58 MINS

Reigniting Innovation Within Your Organization

DonorPerfect Community Conference 2023 keynote session with speaker Joan Garry

Transcript

Print Transcript

Welcome, everyone. I’m so excited to see it folks flooding in. It has been such an incredible day and we could not be more excited to be ending our day with Joan Geary. So I’m gonna let him watching the numbers stream in really quickly. I’m going to introduce Read More

Welcome, everyone. I’m so excited to see it folks flooding in. It has been such an incredible day and we could not be more excited to be ending our day with Joan Geary. So I’m gonna let him watching the numbers stream in really quickly. I’m going to introduce Joan officially in a moment. But if you want to say hi in the chat, how you’re doing how you’re feeling after day one of the community conference, we are feeling really great. Over here and yeah, I want to make sure Joan, you get all of your time and focus get to learn from you. So Joan, Gary is an internationally recognized champion for the nonprofit sector, and a highly sought after executive coach for CEOs of some of the largest organizations in the nation. She writes a smart, funny and wildly popular blog for nonprofit leaders that you can find over at Joan geary.com and is the host of one of the top nonprofit podcasts, nonprofits are messy. She’s also the author of Joan Gary’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership. So check out all of those resources subscribe download lifted copy. In 2007, Joe founded a well known online membership site offering content and community for board and staff leaders to have small to midsize nonprofits. It’s called the nonprofit leadership lab. So please join me in welcoming Joan Gary, it’s such an honor to get to end the day of the conference with you.

Thanks, Mallory. First of all, somebody in the chat that I’m it looks like I’m gonna miss parameters. If I forgive me if I’m mispronouncing Shaylee Duerson. I love Dr. Joe Gary’s podcast. I am not a doctor, I don’t even play one on television. But I am a complete nonprofit leadership evangelist. And I am so appreciative to everybody at DonorPerfect for the opportunity to spend time with like my favorite people on the planet, nonprofit leaders. I was thinking about this this morning that I actually, I feel like incredibly lucky about how much I love my job. And it is not at all the path I anticipated. Long ago, I was part of the management team that launched MTV in 1981. So you can do the math to figure out how old I am not. And in fact, actually, that’s my gold record, which I did not get from any kind of a pop song, but actually as a function of my tenure at at MTV. But I love my job. And it is so not the path. I figured I’d be a corporate executive for my professional career and maybe join a board, something like that. That’s not at all how it rolled, actually. So I have private sector experience. And then in 1997, either because I was having a midlife crisis, or I was trying to avoid one, I became the executive director of one of the largest gay rights organizations in the country called glad. And I thought I would never be so lucky to to have a job like that, where I could have impact on my family, and on the world. Again, if you had asked me at the age of 10, at like the dinner table, okay, John, what do you want to be when you grow up? I guarantee you that I did not say I’m gonna grow up and be a gay rights activist. Pretty sure. Pretty sure we didn’t even have the word gates. But, um, it’s very interesting as I think it would be for you to think about your own career path, and how you got where you are today. So I imagine yourselves at the age of 10, at that Thanksgiving table, and that annoying aunt, asking you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Now I’m pretty sure that your answer would not have been. Well, you see, what I like to do is I would like to ask people for money all day. Pretty, pretty sure that would not have been the answer you came up with. So toss in the chat, and let’s just get that flurry going. What did you want to be when you grew up? Assuming you’ve actually grown up when you were 10? What do you want to be when you grew up? Let’s go. I’m ready. I’m ready. So I’ll tell you why I’m right. While I’m waiting, that I wanted to be Carol Burnett. But that Job was taken. I also kind of wanted to be a good humor driver, because people are always so dang happy. to see you. And actually, I feel like I actually have some of those things going on a professional singer, a journalist, a ballerina, a lawyer, an actress, an opera singer, a marine biologist, a computer programmer, a photographer, right. Let’s think about all of these things. I wanted to help people. Thank you, Kathleen. I had no idea. I love that, actually. But you see, so when I look at Katherine Hills answer, and I see teacher, right, I see. I see. Christian wants to be a doctor. Right? And lots of teachers. Oh, no, really, somebody wanted to be a Playboy bunny. Oh my God, that’s hilarious. Okay. By the way, Sean, I think you are a wizard. I think you are a damn wizard. All of these things. Believe it or not, I mean, maybe Playboy Bunny aside, you will find components of components of skills and attributes that make you the superhero that you are. That’s the truth, whether it’s critical thinking or helper or teacher, missionary, right? Look, more or less wanted to work at the United Nations that’s really specific out. So but look at this, right today. Thanks to DonorPerfect, you are literally part of an army of an amazing group of people working to fuel a movement, a movement to make the world more fair, more just, and more beautiful. Now, the folks have done a perfect kind of had me at hello, when they said, the theme we’re kind of exploring this year is refresh. And I think about the word refresh and I think about taking stock. I think about refueling, I think about learning lessons. And I am absolutely certain that it is an absolute priority and a must for each of us in the nonprofit sector. to really look at these last three years, and think about what these challenging times made possible. And I have through my executive coaching practice, and through the nonprofit leadership lab, I touch the lives of 1000s of nonprofit executive directors and board chairs every day, and I know just how tough the times have been. And it often felt it often felt like you were in this like dinky little boat. And I think my screen will share here in a minute. Perhaps please refresh your screen says Laurie, what does that mean? Okay, refresh my screen. I’m going to refresh my screen if I disappear. I’m coming back

