Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 214. Creating a Robust Network for Social Impact - Dr. Michelle Shumate

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214. Creating a Robust Network for Social Impact - Dr. Michelle Shumate · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Unknown: Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the we are for good podcast.
• 0:06
  Becky Endicott: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more work, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Jonathan McCoy: 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
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Hey, Becky, guys, we're like so geeked out right now.
• 0:38
  Jonathan McCoy: We're so excited.
• 0:40
  Becky Endicott: We're really excited to talk to our guests.
• 0:43
  Becky Endicott: Today. She is a curious researcher. She is a passionate do gooder. She is a PhD woman founder. It's like could I love her titles anymore. And she's just a great human. And I just think it's our honor to introduce Dr. Michelle Shumate.
• 1:00
  Becky Endicott: She's the founding director of network for nonprofit and social impact. And today, we're going to be talking about how you create robust networks for social impacts. And I am just loving this topic, because Michelle has taken all of her expertise, all of her training all of her research. And she poured it into this incredible organization, which is a research lab network for nonprofit and social impact.
• 1:25
  Becky Endicott: They are literally dedicated to answering one question, how can nonprofit networks be rewired for maximum social impact?
• 1:34
  Jonathan McCoy: Isn't this the question we should all have been asking already nice. She's dedicated her life's work. And it's
• 1:40
  Becky Endicott: and I just think research is something and data is something that's really hard for the busy nonprofit, you know, executive or even staff member to take time and do but Holy smokes. When we do the story that comes out of data.
• 1:54
  Becky Endicott: What we find out about ourselves in the perceptions of people is just extraordinary. So we are so excited to talk to you, Michelle, I just want to give one other little shout out to the fact that you are a professor at Northwestern University, one of the most amazing universities in the country. We're so excited to hear about your research, which has gotten all this national and international attention and funding. Gosh, teach us all the things about how we can make our social impact networks more effective. Michelle, welcome.
• 2:25
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Thank you so much. And thanks for that wonderful introduction and excited to be here.
• 2:29
  Becky Endicott: Oh, we're just so excited to hear your story.
• 2:32
  Becky Endicott: And I just think this is something that we don't, we don't talk about enough in our sector. But before we get started, like we want to get to know you. And we know a little bit about you. You have two little boys and we want to know your story of growing up how you fell into this social purpose.
• 2:46
  Becky Endicott: So give us some background.
• 2:48
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah, I think back to my childhood, my parents are faith leaders were faith leaders, our faith leaders, I grew up in a really small town. It had two stoplights. It had a fast food restaurant. And when it got to bowling alley, oh my goodness, like that was a riot like of our lives. Yeah. And so you know, being coming from a really small town, we didn't have a lot of social service agencies that really served us. And so my house was the domestic violence shelter. My house was where you went, when you had to get utilities paid. My house was the place where you know, if you needed food, you came and ate at our table. Like, there were always people at our house. I thought that's just how everyone grew up. Yeah, come to find out.
• 3:29
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: That's not but it really made it imprint on me. And so you know, fast forward, and I was in graduate school. And I thought I was going to be a business leader, I was doing consulting, I was, you know, doing knowledge management in a big fortune 500 company, like trying to help them figure out how they solve their engineering problems and remembered it because they would solve their same problems over and over and over again, because they just didn't remember they had done it. And so I was doing that. But like, on the side, I was, you know, I was in Hollywood, California, I was working with these nonprofits, because it was just who I was.
• 4:06
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And like what I was thinking about, and I just had this moment where I was like, Oh, my goodness, nonprofits have the exact same problem that many big fortune 500 company has, that one of them will solve this really wicked complex problem.
• 4:19
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And then the one down the street will have no idea they did it.
• 4:22
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: How can we begin to build networks across organizations so that we don't just keep spinning our wheels on these problems, and we can really learn from one another and we can support one another. And that became part of my life's mission came my dissertation research. And it became what I've done in consulting and what I've done in my, you know, research and teaching ever since
• 4:43
  Becky Endicott: John floor.
• 4:46
  Jonathan McCoy: Because, you know, we, we have a value that community is everything and that's why you know, this idea of exchanging ideas and it is serendipitous, I mean, Becky and I just hung up with a founder of a really progressive charity.
