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
Nurturing Nonprofit Talent
In a landscape where nonprofit burnout is rampant and mid-career professionals are vanishing from the sector, Kevin and Johanna from the Collaborative Collective bring urgently needed wisdom to address this talent crisis.
The financial stakes are higher than many realize. When a skilled nonprofit professional leaves, the replacement cost exceeds $30,000—not counting the immeasurable loss of relationships and institutional knowledge. Yet despite these sobering numbers, many organizations continue investing mere "pennies per day" in professional development, if anything at all.
"If I'm not willing to spend any time developing the team, and then I can't figure out why people keep leaving..." Johanna poses this challenging question that many leaders need to confront. The conversation reveals how even cash-strapped organizations can create environments where staff feel genuinely valued and invested in, often the deciding factor in retention despite lower compensation.
Perhaps most surprising is the revelation about artificial intelligence in nonprofits. Most organizations are operating in what Kevin calls "ghost mode"—staff using AI tools without guidance or oversight, potentially creating significant risks. "If you're not doing something already with AI, you need to be," Johanna emphasizes. The pair outlines practical approaches for developing sound AI policies that protect organizations while embracing innovation, including their affordable AI Policy Lab designed specifically for smaller nonprofits.
The conversation concludes with powerful advice on sustainability. "Don't let the work ruin you, because the work needs you," Johanna counsels, sharing her personal journey toward establishing boundaries around rest. This wisdom, combined with Kevin's reminder that human-centered nonprofit work "is never going away" despite technological disruption, offers both practical guidance and renewed hope for sector leaders.
Catch Kevin and Johanna's workshop at CauseCamp on November 4-5 in Pittsburgh to dive deeper into talent development strategies for your organization.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
Non-profits. Are you ready to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact? Save big on Adobe Acrobat Pro, the leading PDF and e-signature tool built for mission-driven work. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits. Slash acrobat. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, joined today by Kevin and Johanna from the Collaborative Collective, very excited to sit down with them. You will note that you could find both of their names on our CauseCamp speaker list, so I'm really excited to have them on the podcast today, ahead of CauseCamp, just to give everyone kind of a taste and a little peek of what we're going to be doing at CauseCamp this fall. So, kevin and Johanna, welcome in.
Speaker 2:Thanks, it's good to be here. It's been good to hang out, megan, and even chat a little bit.
Speaker 1:So good, johanna, why don't you start and tell us a little bit about yourself as an introduction to the audience?
Speaker 3:Sure, so my name is Johanna. I am currently with the Collaborative Collective as a lead consultant, and then I also have been working in different nonprofits for about 15 years at this point, worked in national and hyperlocal contexts, ran a community center and have done lots, worn lots of different hats in there. So I fundraised, I've managed grants, I've run programs. I fundraised, I've managed grants, I've run programs and really just am passionate about seeing good people making a difference in the world and giving them the tools they need. Because these are the people I want at the forefront of innovation, of decision making, because I know these are people whose hearts are really there to serve others and to make the world a better place. So they're the ones that I want to be in those rooms and feeling equipped for the long haul.
Speaker 1:That's great. And Kevin, how about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good to be with you, megan. I'm in Portland and have been serving with the Collaborative Collective since its founding. Johanna and I put this sucker together and we've been serving nonprofits since early 2024. Johanna is that when it kind of got birthed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but before that I grew up in Michigan and started working in nonprofits right out of college and kind of fell in love with the notion of community service and bringing business operations and HR and innovation skills into that space. You know I always loved the direct community service aspect but the needs and the operational sort of leadership space were really evident and really needed when I entered back in oh gosh, I'm going to date myself here back in like 2006. And then I moved to the West Coast. Now I live up in Portland, oregon, and I have been a nonprofit executive for gosh the last 10 years before founding the Collective and worked program roles in a national organization before that. The altruistic nature of serving communities, especially youth, and helping nonprofits figure out how do we run smoothly and efficiently so we can be good stewards and ultimately not necessarily be more lean but actually do more good direct in the community, and that's really been sort of the bread and butter of my leadership and what we love to focus on at the Collective.
Speaker 1:I love it, that's great. Leadership and what we love to focus on at the Collective I love it, that's great. So I'm excited for this episode because I feel like it's a really great bridge where we wrapped up a series in July on Nonprofit 101, kind of focusing in on those first-time nonprofit leaders, those first-time fundraisers and really getting back to basics. But then it bridges really nicely to what you guys are especially talking about at CauseCamp bridges really nicely to what you guys are especially talking about at CauseCamp bridges really nicely to that next level and that is looking at managing talent and growing talent within an organization. We all know nonprofit burnout is for real and we know that there's kind of a oh man. There's such a gap in the middle because people are burning out so quickly that we don't have a lot of long-time tenured around anymore, which can be really hard for an organization. So I'm excited that you guys are going to dig into that a little bit more at CauseCamp itself.