Voila, I’m back. Okay, Laurie. I’m gonna share my screen again. Okay. Okay, let’s try this again.

Lori’s got a very worried look on her face right now. I can see her. My screen my my slides are not sharing, are they? Yes, they are. You’re seeing a dinky boat, aren’t you, Laurie? Okay. All right. So let’s see if we can get going. All right. So this is how I think about nonprofit leaders during the pandemic. I think about, I think about all of you in these little boats. There’s the board chair and the executive director, and a lousy little boat. And there’s a big storm. And maybe you have enough gas to get you to the port. And you probably need a new set of windshield wipers. But you see, I think about this picture and I think to myself, Yes, times were tough during the pandemic, but when our times not tough for nonprofits, and in fact, isn’t it really true that the tougher the times, the more our society needs you That’s the truth. So it’s not like we have to wait for things to get less tough, and then everything will be hunky dory. Because the truth of the matter is, we are the sort of army of folks that make things happen for people during tough times. The question you have to ask yourself, as part of this refreshing theme, is what are the lessons. And I have a pretty good view of this. And I’m going to tell you that each and every one of you has figured out some way to make magic happen to find treasures in the darkness. Right, I can see oh, you can make 100% I love that. Actually, I love that emoji if you really resonate with what I’m saying. 100%. I love that. So think about what you’ve done. You’ve had to be nimble, innovative. I remember Fenway Community Health and Boston had a plan for to take a year to move to telehealth. Yeah, well, they didn’t have a year. So they didn’t like two weeks, like things you did not think were possible. were made possible. And why was that? For me, I think the reason that is, is because you believed. Now I happen to be a huge Ted last ofan. I’ve written a blog post called Ted lasso should be your next executive director. But you believe you believe in the work that you do you believe in the cause? You believe in the power of the nonprofit sector? And that’s the truth. And for those people who have said during the last couple of years, you know, I just think that there’s really a dearth of leadership in our society. They obviously do not have the vantage point that I do, I saw superheroes in action. And what’s ironic for me is that here are all of you out there these incredible superheroes, right? Leaders in a sector that’s working to make the world more fair, more just and more beautiful. And I think the sector gets sold short, over and over and over again. So take ABC News World, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. I’m just old enough to occasionally watching horrible news until the last three minutes when he says, And finally tonight, America strong? Well, I’m here to tell you that nine times out of 1095 times out of 100. America strong is the story that is rooted in the work of the nonprofit sector. So how could this possibly be that were relegated to three minutes? Right? How can it be the few that our communities really take us for granted? I’m going to push on you today. And I’m going to say to you, I think we sell ourselves short. I think our boards sell us a short. I think our funders sell a short. Because if people do not know about us, they don’t learn about the issues. They don’t want to get up off their asses to do something about it and join you in whatever crusade you are on. So why is that? How could that possibly be? Well, I think there are a couple things. I think that nonprofits have a scarcity mindset. They don’t We don’t come from a place of abundance. We come from this place of let’s see what we can do with what we have. Our boards play a role in that. Right. I’m going to talk a little bit about boards later on. But here’s the thing to think about. Boards see their fiduciary responsibility as making sure nothing goes wrong. So they come at their work far too often from a place of risk management. And then there’s of course, the big challenge, which is the name of our sector, we end up being defined by all the things that we’re not good somebody please explain that to me. I’m on a roll and I can’t see the chat right now. But if anybody has a good answer for why our sector is called the nonprofit sector, like please, I’ll give you my home phone number. No, I probably won’t. So I’ve thought long and hard about all of these things. And I’ve long and hard because I was in the private sector. I’ve also thought long and hard about this nonprofit model we have. And yes, my podcast is called nonprofits are messy. And I don’t mean that as a pejorative, I mean it that the model is not tidy. It’s not tidy. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. And you have to actually grab on to all the goodness that mess provides. And I actually believe that the road to a thriving nonprofit is sort of paved with these unique building blocks. And I want to sort of walk you through something I’m kind of noodling about and trying on, see if you see if it fits for you. So that is, by the way, let’s start first, that is not my car. And I just love Photoshop. Okay, now, the intentional ride to a thriving nonprofit. Here’s what I want to talk about. Yes, you start with your why, like Simon Sinek often says, the fundamental purpose, why your organization exists. You need vision, you need people, you need impact, and you need growth. That doesn’t mean growth, meaning bigger. It just means learning and defining and redefining what your organization is about. But it’s that outer ring. For me, that makes the nonprofit sector unique, these unique building blocks I talk about. You’ll notice it you don’t see board, you don’t see staff, you’ll see things that I think stand out for me a couple of them storytelling, right? No one can be a five star nonprofit leader unless you are a five star storyteller. It is the way that you invite people to know and do more for your organization. It’s what ignites passion and drives participation. When we look at marketing dollars, and our funders say that’s overhead, I say that’s BS. Because if I can’t tell people about my organization, that will have any power because people are my power. The other thing that’s very unique about the nonprofit sector is the role the partnerships play, the partnership you have with your board, share with your donors, with your stakeholders, with your volunteers, we look at it very, very differently, the power shouldn’t come from up top, it should come in a diffuse way from around you as a nonprofit leader. The work also requires a ton of intentionality which we’re not so good at more on that in a minute. It requires tremendous courage, tremendous courage, we have to make time to learn from the work that we’re doing. And we have to understand leadership in its fullest sense. And when I talk about that, I’m not just talking about given a fabulous kick ass gala speech. I’m talking about making time to be home for dinner, modeling leadership, I’m talking about

