Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
From Film School to Nonprofit Impact: Redefining Leadership and Board Development for Lasting Change
What happens when you transition from film school or youth ministry aspirations to a career in the nonprofit sector? In this episode, get ready to explore the journeys of Carrie Richards and Jamie Simmons, two passionate professionals who have embraced the nonprofit world with open arms. Carrie talks about her path from wanting to be a youth minister to becoming a dedicated nonprofit professional, while Jamie shares her shift from the creative realm of film school to the impactful work of nonprofit boards. Their stories challenge the common misconceptions about nonprofit careers, showcasing the ingenuity and professionalism that the sector demands. Discover the often-overlooked significance of nonprofit board development with us.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
Non-profit professionals are motivated to make a difference, but the minutia of non-profit operations can get in the way of the meaningful work you set out to do. That's where MonkeyPod comes in. Monkeypod helps non-profits get back to their mission by eliminating busy work. Their all-in-one software includes a CRM, non-profit accounting, email marketing, online fundraising and grant management. Email marketing, online fundraising and grant management. Nonprofit Hub listeners can get 15% off the first year of a MonkeyPod subscription by visiting monkeypodio slash nonprofithub. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and joining me today are Keri Richards and Jamie Simmons. I'm very excited to dig into some leadership development and the importance of continuing education and leadership and professional development for leaders, both on the board level and in the executive leadership on nonprofits, because I think sometimes it's really easy to neglect ourselves as leaders and let the day-to-day get us too busy. So I'm excited to dig into the importance of that today. Ladies, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my pleasure. So, carrie, let's start with you. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into nonprofit work in the first place.
Speaker 2:Sure, so my story has a little bit of a churchy beginning. I went to undergraduate school, to Eastern College, now university, to become a youth minister. Did that the school was the late recently late. Tony Campolo was a professor there who was a great advocate for social justice and people of faith getting involved in social activism. Graduated, realized I did not want to be youth minister. Got a job at a nonprofit organization in my neighborhood called the Pittsburgh Project, kind of doing program management type things. Realized this is a path I'd really like to take and then, to be honest, didn't want to take out a whole lot more student loans to go through a master's program in something nonprofit focused.
Speaker 2:I ended up here at Robert Morris University in an entry-level position at the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management. That was almost 18 years ago and I have been working to help nonprofits do their work more efficiently and effectively for about 17 years. Primarily my focus is through professional development, through non-credit short classes that you can learn something on the fly that will help you tomorrow, help you in the next hour after the class is over, to both professionalize nonprofit work and to help nonprofits be taken more seriously both folks who work for the nonprofit sector and the work that they do, that it is a legitimate profession. It is important, and that's my soapbox. That's my soapbox is that nonprofit employees are legitimate, smart people and not a pat on the head oh, that's nice, you do that to help people. No, this is important work and so, yep, that's kind of where I started, and I'm still here after a long time, so obviously something is clicking for me.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, I love it. And then, jamie, you kind of work alongside Carrie. Or tell me a little bit about your journey there as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Carrie and I work at sister centers at RMU. So RMU has two centers that our entire purpose is to help make the world a better place through nonprofits, and so I am lucky to be Carrie's co-worker. You know, we work together very well. Our centers work together very well.
Speaker 3:My nonprofit journey started because I started working at a children's museum when I was 17 here in Pittsburgh and I was going to film school and I was going to be a film director. But I started working at this children's museum and when I was at the children's museum over the next three years of being there, I realized there were these things called nonprofits and that people. You know, I went to my first fundraiser and I was like, wait a second, people give you money and it was. It was like this opening of a door into the nonprofit sector, and so I kind of kept that nugget in the back of my head as I was continuing my journey to be a film director and then a film scholar. And then I started a master's degree in film and realized I hated film because I'd been studying it too long and I was like maybe I should go and I'd been working in nonprofits.
Speaker 3:I was like maybe I should work in nonprofits. And I haven't looked back. I've been in nonprofit work for over 20 years. I've done everything from frontline work in, you know, edutainment nonprofits, all the way through really important work at Child Welfare Agency and that brought me here to the Covestor Center where I get to now kind of put that gigantic 20-year toolbox to work in helping nonprofits partner with outside organizations and outside professionals to make their organization stronger, typically through board development. And so I really think it's important that nonprofit boards continue their development process and aren't just a rubber stamp for the organization but really take their board service and their board commitment very seriously and their commitment to the betterment of the communities that they serve and through their organization. So that's kind of how I ended up here. It's just by working at a children's museum.