Speaker 1:But, kevin, let's start with you. I'm curious. So when we talk about like a mid-level leader define that, let's all, let's start from the same page. And why let's talk about like a mid-level leader define that, let's all. Let's start from the same page and why. Let's talk about why that's such a critical role within nonprofit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love this, megan, and thanks for bringing it up, and I'm so looking forward to being with you all in Pittsburgh at Cause Camp. It's going to be a good time and plan on eating some good food and hanging out with great people. But one of the reasons why we do spend some time focused on what we like to call mid-career instead of mid-level professionals because sometimes you can be in the middle of your career and be a very senior leader or you can be an entry-level leader just entering into the nonprofit space. But we really like to focus in on those that are kind of in the middle of their career. Maybe they've been in a nonprofit for three, four, five years and maybe pushing into that seven-year mark and they're starting to be like where am I going? What am I doing? I'm exhausted. What's professional development look like? Do I want to be an executive? Am I aspiring to something? Do I want to stay right where I'm at? Is the nonprofit space even for me anymore? There's just a middle ground.
Speaker 2:That's often really difficult and unique in the nonprofit sector. That's a little bit different than the corporate world, larger organizations, where your career path is very, very clear and you just kind of work it until you retire and you do the best you can. And so we really like to work with those folks because, a we're relational and B we've been there and C we can help folks get through it. And one of the reasons we talk so much about it is because the cost of hiring and replacing good, experienced nonprofit leaders is so expensive I think in the corporate world like the stat I most recently read is something around $30,000 to basically replace an employee, the cost of, like lost experience, the cost of recruiting, and then you know the cost to train them and get them back up to speed.
Speaker 2:I honestly wonder if it's more in the nonprofit space, because the work that we do is so unique and nuanced and human centric and those skills are so hard to find these days that it's one of the reasons we love to talk to senior leadership about the importance of retention with those mid-career professionals, because if you can hold on to them, you're effectively raising dollars for your organization by keeping them, because if you're losing them, if you're turning over 30% of your mid-career workforce, you're losing a lot of human capital but also real dollars, in my opinion. So we spend a lot of time there and we focus on what are your aspirations? Where do you want to go? How do we get you the skills to be there? And then, how do we shift the paradigm of which people think of a typical career path and actually open up new definitions for growth, longevity and tenure for those mid-level career folks and I just said mid-level, so I need to put $5 in the You're going to put it in the jar.
Speaker 1:That's a really. I think that's a great point. I think it's interesting to think about that investment because, you're right, we don't. It's hard to quantify that, to say what it would look like in a nonprofit space, but, johanna, I'm curious to hear your thoughts here because, especially in a nonprofit world, you've been there, you've run the nonprofit itself. Right, there are 17 fires all of the time, yeah, and you are constantly having to serve the constituents in which you're overseeing and serving.
Speaker 1:I would assume that it's not intentional. We're not intentionally not developing people, right? Is it a tyranny of the urgent, where we just don't, or is it like a? Is it a cultural thing that has to get changed? Do you know what I mean? I think it's interesting to think about like in the grand scheme of like we need to feed the homeless people, or I need to send this guy to a conference for some professional development. It's hard to justify that in the grand scheme of like we need to feed the homeless people or I need to send this guy to a conference for some professional development. It's hard to justify that in the nonprofit context.
Speaker 3:I think. I think it is and it isn't right. So on the one hand, yes, you know there's a parent that shows up and needs housing and you're like, I'm supposed to go be part of a cohort training for an hour on zoom, Like right, you know that. Yes, that's very real. But I also think that there's definitely the problem is, then we start to lean on that as the reason we don't do it and we don't budget for it. And I think, and I really think, the budget is where it lies. So when I would develop budgets for professional development, I would break it down into what was it going to cost per staff person per day, and I think a lot of nonprofits that they looked at. Here's how much we're spending on professional development for our whole team in a year, and we divide that by the people on our team and then we divide it by 365, or, if you want to do, you know, subtracting weekends, 250-ish. You're going to be potentially spending pennies, if not less than pennies, and so then we have to really take a hard look in the mirror and say, okay, so if I'm not willing to spend any time developing the team, and then I can't figure out why people keep leaving is it? Are we sacrificing these urgent needs at the expense of actually meeting the long-term needs of the team and help make? Helping to make our services more efficient, more effective, so that we aren't always putting out fires? Right, Like I think about when I got my start as a teacher with a large national nonprofit, and when I think about my first year of teaching.