really understanding that the people who work with you and for you and around you are following your lead. And when you take this circle around, right, what happens is that as a function of these things, you actually can repurpose, or revise or reshape your vision, maybe make it narrower, maybe make it broader. And then the wheel, you follow the wheel around again. And this is how I think about what I call the attentional ride to a thriving nonprofit. Now speaking about hierarchy, speaking about partnerships, I also am I’m not a fan of thinking about nonprofits in a hierarchical fashion, obviously. So I really think about them like this, like a twin engine jet. If there’s one thing I could, I would want to tell every single board member on the planet, it’s that you are an important jet in an engine in an airplane, you are not following the leader. Right. For Executive Directors, you are not just simply using your board to say go raise money and leave me alone. And in that cockpit, are your board chair and your executive director who are partnering together to make sure that there’s a flight plan to a compelling destination Let me also at this point, point out that it is not that easy to find a picture of diversity in the cockpit of a professional airline. Here’s the time is changing. So, I want to take an example, if you’d allow me of a client’s coaching client member of the nonprofit leadership lab, the Princeton senior Resource Center in Princeton, New Jersey, run by a guy named Drew Dyson. And I want to sort of tell you about what life looks like for drew in 2020. DREW would never been an executive director before. So one of the very first things that you did, one of the very first things that you did was go and find funding for a coach. And I was lucky enough to be the person he picked. In fact, not only had he not been have not been an executive director before, in his previous life, he was a preacher, a minister. Turns out in 2020, that came in might be handy. So at that time, Princeton senior Resource Center was a building. Technology was a function. But Drew had a vision. And the challenging times made this vision possible. And through professional development resources, and his building of a great team. He made amazing things happen. His vision was that there were people who would benefit from the Princeton senior Resource Center who couldn’t come to the building. So what did he do? He trained college students who were working remotely, to train older members of the community, how to get on Zoom. Now, I can imagine that was just there are probably lots and lots of stories at dinner tables about how those conversations went, as I can attest when I had to tell my mother how to use a Kindle once. But he began to take advantage of the resources he had to bring this new different kind of vision to life. Also, he doesn’t think about aging people, the way some people think about aging people. And so he has an education program that retired professors from Princeton, and Rutgers and other places in his area can teach about film women film directors in the 21st century, he started to build this robust, different and innovative way to approach a senior Resource Center. It was really remarkable to watch.

