Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 496. Thriving in Turbulent Times + Building a Future-Ready Organization - Erin Davison

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496. Thriving in Turbulent Times + Building a Future-Ready Organization - Erin Davison · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the Good Community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabbit fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Hey Becky, what's happening?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Rockstar ED in the house, from Louisiana, y'all buckle up.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: At like one of our favorite organizations too.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, we are so excited to introduce you to Erin Davison.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: She's the CEO of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Southwest Louisiana.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: This is my old stomping grounds, y'all.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I talk about this.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I was born in Louisiana, had family that you know, we traveled there all the time, so love this part of the country and so excited to talk to Erin today and the topic is one that I know we can all relate to is just thriving in turbulent times.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Isn't that kind of like all the time right now?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Especially to write.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: It's like the new seeing the dog while everything's burning down.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: But she is going to talk to us also about building a future ready organization so we can just be in that position to be ready for it when it comes for us.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: But let me tell you a little bit about Erin.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: She's you know this incredible CEO.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: She has over 25 years of fundraising, grant writing, program design, development, community outreach.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I could keep going experience, but get this.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Imagine being CEO of a nonprofit organization that was battered by not just one but four massive natural disasters, all in less than a year.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to hear that story today, how Erin found creative ways to financially sustain their mentoring programs and somehow, along the way, scaled their organization in the middle of it too.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So in less than six years she grew her staff from five to 17.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Hello, that's incredible.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And she in the same time she increased her focus around DEI efforts among staff, mentors, littles and community stakeholders.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And they absorbed this expansion into the repeats parish region to grow their mentoring outreach in rural and underserved areas.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And one of my favorite things about your bio, Erin, is that you're no stranger to the microphone.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You were a former morning radio DJ with a quick wit, which we already experienced, and a creative storyteller.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: She's a huge NASCAR fan and probably the ultimate pit bull fan.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So, pit bull, if you're listening today, Erin wants to hang with you and we went to hang with you as well.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the podcast, my fringe.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We're just so delighted to have you here today?
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: I hear all of that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I'm like who are they talking about?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: That's you and you need to lean into it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And I have to say one of the things I'm already loving about this conversation is I can hear the kids in the background and the audio.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Do not apologize, because I think it's so beautiful, like the cacophony of what's going on.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Your mission is going to be like a drumbeat to this, but yeah, we like want to get to know you first, so take us back, like introduce us to little Erin.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: How did she get this heart for justice and rebuilding?
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Tell us what led you to your work today, little Erin.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I should be laying on the couch right now for this conversation.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: No, I say um.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: I grew up with two parents who were really civic minded.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: My dad was a pharmacist and so he was very compassionate in his, in his world, with working with his clients and his patients.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: And my mom was in, she volunteered for everything March of Dimes and the cancer society and, of course, room mother at our school and things like that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: So I grew up with just a giving environment and I I've always been the underdog champion, so to speak.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Me too, I like to surround myself with diversity.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: You know, I didn't grow up in a certain clique.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I grew up with literally all walks of life around me.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: If you were cool and fun and I was interested, we were, we were friends.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: You know I I played D and D in high school, I was in band golf team, journalism, I danced, so I just, I don't know, I'm very eclectic and my mom always said you know you?
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: You always say you want to, you're going to change the world.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a wonder woman.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: That's who I wanted to be anyway when I was growing up, with Wonder Woman.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: So I'm like she changes everything, you know, and so my mom said one day she goes you know you can't change the world, but you can change one person and that one person will change another person and it just kind of snowballs from there and I don't know.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Just falling into this work for six and a half years with youth is just completely meaningful to what what they need, their development and then also what we need as a world.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Because after us, then who?
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Who's going to do this?
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Who's going to be creative in their podcast space?
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Or you know, who's going to be the first person to go further than our galaxy, or who is going to find a cure for cancer, or who is just going to educate the next president?