• 4:59
  Jonathan McCoy: That's Worldwide based here in Oklahoma City, and it's like we're having the same conversations like how did ideas spread? How when you have something that you solve, how can we lean into that and share ideas. And so my heart is really full that you have just been full tilt into this. And your journey just backs this up. So applause to your parents for bringing you into that. That part kind of chasing this rope and finding such a meaningful place to end. So, okay, set the scene for us. Let's talk about your research. I know you drew from a lot of sources. And that's really kind of crescendoed into this book that you've recently co authored. So tell us a little bit about set the scene for your research for us?
• 5:34
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah, so I've been for the last 20 years really leaning into this question about networks. And I've been really fortunate, I've worked with probably about 3000 nonprofit organizations over the last 20 years, and we've studied hundreds of these networks. But as I started to try to explain this research to my students, as I started to try to explain this research to the nonprofit leaders that I was working with, I realized there wasn't a one kind of stop for them to figure out what was going on and what we actually knew. So I would drop these little gems of stuff I would know from like, I'd know from social psychology, I'd note from the Business Research, I'd note from social work, and drop these gems, and people were like, where is that? And I'd have to like go dig through a ton of journal articles and say, like, it's in this one over here. So I was talking with my co author Kate and saying, you know, we just have to have a place one place where you can go and learn, what are the best practices? What's everything we know, on this topic? And so that if you want to pull a book from the shelf, you know, the answer is going to be on this book. And so that's really what set the stage for, for doing this work and for writing this book.
• 6:39
  Becky Endicott: I mean, we're so much into the space of evangelizing and sharing everything, and how do you democratize it, so that it's accessible to people and that it's shared. And I think there's such an incredible opportunity to exist in this digital era, where, you know, the accessibility between each other is so easy and frictionless now than the way we can just connect, you know, on LinkedIn, or, you know, on a social channel, or whether that's on email, it's the ease of use is so so much better than it's ever been before. So I would love for you to kind of just take us through this little love letter that you have written, like, talk to us about networks for social impact, which is your new book, it I love that it just takes the system's approach to explain how and when networks make a social impact. So you're arguing that the network design and management is not a one size fits all formula? So just kind of talk to our listeners about that and how it applies to them.
• 7:38
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that, you know, frustrated me over the last few years is that I kept seeing these management articles coming out of consulting firm saying, here's the way you ought to manage your network. And I look at it and I go, Well, maybe if all these other things lined up, that would work. But one size? Yeah, I. So really, one of the things that comes out of this book is that how do you begin to thoughtfully align the decisions, right, then those decisions start out really early with? Okay, what's the social issue you're really trying to delve into here? How are you going to frame that? How big is it? How root cause Are you going to go into that, and then figuring out who has to be at the table. And those early decisions set the stage for a whole host of other decisions that you're going to be able to make or not able to make? And that's really the idea of a systems approach. But maybe if the thing just did backup and sit and say is that network management is not the same as organizational management? Yeah, in some ways, it's harder, because you're talking about at least three organizations that all have autonomy, right? They all have their own agendas, they all have their goals, they all have their own fundraising to do more contracts to manage. And all of a sudden, they're entering into this network, that means that our work is going to be interdependent in some way.
• 9:00
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And how do you balance that autonomy and interdependence and make a set of design choices that are going to lead this group of organizations to make a bigger social impact? And sometimes that's three organizations. Sometimes it's hundreds of organizations working together. So these are kind of the choices that I we really set up in the book and we talk about as we work our way through
• 9:23
  Jonathan McCoy: it. Well, can you kind of give some baseline?
• 9:25
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, what are these networks for social impact for this being a new concept and also wants you to kind of riff a little bit, we love leadership, we think it's so important to get the right leaders with the right posturing coming to the table. So you know, as you share about the networks, where they're at, talk a little bit about what kind of, you know, traits to leaders need to show up with to really make these the most vibrant?
• 10:23
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah, that's really good. So you're talking about the number of organizations sometimes you're talking three organizations, sometimes we're talking about hundreds of organizations. My experience Is the folks who show up at the meetings because networks have a lot of meetings need to be the senior leaders of these organizations that people are new to networks are always surprised by that, like how many meetings it takes to get things done, because you've got all of this autonomy, right, so decisions can't be made. And decisions are more complicated.