Speaker 1:I love it, that's awesome. Well, I'm really excited to dig in today because I'm going to go back to something that Carrie said in her introduction, which is this idea that, like it's cute that you work in a nonprofit, right, that's so sweet, like good for you, right, but we don't tend to maybe give people the the kudos they deserve for the right things, right? Yes, it's great that you want to change the world and you want to have an impact and you want to make the world a better place, but there is a level of professionalism and a level of education, or a level of even intelligence that folks bring to the table that I think oftentimes gets ignored because we just we do want to pat those folks on the head and say good job, well, good for you. So, Carrie, talk to me a little bit from your perspective about where that idea comes from and how we, as leaders, as folks who run nonprofits, how do we help fight against that? How do we help change that stigma?
Speaker 2:Yeah, other than just having a soapbox to shout out to anyone who will hear like thank you podcast listeners.
Speaker 1:Or then sharing this podcast with the world Right.
Speaker 2:It starts with the name non-profit. There have been campaigns from the non-profit sector to get that change to the social sector or um, something like that, because it talks about what we don't do. We don't make a profit. That doesn't't mean we can't have money left over at the end of the year that we can then reinvest into our programs. But it does not mean that the people who run the organization get a big kickback if there's a chunk of money at the end. But just looking at the fact that we do not benefit financially from any money left over at the end of the year automatically puts us at a just a step down from folks who work in the private sector. A lot of times, also because nonprofits have to run on a bare bones budget, some professional best practices get put on a back burner. A lot of that from the professional standpoint is HR, is development, leadership development. It is preventing burnout. It is making sure that people are equipped to move from something like a programmatic role or a frontline role to a supervisory role, but not considering the professional development that needs to happen in order to make that transition successful, to set those folks up for success. So through our course catalog we offer about 80 to 90 sessions a year that are one to two hours through Zoom, but interactively, not a talking head on fundraising, board governance, human resources, leadership development, marketing and technology Some of the things that we do. We focus a lot on HR and leadership development because that is something that's so important and something that is often ignored. In our catalog that we just launched for the spring, we are debuting a couple new classes, one called Exit Stage Left, with Grace and Compassion when you have to let someone go.
Speaker 2:It is complicated in the nonprofit world because there's so much care and dedication to the work and kind of a family mentality sets in. You know we're doing this together, we're saving the world together. So how do you professionalize that particular aspect of being an employer? Also, you know helping the helpers burnout prevention when your job is to make sure kids are eating lunch every day and you're seeing things like hunger and poverty firsthand as your job, it takes a toll to continue to give and to continue to give and continue to give and making sure that those folks are being cared for, both professionally, in a well thought out way, is also very important. So you know, because things are always changing, we need to be honing our skills, both in our careers and what's going on in the outside environment.
Speaker 2:So when we're putting our classes together, we look at a couple different things. We look at what we've offered before, how we can improve it and continue to modify it to make sure that it's continuing to adapt to new technologies, new things going on, new trends, things like that. We ask people what else would you like to learn about? When we survey people after classes and develop those things. And we also look at what's going on in the political climate, the environmental climate. What's happening? Are there new government regulations that nonprofits need to consider when they're collecting data? Are grant makers looking for new trends? And for a while it was logic models, for a while it was mergers, for a while it was partnerships what are those things? And just kind of trying to look at the ever-changing landscape of the need of people and how to adapt those skills and how to adapt those leadership styles and things to accommodate an ever-changing environment.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think so often. I love the list that you had about the types of content that you guys are focused on, because I feel like so often the only continuing education pieces that we see in the nonprofit space are about fundraising going towards your CFRE, and that's great for a fundraiser but that leaves behind everybody else. So I love that.
Speaker 1:That's fundraising wasn't even on your list and we do offer some fundraising classes, but there's so much more to it, and I think so often I've talked to so many non-profit professionals who got into it because they do have that desire.