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I mean I don't know, but it's, it's a responsibility we all have.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: But it's also really fun because I get to be quirky and funny and I get to hang out with really cool people that people don't see yet.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, yeah, it's gonna be really hard because both of us are holding back our emotion, but I mean that's, that's why values are critical, like you are centering belonging in your work.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Now, this is why we talk about it.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: This is how we attract rabid fans to our mission.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: When we connect on the values level.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's everything.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And thank you for starting your story there Like what a beautiful way to start this combo.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And can we talk about how smart Erin's mom is?
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Like she's a hundred percent right.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: It's that one to one that we know about.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: We don't have to change the whole world.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: You just got to change one person, and I think your closing comment there was really powerful about I I see the people that nobody sees yet, and I think that's really what we're going to talk about today.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And how do you build an organization that's ready to meet those people that we haven't met yet?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm just such a huge fan of big brothers, big sisters my husband was a big brother, so I want to give a shout out to Christian, who's out there.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's such an amazing program, but John teased this in your intro and we want to know this story.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: You and your team face like four natural disasters in less than a year and I want to talk about what that does to an organization.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, walk us through the story and tell us what you all were facing.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: It's um, as I reflect back on it, you know it was just three years ago but it feels like a thousand years ago and then sometimes it feels like yesterday.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: You know we live in the Gulf Coast, so we know kind of catastrophic weather events are going to happen.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: It's, it's not if it's when, basically.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: So we, we prepare disaster preparedness plans, we know what to do, we know you know how to mobilize and things like that, because we've been through it.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: But this was my first time leading an organization through a catastrophic hurricane.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: And so when Hurricane Laura was was coming into the Gulf and she wasn't doing those little clicks that normally storms do, so we knew, okay, direct hit, we're we, we, okay, we know that.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: So just mobilize everybody to, you know, make the plans.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: And so I, the very first thing I did was think, okay, I have families and kids and men and kids and mentors that I need to figure out a way I can find them or I can track them, because everybody's just, you know, getting in the cars and they're driving away everywhere just to get out of the storms path.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: So I called our sister affiliate, loan star in Texas, shout out to loan star Pierce and his team and I said, hey, can y'all help?
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: And they said absolutely.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: So we provided access to them, to our database, and so they were able, in real time after the hurricane hit, start mobilizing and start finding one health and safety checks when are you keeping a log?
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: You know what do you need.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: And so that way, that took that responsibility off of myself and my team immediately, because I knew, with a cat five, when Hurricane Laura was coming in, I knew there would be nothing for us to come back to.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: So I couldn't even fathom us working while mitigating any potential harm or damage.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: So that was the first thing.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: So that really saved all of us emotionally, because the night before Laura was coming in, we were all dispersed.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: We literally were calling each other, facetiming, all kinds of calls and just crying together because we weren't worried about us.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: We were worried about our people, our kids, our parents and stuff.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So after the hurricane hit, we came back and started mitigating and realized that we were living in a world now that was completely different, still being in the pandemic as well.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a second layer of challenge.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: And we were like, okay, what do we do?
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: So it's just basically just contact.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: A sponsor had mobile hotspots, donated and with zero cost, and so everyone in my staff had a mobile hotspot.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: So wherever you are, you have a laptop.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Wherever you're working from, if you can get Wi-Fi, then start working with some things that we have going on and things like that, even though Lone Star was still providing those check-ins for us.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: And then I lived an hour and a half away from here to have full Wi-Fi so I could run the organization while my staff were either mitigating their priorities or assisting with community recovery.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Because I just told my team look, y'all just put the t-shirt on and y'all just go Find somewhere to go do some work in the community because we need to.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Sooner we can get back, the sooner we'll be able to be and stuff.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Well then, consequently, the building we were in we have a full-size gym game room that was completely destroyed by the hurricane.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: So I mean, the bones were still here, but they were still the water intrusion and the wind and stuff.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: So we didn't have a place to work from either at all.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: So there's no rulebook.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: I mean my pandemic plan that we had.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: What's the point?
