiveness. You can sustain that effectiveness. You've got that momentum. The world starts demanding. So all of a sudden somebody comes along and says you could grow. And we have this terrible bias of grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. This is, by the way, because I do believe a lot of the resources, everything else, come from the for-profit sector. Growth is always good. Growth is always good. More profit, more profit, more profit. The bigger you get, the more profit there is, the more people can kind your point.
Speaker 2:Um, we still have a lot of that mentality with how the revenue flows. And so all of a sudden somebody reaches a million dollars, two million dollars in revenue, five million dollars in revenue. Somebody likes their programs, they figured out what they're doing, they're really clicking, things are going well. And all of a sudden everybody goes knock, knock, knock. I'd like to make a big check to you. Knock, knock, knock. I like what you're doing, I see you and now I see you. I know what you're doing. We'd like to scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow and at some point what you have to do fall for all the demand. But you are in the middle, going to start to be noticed and you have to be very thoughtful about how you maintain what you can do.
Speaker 1:And we, you know, I think this goes all the way back to episodes one and two, where we talked about what I defined as the oftentimes the incentives relating to your point of it's like. Many times I have seen organizations replace the mission motive with the growth motive because of all the incentives, the accolades, the awards, the salaries, the benefits, the this, the that and the other thing, the temptations of growth for growth's sake, rather than mission focus. It is for the right reasons and it is in a thoughtful way and being cautious that you don't become such a bureaucracy that you lose. You know, you lose your focus, you lose your mission is really important for survival, for your survival, for your happiness, for your health and everything else. A couple more things just wanted to go over before we close today.
Speaker 1:Next one I want to talk about power. Let's talk about power, shall we? You know, there's an old saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't remember who said that. It's a classic quote, but I would say, but it doesn't have to.
Speaker 1:You know, as you progress within organizations, you are going to have more power, more authority, more of an ability to make decisions that impact the people you serve and the people who work within the organization and so within the organization. And so I think that one has to be careful, and I think we sort of alluded to this earlier. You got to be careful and don't be fooled or don't negate the fact that over time you're going to have the ability to wield more power within an organization as you go. And I think that as long as you have those other qualities in mind listening, humility and so on, all the things we've talked about before you can use that power for good rather than for corruption and for bad purposes. If you can keep the organization on mission and not get all caught up in that, power can be used for good.
Speaker 2:Peter, along those lines. A lot of times that power comes with what we just talked about in the previous one, which is revenue growth, as all of a sudden you see those that that, that line, that curve, start to go up. Sometimes that power starts to get feeling because we're we're using the metrics of revenue growth, you know we've got whatever. And of course, power can come from other false places and other places as well. We were ego and everything else. But when you really think about a lot of power does come with that growth and revenue mentality. What I would argue is one of the things that is very important to maintain some humility in this power is I challenge anybody as you start to get that and your ego grows, your power grows, your revenue grows, your growth grows. I challenge you to measure your results. I challenge you to actually start measuring things, start getting on the scale. If you really think you're losing weight, step on the scale, so to speak. At some point you have to really begin to measure, hold yourselves accountable transparently.
Speaker 2:I have found many times as an evaluator of social impact, there's nothing more as an evaluator of social impact, there's nothing more humbling than the reality of good measurement that shows you you're doing well Sometimes you're not doing so well here. There's a little bit here that needs to work on. You know, use your data. You know this is your, your, your litmus test. But if you refuse to evaluate, to measure outcomes, and all you're doing is bottom lining it and saying look at the revenue grow. Look, we just got a grant, look, we just did this, you're going to feed that ego power chain. So I would say a good humbling step is measure, measure and hold yourselves and be transparent.