So let me tell you what happened with Drew Dyson. I’m going to tell you, because you can’t stop me.

In May of 2023, Drew’s vision was that he didn’t want to be just the Princeton senior Resource Center. And because he had no geographic boundaries, he could be that what ended up happening for Drew is his innovation became his story. His innovation became his story. And let me tell you, and all of you who are fun founders, who who raise money know, people love to play for a winning team. And so he and his board chair had the audacity during the pandemic, to cook up a capital campaign. Seriously, a capital campaign. Right, that takes courage. It takes intentionality. And a capital campaign, by the way, is a tremendous platform for igniting passion through storytelling. Right. He told those stories shared his vision ignited passion in his board members to become ambassadors. And yes, they’ve hit their target. They have a $5.5 million capital campaign, it brand new building, where technology is not a function. It is absolutely purely an anchor of the work they do. The person who runs tech at the Princeton senior Resource Center is a member of the senior leadership team. It is that is sent show that core to what PSRC does today. And what propels this wheel for Drew is that he wants to build a world class Senior Center as a model for others to follow naturally. The key here is innovation. The key is innovation. And by the way, Drew is just one story. I could tell you hundreds, you could tell them. And the truth of the matter is, we’re not telling them enough. And we’re not telling them enough to our own boards. So what I want to do it next is I want to actually take you through, what I would say are lessons that I have come to understand that ignite this kind of innovation. One of them is to lead with intention and passion. Right? You’re at an event because we have those now, again, you’re on an event. You say, Hi, my name is Joan, and I’m a board member at the Princeton senior Resource Center. And I love what we do. Can I tell you a little bit about it? Passion, intention, this is something that under resourced nonprofit organizations, and that might feel a little redundant. have a problem with all the time intentionality is about prioritizing. Right? We tend to want to do all the things, but what we need to do is the right things, right? Drew really focused on tech. He really focused on tech. Right? There were probably things he didn’t focus in on. And maybe there was even pushback from his team about why why are we not focusing on that, because we can’t do all the things, we have to do the highest, most leverageable things. And he was right. And so I often I know this, because I lived this experience for 10 years, everything feels urgent all the time. But the truth is, it can’t feel that way. You have to introduce some kind of modulation. Some things are indeed more important than others. And if you put the pedal to the floor on absolutely everything, you will be a lousy leader, you will model burnout for everyone to see. And you will create that kind of environment that makes people say, This is too much for me. This work is really, really hard. Under the best of circumstances, you got to prioritize. The next piece, this is what I was getting at before is marketing your success. You’re too busy doing the things to tell everybody about the things. So Jim Cohen, coaching clients, runs the Jewish Federation of Minneapolis, George Floyd was murdered blocks from his office. And he became a convener. He built coalitions across across all of Minneapolis and St. Paul. And I found as he talked about it, I found him to be rather remarkable. I found that the choices that he made to be really inspiring. And I said, I bet your board just thinks this is just such incredible work. And he said, You know, John, I don’t think I’ve talked enough about what we’re doing to my board, because I’m too busy doing the doing. And this, my friends is a problem. It’s a problem on many different levels. It’s a problem because your board, let’s say you have a board of 12 those 12 people needs to be your most enthusiastic and passionate ambassadors. And if they are not fueled by the incredible stories of your work, they can’t do that. They can’t do that. Right. So it is what keeps their light for your organization. Shining. It is what gives your organization visibility. It’s what invites people to want to know more and do more I worked with Jim we came up with a lot of different really fast, quick ways that he could educate his board. I said, just just pick up your phone and make a video and send your video out to all your board members and tell them to pop it on their social media platforms. It’ll take you five minutes, call them Did you knows his Did you knows we’re a huge success. People loved them easily consumable, right? As opposed to what he’s going to sit down for two hours and write a monthly report. We do that far too often. It’s not the world we live in today. It’s not how people consume information. And it’s certainly not how it gets shared. Reframing fundraising, anybody who’s ever read any of my blogs know that I think and talk about this quite a lot. That I want you to think about it not as an ask, but as an invitation. Now, those of you who are actually fundraisers, of course you’re making asks, but as you try to build a culture of philanthropy in your organization, you have got to frame it as an invitation, an invitation to come closer to the organization. Right? Anybody who works, anybody in the volunteer space will tell you that volunteers are at that bottom base of the pyramid, that if you bring them close, they’re people that are more likely to donate than anyone else, because they’ve been invited to be a part of the work. And that’s what you’re asking board members to do is not to find the rich person or the wealth, adjacent person, I love that phrase, in their contexts, but rather, to just be an enthusiastic ambassador, and invite people to know more. I have a client from Richmond, Virginia, he runs an organization that successfully made computer science mandatory in K through 12 schools. He’s an amazing guy. And he will talk to anyone about computer science education, including the cashier at the supermarket one day with his wife. And his wife was like, do you have to talk about code VA, everywhere you go? And he said, Yes. That’s what this is about. That’s what you’re trying to do with your board. The next item is to turn your board into ambassadors. Far too often, we have an expectation that our board members are going to ask people to write checks. Right? They might get there. But if you don’t nurture them, if you don’t fuel them as stories, if you don’t cultivate them.