Speaker 1:They want to impact the cause, they want to change the world, they want to do better and and grow their good, but that doesn't always translate to the the professional skills they need to do better and grow their good, but that doesn't always translate to the professional skills they need to do it Right. That doesn't always mean that you have a background in how to fire somebody or how to manage a conflict or a PR crisis or any of the things that can come up. So, equally and, jamie, I'm going to get your take on this, because, equally, I feel like we end up with a lot of folks on nonprofit boards who don't even know why they're there Right, they don't necessarily even understand the role of the board sometimes, or they just ended up there because they happen to be a really good donor and so they have this seat on the board. And so tell me a little bit about why it's so important to have that education for the board as well, and what that looks like from your side on Confestro.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a great question. I wish more people asked this question. Right, we would have better boards. So I think you're so right. I think people end up on boards for a number of reasons. Right, and honestly, I'd prefer a donor on a board than a best friend of the executive director. Right, because we don't have enough board members to meet our bylaws right, but there's all different reasons why people end up on boards and I would say a huge commonality is what do we do? And sometimes nonprofit boards have not taken the time to build the infrastructure for themselves. You know, when I am teaching a boards work class to either, you know, in a company setting you know I recently did one for American Eagle, right, and where I went in and I taught a bunch of their team members how to be board members or if I'm doing a mixed cohort with people from all different sectors.
Speaker 3:I think one of the things people are always very struck by is the fact that boards are really self-governing, right. They choose themselves, they nominate their leaders, they evaluate themselves and they're in charge of their own professional development. Like they are in charge, they're a self-governing entity that is there to really protect the public interest, right? That's the point of the board. Yes, the board is also there to ensure the organization is moving forward and is meeting its duties and, you know, is doing what they say they should be doing. But they're there to protect the public good and to kind of usher the nonprofit forward. That's a big shock to people of usher the nonprofit forward. That's a big shock to people.
Speaker 3:Wait, I have all these duties and responsibilities and so something like so, carrie and I, when I so I've been here a little under a year and I and I took the helm of the Covestro Center after a small, a small break. There was a small break in programming at Covestro, but there were two really signature programs of the Cabestro Center Boardswork and Skillshare. Carrie and I were talking about Boardswork and I was talking to different organizations about Boardswork and we'll talk about Boardswork in a second. But it's a great program. But it seemed like there was something missing because people just needed a level setting. And so Carrie and I developed this boardsmanship brush-up class, which is a two-hour class that's offered through Bayer, which is just a level setting of what does a board do, and it's set for people that are brand new to boards or people that need that brush-up of what are my responsibilities, because we were seeing there was a huge gap and a huge need for this basic education of people that have been on boards for years, and that should be something that's coming from internally, inside of the infrastructure of the board.
Speaker 3:But if the nonprofit professionals don't have time to build solid, sustainable infrastructure, how can we expect their boards to build solid, sustainable infrastructure?
Speaker 3:How can we expect their boards to build solid, sustainable infrastructure? And so it's something that we've introduced this year and it's been wildly successful to get people with a baseline knowledge, where either they send a bunch of people to a boardmanship brush up or I'll do one specifically for a nonprofit that wants to level set their entire board, and then the boards were programmed, is an assessment process and helps them really find opportunities and then does a retreat around those opportunities that they find. But that boardsmanship brush up has just been this really important thing that we found was needed, has just been this really important thing that we found was needed, and I hope, you know, after boardsmanship brush up and after boards work, that they go back to Bayer and they continue their professional development journey and they put together a professional development plan for their boards, because it's just as important as for their paid team members monkey pod brings financial and people management together into one platform.
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Speaker 1:I think the theme that I'm hearing from both of you, right, is like it doesn't matter if you're the board or the executive team or the management team, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:It's this idea that that, yes, the work you're doing is really important, but that doesn't mean that you are not also worth investing in, right, and I think sometimes that's the mentality of man. We have all this, there's so much work to do all the time, and that's that is going to be true forever and ever. And so it almost feels selfish and I know that that's the wrong word, but it almost feels selfish to say I'm going to take this time for me, right? So if you were talking to and I'm curious to, I would love to have both of you answer this If you're talking to an executive director who's like, yeah, that that all sounds great, I don't know where I would make the time. I don't know how I would convince everybody else that this is worth their time. What does that argument look like? What is the thing you would say to somebody for why this is so important, both to them personally and to their organization?