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, it just was not relevant to hell, it just was you either do or you don't as a leader.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: And I have had a lot of questions asked of me like oh my God, how did you do that, how did you decide that, how did you figure that out?
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: And I'm like I don't know.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: It literally was survival for us, and a leader leads in the best of times, but the definition of a leader is the worst of times and even though, personally, I wanted to throw in the towel, I wanted to give up.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: You know, my house was unlivable, the building was unlivable.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: I had to get a camper camper in the back of my yard, living off a generator for like 10 weeks.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: But in the ashes of Babylon you find this sense of community and love and spirit that it's just a gift and it's really crazy to say that.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: But our littles helped us, Our families helped us, Our parents helped us, and so it kind of like turned the tides of.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: We're recovering here, trying to get this organization, the building cleaned out, and then all of a sudden it's like these families just drive up and they're like what you need?
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, wow, you know, and it just shows that we're all important and that when you know what hits the fan which happens often you can unplug that fan and get rid of it there you go.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: But yeah, and then we had like an ice storm and then flooding, and then we had tornadoes that next fall which wiped out our storage unit.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: So literally we were left with nothing in October of 2021.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: I was like who did I make mad in a other life?
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Because the universe is just like pounding.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Aaron, yeah, I think we're trying to like process and we all live through the pandemic, so that's a relatable piece.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: But to add on the physical challenges that are just compounding, it's just hard to even interrupt our head around.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: But I know there's a part of your story that the phone rings and something happens.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you'd take us back to that surprise phone call that happened.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I get so emotional she grabs her heart right now, like I'm going to have to, like make everybody visualize her reaction and I'm going to be very candid.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: So but yeah, I still am humbled a lot by things like I don't expect things.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: You know, I just do what I do because I love what I do and I love what we do.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: And then we had spent all of our reserve funds on building repairs and loss of income from fundraisers and all of that stuff that goes with disaster recovery and things like that, and then we had to sue our insurance company for wind and hail, for our hurricane damage, because they weren't acting a good faith.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: So I had no insurance money that had come in yet, good gracious, and we literally had the organization had $100,000 left total and I didn't know.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what we were going to do.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: I refused to lay off people during the pandemic.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: I refused to lessen services, I refused all of that because I'm like we're critical, you know working with youth.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: And then, but at that point, in April of 2022, I thought I'm tapped out, I'm done, I'm empty, the tank's empty, we're all empty.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: And then it was a Monday afternoon and I get this random email and normally I ignore them because you know, people always want things or something like that.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: And it, and literally the part of the email, was like don't delete, it's not spam, this is real.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: And so please call us, we want to talk to you.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: It's very important, very time sensitive.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And they also, in the email, mentioned our president, ceo, artist Stevens, which is sometimes unusual.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: And so the bottom of the email said and please give artists a call to verify.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: So I called artists and he called me when he got out of a meeting and I said I guess got this email.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: He goes call him.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: And I said, wait a minute.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Like is it legit?
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: He's like yes, aaron called him and I said is it going to make me throw up?
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: You know random stuff I say all the time and he says probably.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: So just call him to call them.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: So I called and the phone call was very, very odd because she said where are you?
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: And I said well, I'm in my office.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: And she says where are you in a secure location?
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: And I said, sort of, I'm in a building, you know.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: She said do you mind going outside?
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: We can't have anybody over here the conversation.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: So I said okay.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: So I went outside and she said I'm representing McKinsey Scott.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Do you know who she is?