• 10:55
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: When you have a group of CEOs or executive directors or school superintendents or city managers or foundation leaders all sitting at the same table, it takes a while. So couple things, one, make sure that it's actually the senior leader of the organization who shows up the decision making table. And that's because if you don't, we have what is called a two tables problem, which is we do all the work of that meeting, to try to get folks to come to an agreement, we all figure it out, we figure out how we're going to do learning together, what the metrics are going to be your systems alignment, we make the hard decisions. If it's not the senior leader at that table at that network table, then the deputies have to go back to their own tables in their own organizations and advocate for the decision that they just made as a group it takes for ever, if that has to be the way it is. So avoiding the two tables problem is first like you need actually somebody was a positional leader. The sixth thing is how do you show up, I think you show up to then when you're a network leader, as somebody who is tenacious, tenacious net, every network leader I know who successfully led, this just keeps coming back again and again and again, and again, to bring people together. And for the others who are sitting at the table who are leaders, they have to show up in ways that reach out beyond their organizational interest to try to make a bigger social impact in their organization can be alone. So just that curiosity, that willingness to lean a little bit outside of their edge makes a huge difference in seeing these networks move forward.
• 12:33
  Jonathan McCoy: I love that you said tenacious I think you're going there. And I'm like drinking it, because you do need somebody that's going to be relentlessly bought into the bigger thing and not be so focused through their own organizations perspective to really zoom out,
• 12:47
  Becky Endicott: heating this up.
• 12:47
  Becky Endicott: Yeah. And I also think that what you said about having the decision maker at the table does so many things, I mean, not just the fact that you can move faster, which yes, we have to move faster, because this is why nonprofit is not nimble, we have to move things up the chain and, and parcel it out and communication in so many various areas. And if we just would build the table and talk about it together, it's going to do a couple things. One, we're going to have the decision maker, they're telling us whether you know we're on track or whether it's achievable, but also the decision maker is gonna get the color and the tenor of the group, they're going to get the passion, it's going to translate at a different label level than if you just download with them.
• 13:32
  Becky Endicott: And so you start to shift mindsets a little. And then you're also working smarter, not harder, which of course, I'm an efficiency geek. And so I want people to run faster. So I'm just wondering, like, what kind of advice would you give to our nonprofit listeners even and I'm particularly thinking of the tiny nonprofit who wants to build these networks wants to lean into them, their mission is so important, how do they design a network to do all these different types of social issues? How they can address them? And how do leaders make them incredibly effective once they're built?
• 14:10
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Great question. So I think that leaning into the, the tiny, nonprofit piece. So some of the networks that we've worked with over the years have been built by really tiny nonprofits. So I think of Tracy who helped build the neurofibromatosis collective, which is a group of early this rare childhood cancer collective. And she is a nonprofit little assumer is a nonprofit of one staff.
• 14:38
  Becky Endicott: Her go Tracy.
• 14:40
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah. And to talk about tenacious man, Tracy is tenacious, she has been on this idea of building a national collective around this rare childhood cancer. And she's been doing it. And so one of the things that strikes me as nonprofit leaders want to think about this and lean into this is you don't have to be the leader of a huge organization to do this. You can be a nonprofit of one and still build a network that's achieving social impact.
• 15:07
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: It just means helping evangelize to use your word from earlier.
• 15:13
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: This idea, this mission that's bigger than you can do alone, and helping the organizations make decisions together to get there. And so if you're a really early on, you're thinking about starting it. The first thing is to figure out what's the social issue you're trying to address and how to frame it. And that means the frame is really important. For Tracy, it was figuring out how can we all work together so that no parent who has a child diagnosed with this cancer is left behind? Because everybody in the room could immediately get around that. And like, oh, yeah, we can let are all of our other organizational agendas aside, we do compete on some of these things. But we're all in that together, right?
• 15:55
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Like framing it so that it brings everybody together. And then the second piece of it is figuring out what is it that you're going to how are you going to make decisions? And that's a tricky question for networks. Because you could just vote. Yeah, but if people don't like what you're voting that you voted for, they can just leave because there's no thing nothing other than to keep them to stay in that network. So they vote with their feet. They don't like hell, it's gone. Or and then you have questions about what like, if you have a huge hospital system and itty bitty nonprofits? Do they get equal votes like that?