Speaker 2:It seems the professional development in within the nonprofit landscape often is looked at as a luxury and we look at class topics, for example, things like how to move a donor from one size gift to another size gift, how to get your board to fundraise, fundraising, fundraising, fundraising, but also things like making sure you are referring to your strategic plan on the regular basis, that it doesn't sit on a shelf and collect dust. Those are kinds of sessions that are like, okay, maybe we can make time for this. But then there's things like what's your leadership style and how does that come from your values and how do you leverage that to be a better leader, or even things like helping the helpers, preventing burnout. We find that there's a real divide between the amount of people who will come to a technical fundraising class than the people who would come to a burnout prevention class. It's like I only get a hundred bucks a year for professional development. It better be something that I can come back to my board or my director and say I learned this and I increased our individual giving by 10% because of the tactics I learned. That's a hard argument to say. I would like to spend the money on a class on how to develop better coaching skills, how to be a better leader, exactly. And so, on one hand, you were asking you know what's the argument? What's the case we can make is that if you're able to invest a little bit of time, energy and sometimes money, right, that will come back to you by learning something, an efficiency All of a sudden, this thing that you've been doing this way for five years. You learned how to do it that way and it takes you half the amount of time or the effectiveness in that you had done an annual appeal at the end of the year every year, took a class on how to use data and storytelling, applied that to the annual appeal and it increased end of the year giving. So there's that argument.
Speaker 2:And then there's just the fact that sometimes we need to offer things for free because we know it's important and we know that people aren't going to be able to make a case to invest money in it. Last semester, we offered a free class on the effects of menopause at work. We have an amazing volunteer who teaches for us. She's a PhD. She has expertise in leadership development, coaching, also change management, but she's personally on a mission from God to help people understand what's up with menopause, how it makes you feel, how it affects you in the workplace and whether or not you are a person who will ever personally experience menopause. You are going to work alongside people who are how do we look at this? With grace and with forgiveness and with support, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So, you know, sometimes we just need to look at something that needs to be addressed we know people aren't going to invest money in it and say this is important enough that we just need to get together and talk about this, you know, anecdotally, so that you know that you're not alone. So, yeah, and speaking of not being alone, one of the so that you know that you're not alone. So, yeah, and speaking of not being alone, one of the biggest things that we see have seen success in is our executive director huddles Second Thursday of every month from noon to one on Zoom. It is just to get together and talk about what they're struggling with.
Speaker 2:Being an executive director is a lonely position, um, being an executive director is a lonely position, um, your board is there to help, but you also don't want to have to bounce every small problem off of them, because then you know, it makes you look like you don't know what you're doing or that you need more help or that kind of thing, and you can't really bounce those things off your, your staff, because you're supposed to be the one who knows what to do, and so there's great strength in getting with other like-minded people in similar positions and talking about what's hard, how we consider tackling that hard thing and celebrating when we're able to make some progress there.
Speaker 2:So there's definitely strength in friendships and in networking with other people who do similar work. There are so many commonalities in what people are struggling with and just talking about them without an agenda. We have a great facilitator, wendy Burtner, who comes to each one with a question in her hip pocket in case people aren't talking, but she's never had to use it. So, yeah, there's just something special about that kind of learning as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jamie, what would you say is kind of the case for this on the board side?
Speaker 3:So I would say I have a case for both sides. I just wanted to build on what carrie said, because I think there is this perception change that needs to happen and carrie kind of got this that we need to change the, the kind of perspective we have on roi and roi k, whatever our letters of the day are, because honestly, I feel like organizations can't afford and this is both on board and the nonprofit professional side we can't afford not to professionally develop our staff and our board. So often we have board members who don't know what they're doing right Leading an organization of potential professionals that might not know what they're doing. You know, you see, so often in nonprofits you know the social worker that was a great social worker who's now a social worker supervisor, who now is the last person standing and is the executive director. They were an amazing social worker, right.