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: And I don't know.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I said something probably like heart drops but feet.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: But yes, I was like, yes, you know, I do.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: And she said well, mckinsey Scott is chosen Big Brothers, big Sisters of Southwest Louisiana to receive a one time only donation of $1.1 million.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: And I literally started crying.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I start crying, I'm going to start crying right now.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: And of course, I said something very awkward.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: There's no crying in baseball.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: I'm very awkward when it's very.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: And then she started laughing and then I said okay, I want to throw up.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And then I said oh my God, you don't even know who I am and just spewing weird brand of things.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: And you're so human, you're all of us, you know.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: And she said it's okay, you can cry.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, I, we were done, we were done.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: And see, yes, don't get emotional, sorry, we were done.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And at that moment it was like I mean, all the hard work that we've done, the universe, god, buddha, just was like here, you know, you're fine.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: And so I was only able to tell my CFO and my board legal counsel because they kept it very hush-hush.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: And so I did, and we were on calls with artists and there's other affiliates in the nation that received the amazing gift, it's transformative gift.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: And so after we were able to go public, my board of directors and I met and I said you know, we, we cannot spend this right now, like it's, yes, it's 1.1 million dollars and we need it for operating, but we won't ever probably get another one for Ms God, or I hope at some point we may.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Somebody else may want to generously give.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I said, but we have to do something smart with this money.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: And I knew six and a half years ago, when I started my position here as CEO, a huge wish list was to build an endowment for future-proofing, because we learned very quickly in 2020, you can't future-proof enough, you can't figure something out, and so that was top on the list.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: One was to pay outstanding bills that we had because of disasters, and then two was to figure out the endowment and how to set it up and and have it built in a way that will be forever a legacy for kids.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: One.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: These stories never get old, ever.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: The Mackenzie Scott stories never get old, and we have had several of them on the podcast here.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Every one of them gives me goosebumps.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Every one of them has a story behind it of absolute, transformational change.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: And you may be a really large organization that raises hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and it may be a little bit harder for you to understand out there what a 1.1 million dollar gift could mean to an organization with nothing buta hundred thousand dollars left in the bank.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And so I got to go off script here because I want, I want to ask you a question and I feel remiss, john, that we haven't done it with every other Mackenzie Scott gift but like what would you say to her?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: What has this meant to you as an organization, as a human being?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I don't even know if I could say words, I don't and I know she's aware, as a philanthropist, the impact she is having.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: There's a purpose in her life and she found that purpose.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I believe that and you know it was random, I didn't submit a proposal, I didn't submit a letter, I didn't submit like you normally do for funding.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: They just researched and found us in, like Charles and, and found what we do and found our social presence or our website or I don't even know.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I don't even know how it's chosen.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: They won't think that's something that's proprietary to her and her team, which is definitely.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: I respect that, but I, I think, for her.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I don't necessarily know if I would tell her anything.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: I would want to show her.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: You know I'd want my little, so tell her.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I'd want my family to tell her because you know, I'm the CEO.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I say this a lot, you know I speak a lot and so sometimes I feel like, oh, that's Erin, she's a CEO, like that's her job.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: You know to say and share the stories and share the emotion behind the stories.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: And but when it comes from the person, our people directly, like when my littles now have the ability to learn a technology, have the ability, you know, to work on the four E's, like this transformative gift not only set up our big defender fund, but it also has launched three new programs in our region that's rural, or one program that works with 12 to 17 year old youth that our court referred, which means they have felony charges or weapons charges, and so that group of teenagers we focus on 40s, entrepreneurship, employment, education or enlistment, because our job is to give them the opportunities they're gonna.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Kids are will decide.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: We all decide at one point in our life what path we're going on.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: We make the split decision.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: You know we're young, we do things we shouldn't have done or get involved with our friends.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't get involved in there.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Our kids are not bad and I'm tired of the labels of bad kids.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: They are a product of their bad environment and they make bad choices.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: So, as long as I'm in this role, we're gonna give those kids who haven't been seen yet an opportunity to thrive in a world that has totally beat them down already, like the world is telling them.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: They're the kids that the counselors don't give college applications to.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: They're the kids that are you know, aren't in beta, aren't in honor society, but they're talented kids.