Right? They’re never actually going to make asks, do me a favor, if you would? Can you? I’m in the chat. Laurie, am I still that’s can everybody still hear me and see me and everything? Perfect. Okay, great. My cell phone rang and I was afraid of might be you.

So this is what I want you to think about talking to your board and saying, you know, I think that what we really need to do is build a culture of storytelling in our organization, with our staff, and with our board, we need to come up with the stories that are sticky, that have the real names of people that talk to the work and why it’s important that illustrate the need for your work. I always talk about did you know because so often, the whatever it is you’re fighting for, most people don’t understand the issue. Right. And so educating them and enriching them, and then fueling them with stories. If you don’t do that, and your board meetings are just simply business, the light that’s shining inside them that made them want to be a part of your organization to begin with. Not only will it dim, it will go out. And if you find yourself with people who are not showing up for committee meetings or not showing up for board meetings, it could be that they’re the wrong people to have on your bus. It also may be an opportunity for you to reflect on how you are nurturing, cultivating and fueling your board members to be the best ambassadors they can be. Because one of the things I’m not a huge math fan, but here’s an equation for you credible messenger board leader plus compelling story equals money. I am telling you that if you start to work with your development committees to start to think about storytelling to practice elevator pitches. To do that in every single board meeting, you will actually develop an exercise a muscle and make those board members comfortable in talking about your organization, the when I was glad, think about this, I bet you all have this experience. And feel free to put some some emoji in here if you’re agree. You’re board members talking to somebody. And somebody asks, So tell me about your organization. And the board member starts to talk and then starts to fumble a little bit, and then says, you know, who you really need to talk to? You need to talk to Joan, She’s the executive director. She can talk about this organization for days, and she will have you add Hello. Okay, so what does that do? First of all, it makes a long line of people who want to talk to me, and I’m not going to get to all of them. But more importantly, it diminishes the credibility of that board member who cannot articulate in a compelling opportunity, pitch and an invitation, why this organization matters, why it matters to them, and why that person should come closer to your organization. So you’ve got to build this muscle. And that’s a great task for a development committee. Right? It’s not to build a list of prospects. It’s to actually cultivate a culture storytelling on your board. It fills an so many different important gaps. So the last one, I think this was the last one is build excitement about your destination. So here I am. I’m on that twin engine jet. Right? Think about drew Dyson, the Princeton senior Resource Center. He had an exciting destination. So why he raised $5.5 million. By the way, he had an exciting destination. Anytime you talk with people about oh, I didn’t have to do a strategic plan. Right? Oh, please. The reason strategic plans are deadly dollars because their work plants. They’re not actually visioning exercises to get your board to fly at 30,000 feet and say, what could be possible? Can I go back to the pandemic now and say, those are the questions that we asked ourselves then. And we cannot afford, the world cannot afford for us to stop asking them now. And so, the destination far too often for organizations is we’re going to do more, we’re gonna grow by 10%. We’re gonna, you know, some metric like that. Right? And what ends up happening in that process, is the journey is messy. Right? I want you to imagine that you’re taking a carload full of kids for a seven hour drive to Disney World. Sorry to paint that image in your head, because I know how painful that is. And you’ve got one kid who says, I’m carsick I’m gonna vomit in my backpack, you get another kid that’s, you know, spitting at the other one. And the mother in this case, is yelling at them the whole time.