Speaker 3:Versus I am married to a teacher. He's in his 15th year of teaching, right, your first year of teaching. You are staying in the classroom, you know 10 hours a day. Sometimes it feels like because you don't know what you're doing and you have to figure it out. Versus now my partner is a seasoned teacher and he's out the door at three o'clock, partly because he's got to pick up our kids, but also because he knows what he's doing. Now he's got systems in place. Things that used to take him, you know, days and weeks to do. He can get done in a half hour, and so I think in the nonprofit space, we have to think about it that way too. Like, do you want to still be putting out this fire 20 years from now Because every year you've had a new person in the role, because you can't keep anybody, or do you want to start investing $1 per day per team member in some kind of and maybe that's team professional development?
Speaker 3:I think that was one thing a nonprofit I was part of for over a decade did really well was that there were conferences, and it wasn't just we're going to send Johanna to this conference, it's we're going to send all of our team members who want to go to this conference. That was a huge expense but it meant that our team felt like we were developed professionally and connected to each other personally. So that just developed a really strong team that worked well together, that felt like they were invested in and we had low salaries. We had almost no benefits, but we had really low turnover at that organization and I would credit a huge part of that with people felt like they were invested in and that they had a team that cared about them. And I'll just say from personal experience, I am shocked at what I will stay for. If I feel like I'm valued personally and I'm invested in, I'll stay for very little for a very long time if those people are met.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. So to that point, because we all know nonprofit professionals are not getting paid anywhere near what they should be, right. But also I'm wondering what it looks like and, kevin, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as a start to the conversation. One conference a year and you get that. I'm wondering if that's let me think of how to phrase that right? So when I was in middle school, we would go on these youth group retreats and so once a year you would have this amazing mountaintop experience and everybody loves each other and everything is wonderful. And then we'd come home and like, two or three weeks later that may not have happened and none of those dynamics continue, right? So is there what does that balance look like? Or is there some insight you have on the like yes, woohoo, we're super investing to send everybody to a conference, versus we're doing little things throughout the year to keep that going. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. It's a complex question too because there's no, you know, one size answer. Are you a smaller organization? Are you a bigger organization? Who is the employee that you're dealing with, right? Are they a brand new employee? Have they been around for a while? Are they an executive? What are they motivated by? Right?
Speaker 2:All of those questions come into the space of retention and development and creating really vibrant cultures that are healthy and do great service, work through the nonprofit and get after the mission right off the start and nonprofits almost always were confronting societal issues that there's no bottom to the amount of good we could do. So there's no end to the question of, well, I could do one more good thing or I could invest in my people. That one good thing will always be there. So at some point, as senior leaders, they've got to recognize and have the discipline to say my mission isn't just about doing one more thing, it's also about building a sustainable environment where our team can not only do those good things but grow over time and be more effective and efficient at it as good stewards of our resources.
Speaker 1:And so that's the beginning of it. But then you have to start to nuance and you know as a team, your whole staff I hope you're budgeting to go to at least one conference a year. Altogether those are good mountaintop experiences.
Speaker 2:But if you're a brand new employee ultimately like maybe go to CauseCamp. Causecamp would be an excellent recommendation, cause camp would be an excellent recommendation, right. But it's like kind of the tip of the iceberg, like if you're not at least doing that, like okay, start there. But really what we want you to do is start to nuance between, okay, what do entry level staff need? They need mentorship, they need opportunities, they need the ability to take a stretch assignment and grow a bit. But then you have to start to look at you know, what are their motivations? Are they motivated by salary? Are they motivated by benefits? Is it, you know, some sort of like I solved a big problem for the organization that's going to help move them into that mid-career zone. And then you start talking about mid-career folks. What do they need and how do we retain them, how do we develop them, which is a very different question than entry-level staff. It's one of the reasons why we launched a program called the Aspire Cohorts, in the mix with other career folks who aren't part of their organization, so that they can start to be honest about the challenges that they're facing and couple that with their aspirations and mutually together point out areas where they could grow and develop and also like be encouraged by the good work that they are doing, and oftentimes we see tremendous breakthrough in that space.