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: They just need a hand up.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: So her gift literally has changed over 500 lives locally, because now we're at 375 kids where we were 2020, we were less than a hundred and there's more.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: I mean there's, there's thousands of kids.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah you are in the exact right position, thank you.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: You are in the right spot in your life 100%, and I can guess that it would have been so tempting to take that money and do some really big shiny things with it, but the fact that you put in an endowment is blowing my mind right now yeah, I, I just there's so many other opportunities that's hard to do in real time.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and plus I.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: I mean going through the trauma of the pandemic and the disasters and losing everything that has been built.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: We, when we started in 1979 and what I built from from 2017 and 2020, that was gone literally the blink of an eye and I learned After that, thank goodness, I had a sense of, you know, diversifying financially and strategic planning and goal setting and smart, you know, rainy day, fun, all the stuff that you've learned, but I mean, still that's not foolproof.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, aaron, it's just, it's such a beautiful story and I just got to say we started our year 2023 is when we're recording this right and one of the trends we lifted was trust based philanthropy and leadership, and you embody that leadership piece.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, you keep reflecting it onto the littles and the community.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: It's like the trust is so apparent in how y'all operate.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: But what I think is so cool and I hope there is philanthropists at this level listening today that see, like this is the power of trust based philanthropy.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: When you are sharing your values, you're living your values.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: It's not come help our organization today.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Go put on the t-shirt and go help anybody you can, and that's where you drop your philanthropy, because you trust the people that are going to do the right thing with it.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Like this is the moment we're living in, this, what we want to see spread, and your story is just a beacon to that.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And, truth be told, I didn't know that was what the phone call was.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: It was on our script that I knew there was a phone call coming, so I I'm sitting here in the surprise of it too, and just what a beautiful, beautiful story.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk more about these turbulent times because, I mean, we want to start extruding some like principles that all of us can apply in our lives, because you obviously were rebuilding and it sounds like you're already built back so much stronger and so much more resilient than when you started.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: What are some hallmarks of lessons learned that everybody could apply as we kind of face whatever is going to happen tomorrow.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: You know the unknown.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Lessons learned.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Top lesson and I I'm the worst at this lesson.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, so just me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: It's a journey, it's not a destination.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Um, rest, rest it.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: It's hard and a leadership position.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: I love you.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, Um, and and um value for the year.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: No, trust me, I can, we can say it, I can say it.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: I don't always follow it, but I learned in in my role in the last, you know, two years.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Basically, this is the first sort of feeling normal year I've had, but two years of of just thriving, you know, surviving and recovery.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I did not give my, I did not allow myself to rest.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: I allowed everybody else around me to rest.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I made sure my team and my everybody's happy, healthy, whole.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I did not do it for me and that's a short sighted thing, which is not unusual though in a leadership position during those times and I learned that I have to give myself grace and have to allow rest.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: So in a leadership position, that is key to at least try to ingrain that into your leadership role.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you go through turbulent times or not.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Leadership is leadership and it's stressful and it's all encompassing and it can rule your life because if you love it or you believe in what you do, it's not hard to throw yourself in there 1000%.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: But you have to disconnect, you've got to break away and I really focused on that.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: I went through a life coaching and went through an I lead series with a friend of mine and dug deep into those.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: You know negative behaviors, so to speak, that just come naturally for us in leadership positions.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: You know of the doer, you know the overachiever got to go, got to go a little hamster on the wheel, and so I have allowed.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: This is the first year in my whole career I've allowed myself rest time and try not to feel guilty when I'm off of work.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Another concept is I firmly believe in stacking your team, which means everybody in my organization I feel is smarter than me.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: They have a something, a knowledge, an experience that I don't have.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: So when you combine all of that together, then you have a very strong team, because you're you're not unable to thrive, to recover or even just to remain constant if you don't have talent around you.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: But and every and the alignment of the talent, because we all mobilized it wasn't.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: I'm a CEO and I have an entry level position.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: We were all equal in everything that we did because it was important.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: And then a third principle I've learned any organization small, big, mid emerging needs to diversify their financial portfolio.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: And it's not as hard as it seems.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: But when you diversify your financial portfolio meaning you have investments, donations, fundraising, grants, corporate government and all pieces of that together annually.