This is not what we want. Because the minute that mom asks this question, what’s the first ride you’re gonna go on when we get to Disney World? Why do you love that ride?

Is there a ride? Like, if you could imagine, if you could imagine building like a ride? That’s not a Disney World? What would it be? We’re gonna take you. Right? They start fighting. Then there becomes this incredible conversation. I mean, they don’t entirely stop fighting, but they start to think about Splash Mountain. If I ever want to get my kids to stop fighting, I asked them to tell me about how they feel when they’re on Splash Mountain. I think it’s like their happy place. I’ve never been on Splash Mountain. I always hold the bags, because I get I get nauseous on rides. There. I’m illustrating my vulnerability. Okay. So I want you to think about Splash Mountain for a minute. I want you to think about something I said earlier on, about boards as risk managers. And that being somewhat of a route of the scarcity model that we approach nonprofit work with

Just a little slide with a lesson, and it’s back to my twin engine jet. There are actually three levels of governance. And your board has to operate at all three all the time, I would say at every board meeting, so let me tell you about them really quickly, fiduciary life on the tarmac, making sure nothing’s going wrong. Risk Management. By the way, if your board meeting you feel like your board is in the weeds. Is it possible that your board meeting agenda is a tarmac agenda? Probably is. If you’ve turned that board meeting into an event planning discussion, and you’re furious that they’re talking about centerpieces, look in the mirror. Strategic is problem solving. I thought we were gonna go from A to B, but we have an obstacle. How do we solve for that? boards do a pretty good amount of that. Although sometimes nonprofit executive directors don’t think their boards know enough to be helpful. And you actually have that mindset at your own peril. But it is this generative, this cruising out, oh, by the way, strategic is like 10,000 feet, which is when they tell you you can use your portable electronic devices. So next time you’re on an airplane, and they tell you you can use your portable electronic devices, I want you to remember this slide. And then generative is cruising altitude. This is where you actually put aside what you think you know. And you imagine what’s possible? When do we do this at board meetings? I’m gonna go with never can. Because there’s no time for it. And so you know, we do we relegate it to board retreats. And we have these amazing board retreats where we talk generatively. And then what happens, we take action items, then about six months later, we can’t find them. Right, we can’t find them. Because we went right back to the tarmac, or we’re untangling some strategic not. You have to build in generative thinking into all of your board work well. And generative thinking, by the way, is fueled by enriching my board members. So some of your board meetings will be virtual, bring someone in a guest speaker, a funder, someone who an academic who studies your field, right? Bring in somebody to enrich me, I’m supposed to be a leader in your sector, right. And the more I know, the more I know, the more able I am to contribute in a way that matters to me and to you. And the truth of the matter is, as somebody who has been a board leader, I never signed up to do an easy job, I signed up to do an important job. So tell me the job is important. define success for me, and give me what I need to be successful. It’s not a lot to ask. But if we do not start to see our boards, as partners, they will not understand the importance and the vital role that they play. And you will have one big fat missed opportunity. So you want to ignite innovation, I encourage you prioritize lead with intention. Think about fundraising as being in the invitation business. Start to market your success. People need to know about the great work that you do. It’s one of the reasons Drew was so successful because he used a capital campaign to market his success. What will you use, build a culture of storytelling, and finally, build excitement about the destination? So now I’m gonna unshare my screen for a minute. Actually, I’m going to unshare my screen in general, I think. Let’s see. Ah, good, Laurie. Right. I’m back. I’m back in my full screen with my gold record in my office. And those are just some of my kind of ruminations about the sector. One of the reasons I am so evangelical about the nonprofit sector is because I know just how meaningful it is. I know it is where leadership is found. I know that it turns towns into communities I know that it turns people who live near each other into neighbors. And it is time for us to stop being those nice people who help others. And recognize that what we are, is champions for making the world more fair, more just and more beautiful. So I leave you with this last thing, I’m going to read a page from a book, Marguerite the whole book, and it happens to be my book. Ah, okay, so for those of you who have a certain age, you’ll appreciate that my brothers who are also of a certain age, refer to this as my Julie from The Love Boat photograph. There’s also another of my brothers also referred to it as kind of having a Captain Kangaroo look to it. Anyway, Julie from The Love Boat has one last thing she wants to share with you.