Speaker 2:And people you know, sometimes they go on space. And people you know, sometimes they go on and do different things. Sometimes they go I really do want to be an executive here and they learn to start to ask better questions and lead in new ways. Anyways, I'll stop there. I know I'm going long, megan, but at the end of the day, it's a complex question, but as a senior leader of an organization, you have to be willing to hit the pause button and say what exactly am I building here?
Speaker 2:And is it about the staff that we employ? Because one of the things that we focus on a lot is AI these days and I know we're going to talk about that in a minute and in the for-profit sector, jobs are being lost because of the advancements in technology. The nonprofit space is not like that. As there's technology breakthrough, we become more efficient, right, but that just means we can do more good, and so jobs aren't being lost, and the better you can be at retaining your people with human skills, the more effective your mission is going to be in the long run and the more a better steward you're going to be.
Speaker 1:If you want to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact, we have the solution for you. With Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can streamline reports, speed up contracts with e-signatures and create polished PDFs that inspire donors and engage volunteers. Work smarter with cloud access, top-tier security and powerful editing tools designed for teams on a mission. And with special nonprofit pricing it's efficiency you can afford. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash acrobat. You bring up an interesting point because we are seeing, on the for-profit side, a lot of those entry-level jobs being taken away due to AI. The nice part of nonprofit is we're not seeing that at the moment. Right, because what we do is so human-centric. There's not an AI robot, for example, serving meals at a soup kitchen, right?
Speaker 2:Thank God.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a weird day if that ever happens, right. But I also don't think that this is the AI revolution, is not something that we can stick our head in the sand over and assume it's never going to impact us, or that we don't need it or that we shouldn't embrace it. So where, if it's not in the taking of entry level jobs, where are you seeing it right now? Or where should we be paying attention to it? I go, oh sorry.
Speaker 3:Kevin.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:I just want to say, if nonprofits are not investing time and energy in looking at the development, especially, of generative AI tools, so when we? Ai encompasses a lot of things, but I think most of the time right now when we're talking about it, we're talking about the chat, gpts, the clods, the perplexity, all these different platforms. Gemini is another big one. If you're not doing something already, you need to be. I spend a lot of time working with folks in the for-profit tech sector and like at the intersection of non-profit and it is moving so quickly and, um, I know kevin and I have had experiences supporting folks in like really creative industry, non-profit, like arts and writing and different things and folks are saying you know we hate those tools and I totally understand. But I also kind of think this is like when email was introduced like you could hate email for a long time. You could say I love the post office, I like my fax machine, I like interoffice mail, I don't like this email stuff and that's fine, but it's not. It didn't go away.
Speaker 3:And I feel that way about these gen AI tools at this point Like you can hate them all you want, that's totally fine. They're not going anywhere and so you want to at least be. If they're your enemy, know your enemy. But hopefully you can also see ways to what Kevin was saying to adopt them to make your work better and to make your team better. And again what I said earlier, I also want nonprofit people to be adopting them because we are going to use them with that ethical lens and a lot of spaces right now are lacking that lens because they're concerned about generating profit and the nonprofit people are going to be the ones that raise their hands and say, hey, this is problematic and so we need more people like that in the space. So I'm sorry, I just had Kevin, I had to get two cents in about that.
Speaker 1:No, I like the soapbox. I'm here for it.
Speaker 2:Me too. I'm like keep going, johanna, three more. No. But, megan, it's an interesting point, and you know you mentioned AI, but neither of myself nor Johanna we're not, you know, coders. You know we're not software engineers or whatever the you, whatever the fancy titles are. We're truly like nonprofit executives who are focused on the operations in HR space, really helping missions, sort of innovate for the future. And we have to talk about this because AI is in everything folks do. It's not a matter of if, like email, even like you kind of had to turn it on in your organization for it to actually make an impact. Ai is literally turning on in every digital system that we have right now.
Speaker 2:And so people who look at me in the eye and say, oh no, our organization isn't using AI, I'm like, well, that's a nice thought, but you are, you just don't know it. And then they start to go, oh well, yeah, we have this cool AI agent or we're using GPT and we're, you know, folks are doing all sorts of things. And I go, oh so how are you managing risk in that space? And they go, oh, I never thought about that. And it's becoming this a little bit of a monster.