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Then you don't rely on one or two funding sources a year, and so when I came in my position six and a half years ago, I focused on diversifying financially because it plus it also brings DEI in.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: It brings a whole level of partner, investors and donors.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: But that saved this organization from the beginning, because we didn't rely on one funder or one type of funding.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: So I was able to squeeze and move and lean down the budget in a way that allowed us to operate as much as we could with the restrictions and challenges that we had.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, Erin, you've already been such an incredible storyteller on today's show, but I wanna kick you kind of our classic question to take you back to a moment of philanthropy.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Obviously, Mackenzie Scott is one to always remember, but philanthropy takes a lot of different shapes and sizes and it's small things and it's actions and things that happen.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Growing up.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you take us back to a moment of philanthropy and your journey that will stick with you.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: So there's one that happens every year and I just received it in the mail this earlier this week.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: There's a young boy in our region, in Lake Charles, that is not a part his and his family are not a part of our village.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: They're not in our programs.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: I don't even know who this young man is, but every year around this time he sends a $5 bill and he writes a note saying that he wanted to give to our organization.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: And so here's $5 that he saved and in the handwritten note he says please use this however you want to use it.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: So it's a general donation and it's happened the last four years I don't remember if it was 2020, 2021, but I know it's a consistent every year and he's now 13,.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: He puts his first name in his age and there's no return address.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: I just know a name and an age and he hand writes it so I can tell it's a young person, you know, and it's a $5 bill, yeah postmark.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: We're gonna find this kid.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: It's like John.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Postmark Fingerprinting.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: It's a bad one, Jack John.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Now we're getting creepy.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Hey look, don't put it past us, okay, we can Google search.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: But that of all of the philanthropy that comes in and all of the random donations that come in through our website for in memory of this or anniversary of this or you know, yes, mckinsey Scott was amazingly transformative and I really hope and my goal is to raise a million dollars for the endowment you know within the first couple of years because that will jumpstart a lot of different programs.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: But that simple $5 bill like I was waiting for it now because I hope we get it, and it came in the mail this week and I just I don't know.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: That's the most important donation I ever receive every year for this organization.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Is that $5 bill from that young man because he didn't have to do that.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I would have done that, $5 for donation or $5 for me to go get a cassette tape that tells you my age, right there y'all okay.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I totally identify with you.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Paula Abdul first spot.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Rick Springfield, I get it.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great, but that's his choice and hopefully one day he'll be brave enough to come up and say hi, that's who I am.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, $5 goes a long way, y'all $5.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Think about if every person in this country donated $5.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't do math.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Somebody do the math for me.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: But 1.5 billion.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: There you go $5.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: So, that's like with us.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: It's little moments that make a big impact and that's what we do.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: It takes a little to be big for us, and it's just those little moments.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that little $5 bill, I put it in the cash stack for anything our littles need, you know, by clock or whatever.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: It's like a petty cash dash that my littles need.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: I just kind of whatever we find that they need to get, so yeah.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, Erin, I need to say this for a second.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: You know there's a lot of people that do not work in this field and do not understand in my world what I do, and sometimes I try to explain the heart of the nonprofit sector champion to someone.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And to me you just explained it, because here you have a Mackenzie Scott gift that you could talk about as being so transformational in a time of extreme peril.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: And you're still talking about the $5.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: And the fact that I can see one of your littles coming in and saying I need a bike lock, and you pull that kid's money out.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I hope you're tracking where that $5 goes, because it could be such a story for that kid when you meet him.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I'm manifesting that you're meeting him some day, because y'all $5 when you're nine is like $100.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Seriously.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: So I feel the weight of that, also as a writer.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: I'm just hearing the word little a lot in this interview and you are absolutely articulating how, little by little, a little becomes a lot and why focusing on littles is focusing on the future.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: It is focusing on diversifying our community, diversifying who we're serving, and I just think you have a heart of gold and I'm just so glad you are where you are.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: We got to wrap this up, which I'm sad about, and I want to pitch you our final question.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: It is our one good thing and we end all of our conversations with it.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I know you're breathing heavy as we all do.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: anytime anyone asks John and I that question what's your one good thing?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: How do you bring this home?