And I want every time I see somebody, like do a selfie have a picture of this book with like, like, post it notes everywhere, it just actually just brings me such incredible joy. This is my own copy. So I don’t have that. But I just wanted to read this to you. It’s in a final chapter and it’s called You Are The Champions. I know who you are. I write to you and for you every week, your clients, your the folks I support in the nonprofit leadership lab, you our fellow staff, leaders, your board colleagues of mine, and board members I worked to recruit, you educate our young people, you deliver meals, you work to cure illnesses, and fight the stigma often associated with them. You fight for equality for women, people of color, and LGBTQ folks. You provide beds to the homeless and put battered women back on their feet. You are storytellers who do not allow us to forget. You protect our lands. And you navigate a very complex world. For those who are new here. You remind society have the power of religion, and remind us of the power of deep faith. You bring music, theater and dance to us. And in so doing, you make us think you make us more human. You make us feel and you lift us up. Yeah. That’s it. You lift us up. I don’t know too many jobs one can have where these things are true. I believe that nonprofit service is a privilege. It’s hard but like changing the world is not uneaten is not a layup. Right. So, on behalf of all my friends at DonorPerfect. And from my family, for my new three month old grandson had to get that in. I want to say thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for lifting us up. You indeed, are heroic. So thank you so much.

You’re on mute there, Laurie. I thought that was such a great presentation. The comments in the live chat. Were just going and going. You know, we’re we’re at 419. Right now we’re supposed to end at 420. I can ask a question or two before we bring Mallory back in. So what I’m going to do is I’m just going to go with those that have been uploaded. So they can upvote any of the questions. Okay. I’m just going to do the ones that got the top votes here. So Judy is asking, she said thoughts on giving board members, a business type card with 10 fast facts about our organization, either for their reference or to give it out. Any thoughts on that?

It’s a it’s a fine idea. It’s not a bad idea. And it depends, you know, again, is it the highest priority for you to provide that I would love to see your development committee actually kind of weigh in on what would be the most valuable tool they would imagine sharing with the board writ large, that would help them to be the best ambassadors, maybe it is maybe not a facts about the organization because honestly, when you’re making an ask, people don’t really care about the size of your budget. They care about a little bit of heart and some head. Right. Right. So it’s, maybe it’s something that is, you know, something that talks about what you’re up against, right? Or, you know, something like that. But I’ve This is a great question. And it’s a great exercise for your development committee. If you think about your development committee, as an engine that does peer accountability for your board to be great ambassadors. This is where that would rest.

Okay, so we’re gonna do one more question. This one’s from Deborah. She says, who should design the story Everyone tells is that the responsibility of the Executive Director, communications manager, or is this a shared vision story?

So here’s what I did at GLAAD, which might some variation on this might work for you, Deborah, is I had people submit stories every other week. And I produced at that time, because it was a while back, a bi weekly cocktail party soundbite email that went out to all my board members, because I knew they did cocktail parties on the weekends. And the last thing in the world, I wanted them to say when somebody said, Oh, are you still on the board of glad was? Yes. I wanted them to say yes. And actually, I just got an email from Joan. And can I tell you a quick story? And people will always say yes, if it’s quick. And what that did was that it cultivated the ability of the program staff, the development staff, all of them to actually think about how to tell their stories. And they would actually come to me and say, Why didn’t you put my story in the in the cocktail party soundbite memo. And I said, because it was missing a blank of blank and a blank. And if you take another crack at it, I might put it in next week’s. And so I actually by virtue of doing that, I built an exercise the muscle of my entire team to tell stories. Oh,

that I love that idea. Okay, so I think what we’re going to do is we’re going to bring Mallory back in. So she’s going to help close out. So let me get her. Okay, so if there you are Mallory,

hi. Oh, my gosh, what an incredible session. Jonah, thank you so much for firing us up to end the day, it’s so hard to have the last session of the day when people have been learning all day. And just watching the excitement in the chat is just tremendous. And I’m so excited that people get to end their day learning from you and, and being connected to all of the wisdom that you’ve shared. So thank you so very much.

My pleasure. I’m really glad to have had the opportunity to be with you today. Truly.

Amazing, amazing. Oh my gosh, okay, well, Joan, I think we are helping you make your next meeting. I do not want to be responsible for you being late. But I’m so grateful to have you here. And then I’ll just spend the last few minutes wrapping everyone up, and getting folks ready for tomorrow.