• 16:29
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: I mean, it's really tricky. So one of the things that I encourage small nonprofit leaders and leaders of of networks, in general to do is to invest in learning how to make consensus based decisions. And that doesn't mean that we all agree on everything all the time, because that that's that's not the what I'm advocating here. Instead, it means how do you do a process where you make sure that you're really listening to one another, that you can all find wins for one another, and that you make decisions that everybody can live with? And there's kind of formal processes and training around that. But I think that's one of the best investments that you can make as an early network leader is helping you facilitate consensus based decisions, so that everybody's on the same page, their agreement, they're moving together.
• 17:21
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, friends, this episode is presented by virtuous and they just happen to be one of our favorite companies. Let me tell you why.
• 17:25
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• 17:41
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• 18:36
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• 18:38
  Jonathan McCoy: Every week, we host a new workshop giving you the playbook and tools to take immediate action, build your confidence and grow your impact. Be the Pro and get started today with a 14 day free trial head over to we're for good pro.com/free Okay, let's get back to this amazing conversation. I mean, that little masterclass you gave us on consensus, I mean is so powerful, because I know your view of how these networks really thrive, are when it's not all these walls between nonprofits and businesses and governments like it's got to be all of us pulling together. So we kind of, you know, let's tie a bow on this network's discussion of just like, how can we work, you know, with different kinds of motivations with you're working with a business that maybe has a different motivation, then the nonprofit does, but we can still align on you know our commonalities.
• 19:33
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: So I think, beyond setting the stage around the vision and getting to consensus, the next step is to figure out what's your theory of change, right? So how is this network going to make a social impact, and learning that and figuring that out, can help you figure out what you're going to draw out from different organizations. So let me give you an example of a theory of change. So one theory of change might be around systems alignment, that you recognize that there's a whole that you have a really complex issue. So I've been working for the last year and a half closely with some veterans, military family serving networks, right. And so their idea is that a veteran should not be told no, if they need help, they should be able to go to any organization in the network, and that's the right door in and they should receive a feedback about their ability to get that service within days.
• 20:22
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Not much, right? Like that's kind of their mission. But to do that, they've got to do systems alignment. Well, okay. Once you've got that theory of change, what do you need to do systems alignment you need somebody is really great at technology. Right? So maybe that business owner that who is part of this network is a technology provider? How do you help draw them in to this social issue and see where they fit in. They don't have to do everything that everybody else does. But you can figure out the motivation for that technology provider. A lot of systems alignment groups also use really robust data systems.
• 20:57
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: You know, what a lot of big companies have folks who are trained in Lean Six Sigma, yeah, could they do an executive pro loan program to come in and really help build out the data analytics? So making sure that you're thinking very carefully about what's the theory of change? And then what's the ask?
• 21:14
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Because sometimes when we approach a business, we just think, Oh, we're just going to ask for money. But that's not our first necessarily invest, ask in a network. Sometimes, it is figuring out what the competency is, or the skills of that organization that they can bring to bear. And that investment begets not just money, but the investment of really knowledge. Okay,
• 21:36
  Jonathan McCoy: we're dead.
• 21:36
  Jonathan McCoy: We're puddles over here. Yeah.
• 21:39
  Becky Endicott: I mean, Michelle, Dr. Shumate, like, Wow, I'm so glad you're in the space. I'm glad you have this heart in the systems piece, because the systems piece is honestly I think the hard part.
• 21:48
  Becky Endicott: But the systems allows us to run faster, it gives us structure and I think that that is just brilliant. Thank you.
• 21:58
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, let's transition. So there inevitably are going to be dilemmas, there's going to be dead ends.
• 22:04
  Jonathan McCoy: How can we really avoid these I mean, when you're starting to change the way you're trying to change the world, we always say all the time changing the world is hard work. How can we you know, avoid some of the common management dilemmas that network leaders face.
• 22:18
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: So management dilemmas for us are problems that network leaders will never solve. They're just going to make choices around and those are going to be dilemmas, you have to make a choice around knowing that there's going to be a trade off there just filled in. So let me give you an example of one. So one of them is efficiency and inclusivity.