Speaker 1:Well, I just want you to know, peter, that that was a great segue into the last of the top 10 items, which relates to this, and it's so interesting that we always come back to data analytics and how important that is. So I do believe that there is value in trusting your gut when it comes to certain things, your sense of things that sometimes can transcend just logic, that you can perceive and pick up nonverbal cues and whatnot, and so I think trusting your gut is something that has an important place in helping you to survive and to carry on. But the thing I would say about it is that trusting your gut is a starting point. If your gut is telling you something, what you then need to do, I think, is to corroborate it with data. You know you have a hypothesis, if you will, based upon what your gut's telling you, and that's fine. But then go and you know, verify, get, like Peter, I think, what you to your point, you need to verify that your gut is correct. So if your gut, for example, is that our program is the gold star, we're the best, and you know the state is telling us we're the best program, in the state it's like, okay, that's great. So and my and you know I've worked in a number of programs and I think that's true we're having more of an impact.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, so what does the data say? Do you have data? Can you prove it objectively? It's like the notion of storytelling is important and stories of lives that have been changed for the better are important, part of the narrative of the way we tell the world how we're changing things for the better. But if you don't have data that sits behind that, so after you tell the story and here are outcomes that we have had for these people that we've served over this period of time and all the rest of it then the story is just that. It's a story of one person's life that perhaps has been changed, but you still have not proven in an objective way with data that corroborates your story, that corroborates your gut impression of things. And so, at the end of the day, as with almost every episode that we've had, the importance of getting data and having outcome.
Speaker 1:Impact measurement is so important for your long-term impact, and I think it relates to your survival too, because when you look back over your career and you can see that there really is meaningful and lasting change that has been proven by objective analytics and the data you know the measurement tools that Peter is an expert on is really so, I think, central to your work, to your survival and to the long-term survival of the nonprofit sector and all that we do, and that it's really going to have the impact to repair the world, which is what this podcast is all about. So it always seems to circle back to that. For the Nonprofit Survival Guide, you got to have impact measurement.
Speaker 2:So real quickly and then I'll pass it back to you. To quickly close out because I know we're at the end here, I would just say I like what you're saying about trust your gut, especially if you're someone with experience. But part of what wisdom does is say I trust my gut this far, but I'm also going to validate. I'm going to corroborate this with data. I'm going to validate because we all know sometimes our gut can be wrong, even our experienced gut. Research shows sometimes the more expert somebody is, the more biased they are towards one interpretation of what's really happening. So we have to trust our gut to tell us something is worth learning, more as to what we should do and what it means, as opposed to just. It's a corroboration. I like the word you use corroborate, collaborate. Your gut is telling you something. You may have 10,000 hours of experience, but at the same time, it's only you. That's unique, it's subjective. Now get some objective information too and bundle it all together.
Speaker 1:Don't lose your wisdom and gut, but bring it together with some data and that also remember we have 10 rules, if you will, or concepts for survival, and so it also relates to the fact that, if you have the humility to say, it also relates to the fact that, if you have the humility to say I don't know everything, you are listening to the data, you are open and don't get caught up in the appearances of things and your gut, sometimes to your point, could be biased in a direction. So all of those things need to be a part of this. I'm just saying that you know, as you indicated, you know over time, there are things that you may not entirely be able to articulate, but you're having a gut impression that can be valid. But you need to just make sure that there is some corroboration through these kind of tools to make certain that you're on the right track and hopefully, most of the time, you'll end up saying ah, I was right on that one, but you're also okay to say I was wrong on that one.
Speaker 2:I always like to say what my gut tells me a lot of times is to wake up, pay attention, because there's something going on here that is a pattern you've seen before, and learn more. Try to gather some more information, some more data. Try to figure out what's going on, because there's something arising. All right, do you want to wrap it up, Ken?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. So it's funny because there's a song that's been banging around in my head as we come to a close here and I guess it sort of relates back to having a personal life. But there's an old saying which is one day at a time, and there's a song that John Lennon wrote one day at a time is good for you, it's good for me, and so that's my last word on you know, surviving, just do what you can each day, do your best each day and have peace with that. Go home, enjoy your life and survive well and thrive will ultimately mean that you're doing the best for this exhausted sector and staying refreshed and empowered and engaged, and not exhausted yourself. Take care of yourself. Thank you, as always, for listening to our podcast. Do please give us a nice rating on your podcast of choice. We'd appreciate that.
Speaker 2:If you're connected to us on LinkedIn, share it when we share.
Speaker 1:We're both on LinkedIn. Yeah, new connect goes there.
Speaker 2:This is our December episode and we'll see if we can get another one before the end of the year, but maybe not. We'll see. But hey, this has been a really good series. Thank you, ken.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody and if we don't get another episode in there, have happy holidays. Happy New Year everybody. Until we meet again, may you fix many nonprofits. See you later.
Speaker 2:See you everybody, bye-bye, bye.