Speaker 2:And so executives come to us and say how do I get ahead? Like I can't keep up, like the space is evolving so quickly. And they're right it is. I mean, we can't really keep up either. We don't try, but what we do want to do is create safe spaces for people to use, experiment, figure out how does this make our mission better and the organization can go. Maybe it's not under control, but we've got our arms around it and we're doing the best we can to be equitable leaders who are keeping our mission safe, and that's generally through really good and sound policy that's built for innovation. So it's one of the key services that we're offering, and when executives hear that, they go oh yeah, we need that, but it takes a minute, and so you know, right now there's most organizations and nonprofits that we call they're in ghost mode. Right now, there's most organizations and nonprofits that we call they're in ghost mode. Staff are using it and they're not saying anything about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like even especially in education, like there's almost like the shame factor in education, like, oh, don't use AI. It means like somehow your intelligence is lesser, you know, and when you're teaching a student we've got to be thoughtful about the use of AI, but there's this shame built in so people don't talk about it and so there's no learning going on through mutuality and like, hey, I made this mistake, I hope no one else makes it. Right, let's share that information. That's not happening, which is really what we want to encourage. And when we can match policy with co-learning and we insert introduce like responsibility, we actually get to an aligned innovation where we're all moving together for the mission in the same direction. So, anyways, that's what we spend a lot of time talking about. Yeah, with nonprofits and AI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, I think. So I got asked recently to sit on a one of the local colleges here in Pittsburgh was putting a commission together where they brought business leaders in to talk with faculty about what it looks like to prepare a student for an AI-based workforce and how do we help them be prepared for that. And to your point, I think the academics were all like, well, we don't want them using it, we don't want to do this, we don't want to do this, we don't want to do that. I'm like, listen, they're going to use it. It's already like that's an established fact. What I need you to do is teach them how to think. To Johanna's point right, I need you to think ethically about how we use it and come at it with that lens. I can teach them to, and whatever platforms we need them to do, I can do that. What I can't do is teach somebody to think and think well about it, and so I think that's a really important piece of this conversation that you just brought up there.
Speaker 3:I think that's a big gap we're seeing now. And to Kevin's point like that in the nonprofit space, like let's talk about, like staff retention, right, yeah, you have a new staff person who you've hired to follow up with leads or to follow up with leads in fundraising, and they're using ChatGPT, but they don't have the context for your organization yet. They don't have all that knowledge and maybe they also don't know how to use these tools in a thoughtful way. They could be sending out emails that are damaging your organizational reputation. And again back to if you're just head in the sand, like I don't wanna think about, I don't wanna think about these tools, it could be doing a lot more harm.
Speaker 3:But if you're actively training your team, talking about it modeling, this is what an excellent email would look like. This is what a not great email would look like. Or if you've got seasoned staff who know the difference and can use the tool effectively to faster generate emails, but then they can also look at it and say, oh no, we would never send that to the United Way. They would totally reject that. Or, oh, this sounds way too corporate for our voice. We need to change it. So, yeah, it takes a lot of thought and, to Kevin's point, it's not really about trying to keep up with it, but how do you engage with it thoughtfully? And that trickles down to encouraging your team to be thoughtful, and then that trickles into thoughtful training. And that's really where we want to help, kind of the direction we want to point people in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So if, if the executive directors, if the senior leaders who are listening to this podcast right now are going oh yeah, we have no such policy, we have no plan. Maybe my head like I can see people sitting in their car being like, yep, it's me, my head is in the sand. I, you know I'm the problem. It's me. How would they? What's the best way to connect with you all to get some answers around that or find out how to to be doing it better?
Speaker 3:Can I just say if that is you, you're not alone, you're right?
Speaker 1:No, for sure, you are not alone.
Speaker 2:We get you? Yeah, we get you, but like here's an option, here's a solution.
Speaker 1:That's so funny.
Speaker 2:How would they?
Speaker 1:best connect with you guys.
Speaker 2:We love that question and, first of all, like we would want people to know like at the heart of it we're relational people, like we're not computer geeks and we just love to like help encourage nonprofit leaders and like move forward and innovate so that their missions can remain really effective and relevant in their communities. And so one of the things that we do is work with organizations specifically on policy, and one of the things that we're noticing is that the need in this space cuts across all sizes of organizations. Whether you're a very large organization or a very small organization, you need this work and support. And so we put a little bit of a dividing line at $10 million in annual revenue or above. Like we want to work with you one-on-one. Your needs are going to be a little bit more complex your training needs, development needs, etc. So if you're in that bucket, reach out to us. We'll set up a one-on-one, we'll figure out a pathway for you. Generally, investments that are going to start at about 30 000 and then move up. So it's a bigger investment, but you've got a bigger footprint. You've got more complex needs to think about. Underneath that, the needs are still very, very real and prevalent and they don't have those kinds of resources to invest, to just create a policy and create the world in which AI can actually be an innovation tool that helps them align and move their mission forward.