Speaker 3:That doesn't mean they have the skill set to run an actual company To run a corporation, you know, and so I think we see that so often in the nonprofit sector because of you know the just nature of the nonprofit business model. It's not really sustainable if you look at it from that perspective. But we also, you know, we don't pay our people enough and we don't have a professional enough view of our folks, and so I just feel like you can't afford not to build professional development and infrastructure in because, like Kerry said, you might not see that immediate increase in fundraising but you might see an extension of tenure of staff. One of the last organizations I worked at, I think our average tenure was like 16 months with a social worker and it would take six months to onboard them. So really you have 10 months of someone before they start checking out. And so you know we can't afford not to have our bus feet forward and as upskilled as we possibly can be in the nonprofit sector.
Speaker 1:So to that end, that talk about the investment. So if it takes you six months to onboard somebody and then they're going to transition out in under a year, what is the cost to the organization? Exactly, you want to talk about the ROI. If you are a leader who is creating a culture where people do stay and you're not constantly having to go spend money on recruiting and training and all of those things, then that does have an impact to the bottom line of the organization.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You just need to shift your perspective to say what is the long run of taking this leadership development course, what is the long game in learning how to exit people gracefully and what is the long game in learning about my leadership style and how that could potentially have a ripple effect on my team, on my organization and, ultimately, our community. Where we're? You know where we're doing our work every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a big problem with all of this is general public perception of what nonprofits should be spending their money on. Absolutely Every year at the end of the year you get these Facebook posts it like so and so organization has 40 overhead, you know, and it's like, yeah, these are salaries and professional development and new computers and things like that. And this, this perception that you know the vast majority of nonprofit funding should be directly to the cause. Just, the math does not work. You know, talk to somebody in, you know, in a for-profit entity that's well, this money all needs to be going to actually manufacturing the widgets, not the people doing it. And it's like, no, no, no, no, I need a salary and it needs to be reasonable, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But this public perception of professional development for updated technology, for facilities, different things like that, really there needs to be a sea change there and one way to do that is to serve on a nonprofit board. That you're coming from the public or the private sector and you're serving on a nonprofit board and all of a sudden it makes sense. What that financial statement really says is what it needs to be the work is being done, the people are being employed. That's. The win-win there is that the nonprofit sector also employs a ton of people. This is a legitimate career choice and you know we talk about, not something you fall into because you couldn't hack it in the private sector.
Speaker 2:Exactly, or that. You know, I'm just a. You know someone who is independently wealthy, and do this out of the goodness of my heart, you know. No, these are real career choices and real careers and getting folks to realize that money needs to be spent to save the world and not just on. You know the end result, but how we're getting there, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. So I man, this conversation is so important and I wish that we had a whole lot more time to keep having it. So we may just have to have you both back on, but if this has kind of struck somebody and they wanted to learn more, how would they go about finding either the Bayer Center or the Convestro Center to like, connect more and see what resources are available to actually make this investment in their organizations?
Speaker 2:Thanks for asking we could go to. So we are both. The Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management and the Convestro Center for Community Engagement are both part of Robert Morris University's Rockwell School of Business. If you were to go to rmuedunonprofits you'd find a hub that gives information for both of our programming. Our course catalog that runs from the end of January through early May is up. Registration is open. Jamie, do you want to talk about some of the things that people could take advantage of immediately at the Covestro Center?
Speaker 3:So again on that nonprofit hub site you will see information about Covestro Center. We are currently recruiting nonprofits for our Boardsburg program. So if you feel like you're bored, we'd love some professional development. Definitely reach out to me and we can talk through the different programs. Also, I'm offering a boardsmanship brush up class through the Bayer Center, open to everyone, or, if you'd like, a private one for your organization, you can talk to me as well. But really, if you talk to either of us, we can get you in the right place. Carrie and I work together, even though we're separated by a floor. We work together seamlessly and you can receive services or information from both of us about either of our programs. So we just really want to connect with you and find out how we can best serve you. And even though we're located in Southwestern PA, carrie's programs are very easily translated, with her online classes, and so are my programs, so we can serve anyone across the country.
Speaker 1:Awesome, that's fantastic. Well, ladies, thank you so much. I really appreciate the conversation. I think it's such a critical piece, especially for all of our leaders who are listening to the podcast, to understand the importance of investing in themselves, so I'm excited that there are other opportunities out there for them with that, and I appreciate the work that you're both doing in that sector for sure. So thanks for being here. Thank you All right, this has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.