Sounds great. So I’m gonna leave you, you can learn lots more lots of good resources at Joe geary.com. If you’d like to learn about my online membership community with content and community for small to mid sized nonprofits, we have tons of fundraisers, we have 5000 members from North America and around the world. Please, you can find everything you needed to know at Joan geary.com. And, again, a privilege to spend 90 minutes with all of you and thank you again for the work that you do and for Mallory for coming to call on my door.

Thank you for being here. And I know folks were dropping the name your book as well and the chat. Folks are eager to go and grab that as well. So thank you so much.

All right, I’m gonna I think I’m gonna close my tab and hopefully you stay on.

Okay, fingers crossed, everybody. Bye. All right, everyone. I am so I hope you’re all feeling good. Tell me in the chat right now. I would love to just see some emojis as you figured out how to put a gift in there. Let me know how you’re feeling after day one of being all together. I think it has been such an incredible and inspiring first first day. A huge thank you to all of our speakers. There was so much happening today. And I was trying to bounce from room to room to room to keep track of everything. I loved hearing my friend Dana Schneider talk about everything that she talked about, but I loved particularly when she showed them getting paid for the adventure project. And she showed how they use their donor persona work in the tagline mentioning grandkids I don’t know which of you were in that session, but when she talked about that I was like well I bulb moment. And I really appreciate that hearing, I learned so much in the multi channel communication with Justin Cooke and in the session with Matthew from constant contact about open rates and what they really mean. So I hope you guys got a lot from that session as well. And then real long, she’s so funny and whip smart. And I love the way she talked about building real relationships and getting curious with donors. And I hope you guys really heard that piece around that the trust and the relationship takes a long time to build but it starts with that transparency. Oh my gosh, you guys these gifts are giving me life. Thank you for making the day so fun with this. But I love the way she talks about the time it takes to build those real authentic relationships but also that you start the relationship with transparency that you’re moving in the same direction. I thought that was so incredibly meaningful. And then I always love hearing Brian Crimmins and Nathan Chappelle talk and love the framework for radical connection and TYSKIE. Williams oh my gosh, I could go on and on about her. But Did you guys catch that my Angelou was her actual professor. And did anyone else freak out about that with me? So I can’t I can’t even begin to describe how exciting it was to hear all of those folks share their wisdom with all of you. And then to get to end with John Gary, what a special day huge thank you to DonorPerfect for assembling such an incredible group of speakers. And also for giving us so many tactical tools around how to use DP forms more effectively doing segmentation with our donors in the donor database, tracking major gift. I love that session with Donna too. So okay, what is up for tomorrow, your three minutes to the end of the day. So I just want to give you a quick peek into tomorrow. So I’m going to be kicking us off at 1030 Eastern Standard Time. This is really nice you guys because usually I’m in California for this conference. And so I’m doing it at 730. So this is really nice to be in Philadelphia this time around. But 1030 In the morning tomorrow I will be kicking it off with Jeff trifles and Karen Ken, we’re going to talk about why fundraising needs to embrace a more collective culture. And then we have some incredible sessions from Sandra Allen. We’re going to talk about calendar planning preparing for end of year, Erica wafstore monthly giving Sabrina Walker Hernandez stewardship be on the thank you also good friend of mine love her cannot wait for that session. And then you’re going to hear and learn about using DonorPerfect, how to streamline your calendar, how to use the monthly giving features. And then we’re going to wrap the end of the day with a community happy hour. And also throughout the day tomorrow. Don’t forget to visit the different booths and just talk with the sponsors connect with each other. I hope you guys are really on the same high that I am right now from this incredible first day. Thank you for spending this time with us. Please take a moment and scan through everybody’s gifts because I’m so happy I asked that question. This is just the absolute best way to end this day is to scan through, get a giant smile on your face. I cannot wait to see you all tomorrow. Have a wonderful night. And I’ll see you for day two at 10:30am. Eastern 730 Pacific where we won’t kick it off just like today. So have a wonderful night everyone. Thank you for being with us. I can’t wait to see you for day two.

Read Less

Related resources

2026 Top Nonprofit Trends to Watch

2026 Top Nonprofit Trends to Watch

This free webinar addresses the top 10 nonprofit trends that will impact fundraisers in 2026 ...

A preview of the DAF ebook.

A Fundraiser’s Guide to Donor-Advised Funds

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) continue to be a popular charitable giving method. With many benefits, for both donors and nonprofits, it ...