Speaker 2:So we did create a new lab.
Speaker 2:We're calling it the AI Policy Lab and it's specifically designed for smaller organizations under 10 million in annual revenue. It's 2,500 bucks for six months and literally we walk you through the process of like what even is AI? How do we establish a baseline foundation for your organization? How do we create that sense of training, that safety? We build a policy together, we get it through board approval and then we walk through rolling it out with your organization so that people move out of that ghost mode and they actually start talking together. So we actually start to innovate our mission, but we do it safely. So if people want to jump into the policy lab, we're actually launching one in September. We only have a few seats left, so we would love to fill it with nonprofit hub folk. That would be really, really fun. So if they want that, they can head to our website or just reach out to us. We'll get them hooked up, but it's a really cost-effective way for them to get ahead of this and not just control it, but actually use it to really advance their mission.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, and we'll link to your website in the show notes too, so if someone wants to check it out, they can get that. Okay, so it's hard to believe, but we're wrapping up our conversational time here. The question that I've been asking everyone so far this year on this season of Nonprofit Hub Radio is if you could give one piece of wisdom, encouragement, advice, counsel, etc. Toa nonprofit leader right now. Obviously it's been kind of a tough year to be, not that nonprofit is ever easy, but this year has presented some really interesting challenges for a lot of folks. So if you could pass along that one piece of wisdom or encouragement, what would that be? Kevin, we'll start with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thanks for the question. It has been a tough year, but let's also tell the truth the last many years have been really challenging and full of disruption. It feels like disruption is the world that we live in today. It's every day, and one of the ways that I love to encourage nonprofit leaders and I really want them to hear is that the need for nonprofit service and that sense of human connection and meeting mutual needs in community. It's never going to go away.
Speaker 2:No technology is going to replace that. At the end of the day, we're all just people with neighbors, and are we going to wake up every morning and try to take care of each other and solve each other's problems? That's what we're doing in this space, and so, just as a word of encouragement is don't give up. Disruption is going to keep happening, but the need for your mission and your work is just going to continue to grow in importance, and it's going to continue to need people, and so just keep on keeping on and the disruptions will never end. Probably, yeah, but so just keep on keeping on and the disruptions will never end. Probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we can keep caring for each other.
Speaker 1:I love that, Johanna. How about you? I do too. That was so good.
Speaker 3:I wish I got that first yeah, no pressure, you're good. Yeah, exactly no, the thing that comes to my mind. So when I was a teacher, I did a teacher training program in the summer and I had a person who was like two years ahead of me in the program, who was leading a small group of us, and I remember she told us you need to take Saturdays off. There will always be something you could do for your classroom. There will always be one more activity you could make, one more item you could grade. So you have to be the one to decide when you're going to like take the time off. And because we were teachers, we recommended Saturdays. So for the years that I taught, I did that really well. And then I got in the nonprofit, community-based space and I was doing stuff on the weekends all the time, because that's when my students had the most availability the families, all of that.
Speaker 3:And it was probably like five years later that I realized like I just had no good boundaries, and so I repeatedly had this idea of like Sabbath and weekly rest was coming up in lots of different places for me, and so I remember at the time I said I could not do 24 hours. That's insane. So I'm just going to do like six, like basically Sundays, like afternoon evening I can. I'll just not do any work then. And then that was really good, it was really restorative. And so six hours became 12 hours and then 12 hours became 24, because I do sleep, so we'll just always count those in there.
Speaker 3:And so I would just I would say that to folks wherever you are like, figure out what that intentional rest for you looks like and just what Mecca shout out to Mecca Smith, the woman who said that to me so many years ago like you have to be the one to decide, because, to Kevin's point, there's so much good work, to be the one to decide, because, to Kevin's point, there's so much good work to be done. And so that would be the encouragement I would give to you is don't let the work ruin you, because the work needs you. And so, into that end, like you decide when you're going to rest and then just do it and be amazed and maybe, like me, humbled to see that things continue just fine if I take 24 hours off every week, because that's also very humbling to my ego.
Speaker 1:So good. Well, guys, thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can definitely catch more of Johanna and Kevin. They will be speaking on a workshop track at Cause Camp coming up November 4th and 5th in Pittsburgh. Super excited to have them there and to have them share more wisdom with our group here. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. My name's Megan Spear and we'll see you next time.