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: What can you leave with our audience today?
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: The one good thing oh God, there's so many, but the one good thing I would say that I could share with everybody who tunes in, regardless of their profit, nonprofit, whichever world life they're in, is grace.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I've learned that in my 50 years on earth.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Grace is a word that we don't use often and it's hard to give yourself grace or to give others grace, and giving grace is not anything other than sympathizing and empathizing, but also giving yourself a break.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Man, we are not perfect.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Why are we trying to live in?
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: a perfect world.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to be perfect.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I want to be the crazy, eclectic, mind-boggling, transmating a devil personality that I am Like.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: I want one that, when I wake up, the devil Fierce mom hug.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I put my boots on the ground, the devil's like oh, my God.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: She's up Like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: You know and also know when you work with kids or anybody in this world, we often ask why did you do that?
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: Why did you do that?
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: That's not the question.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: The question should be how did you get there to do that?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Because kids, they do things.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: So when we say why did you do that, that's an attack to them because we don't know where they come from, we don't know what they live in, we don't know if they've eaten.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Nobody knows that face value.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: Anybody can look put together.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Right, when we ask them, how did you arrive to this moment, then that gives them the opportunity to understand that we can help navigate some better behavior choices.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: So, grace, and also asking how and not why, that's two things.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I saw I gave you two things.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: That's for one, I gave you a bonus.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: It's a technical foul on the podcast to give us two, unless they are these two Like that you just gave us.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Indeed.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Erin.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, what a way to bring this home and why Becky's already said this, so I'll just re-emphasize You're just like the perfect person to be in this role, shepherding these littles and caring and providing this level of just like vision and asking a better question for all of us.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: So so much to reflect on, so much that I'm so grateful for this convo, that we found each other somehow in the universe and I want others to be able to connect with you Like, point us to how people can support your mission.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: How can people find you online and connect and follow and just follow up with whatever questions they may have too about how you've done what you've done?
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: So I have Facebook, instagram, x and LinkedIn so you can Google Erin, tibido, davidson.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Erin Davidson, if you're not able to spell Tibido, it's the long version.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I'm from Louisiana.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: The French Creole version probably.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: With an Irish first name or you can our website, bbbsswlaorg, so you can find out anything.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: You can find my email through our website.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: You can donate directly through to our website at tax deductible receipt, One time only.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: You can be a recurring big defender donor, which is monthly, and you can also donate to our Big Defender Fund there is a link on our website as well.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: That is in partnership with our community foundation of Southwest Louisiana.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: So the endowment, legacy giving, estate planning, all of that goes directly through to the community foundation with our fund.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: So it separates it from real time donation or future planning, sustainability donation and you can designate how you want your donations to go to, whether you donate directly to us or the foundation.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: And we do track it and we do let you know exactly what happened with your donation, because that's always the fun part is letting our donors know what awesome, cool stuff we're doing with their generous gifts.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Y'all, it's the holiday.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: We're all looking for something good.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: We're looking for something to power.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say this with zero pressure on the community at all, but we just made a $50 gift to the Defender Fund, as we are for good.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: But I would love for anyone in the we Are For Good community to match our modest gift and help build up this endowment, because if you believe in the spirit and the love that was shown here today, can you imagine that being powered into these littles in this part of Southwest Louisiana?
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I am here for that.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: I challenge you to join us and I just wanna thank you, erin, for absolutely expanding our hearts, our minds.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: You got through a whiplash inducing, turbulent time and I am so glad that you are sitting in the roses right now.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Keep going, my friend.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you for the donation, thank you for taking time today Letting me get to know you both.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: You know I love what y'all do.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: I love the message.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: I love the sharing that you give to the world, because there's so much we see that's negative.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: So thank you, it was our joy.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: So much gratitude.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Erin.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: We'd love for you to come join our good community.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Sign up today at weareforgoodcom.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Backslash hello.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview?
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to our next conversation.