• 22:40
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: So I was working with a Environmental Network, and they have made the change from taking climate change as a technical problem to taking it as an environmental justice problem, like they had made that shift, huge shift for them. But I was talking with one of their leaders, and they were like, ever since we made this shift, everything's moving slower. I mean, we used to just be able to come to agreement really, really quickly. And we used to be able to like just roll these things out. But But now things are taking so much longer. Why is it? Well, you leaned it to the other side of the dilemma, right? You went for more inclusivity across, it's going to slow you down, right? Like this is just going to be that's the natural consequence of your choice. Right. And he looked at me like, I didn't realize we were making the trade off choice here. And there's a bunch of these that nonprofit leaders, they're the choices of value based choice, but you have to know what the other side of it is. Right? Give you one other example of this. So one of them is in networks, really about balancing organizational agendas and network agendas. Right? So organizational agenda is what the organizations in the network are trying to get out of it.
• 23:47
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: They might be trying to get legitimacy or funding or you know, different things, network agendas, what the network's trying to do. So it's trying to, you know, manage the network, it's got to raise funds for itself. But it also is trying to make this social impact. You've been really hard into the network agenda and pay no attention to the organizational agendas, people will leave, because they don't have time for that they've got a job, right?
• 24:11
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Like they have organizations that have to survive. And they can't just do your networks work without doing their organization's work. But if they if you lean in the other side of the dilemma, all you'll do is make your organization's in the network happy and you'll never make a social impact, right. So there's this push and pull and those dilemmas. And there's a number of them we talked about in the book. That's one of the things is you're kind of walking through that it's just a realize that it's some of the choices you're going to make have imbedded trade offs in them, and you can't get away from them.
• 24:43
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And so that's that's part of what's going on with the dilemmas piece, I'm going to just tell you two dead ends. So there are like, just because we do the systems piece. And we say there's more than one way to make this is not one set at all doesn't mean that any way is a good way, right? There are some dead ends to making a social impact with networks that if you try are unlikely to succeed. So my my soapbox one is what I call network hosting, which is I'm going to run a network by holding events. Oh my god, running a network by holding events does not create a social impact. It might make people better at their job. You can do professional development. That's wonderful. You can certainly help build community that's lovely. But it doesn't translate into a network itself moving the needle on a social issue. You have to do something more than just host lovely conferences.
• 25:32
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Number two, and this is a dead end, in that some people go into not networks. They're passionate, they're tenacious.
• 25:41
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: They're the Tracey's of the world, right? And they come in and they think everybody is, yeah, that's a dead end, right, John?
• 25:55
  Becky Endicott: This is a malady of
• 25:58
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: some, some organizations are going to be really slow to come to the table, they're going to be hard to see what's in some organizations will come to the table. And they're what we call toxic nodes, which is their whole goal in life is to make this network not happen. Because it doesn't suit what their think their interests are. And so coming into this, if the dead end is just like looking at the world, and assuming, of course, everybody wants to do good, we're all gonna come together and put our agendas aside, and it's just gonna be sunshine and roses. That's not the way that networks work. Instead, you have to go knowing that conflict is in the DNA of networks, you should expect it, it's gonna happen, because anytime you create a network, you're balancing interdependence, and autonomy, it's in the middle of it. And so you know, going eyes wide open into a network and realizing that is huge, and setting expectations and helping leaders not feel really discouraged. The first time someone says, I don't think that this is a good idea at all that we get together. In fact, what why do we even have a network?
• 26:59
  Jonathan McCoy: Yeah, well, I love your book has got so much practical wisdom to have just like how if you're going to set up a network, which is wonderful. What about just the space of finding an existing network? What's the best advice you have for an organization that wants to subscribe to some higher ideals of what they're fighting for? Where do you go?
• 27:18
  Jonathan McCoy: Who do you turn to?
• 27:19
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: I think there are networks in every single community. So often, your community foundation and your local United Way, will be able to give you the lay of the land, if you're a brand new nonprofit leader, and you don't know what the networks are in your community, just go ask somebody at your community foundation.
• 27:37
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: That way, they will tell you all of the different networks that exist out there. And then this, the second piece, I'd say is, if you're looking to build this at a national or international network, start talking to other organizations who you view as competitors who do what you do, and see what are the places they're going, who are they talking to, chances are there are some nascent networks, even at those levels that you could be involved in.
• 28:03
  Becky Endicott: So it was really smart tip, because we think that it the best way to again, is to share these ideas and to set them on fire is you do have to go talk to your competitor. And I actually think that there is opportunity to collaborate, you can find opportunities to co build. And again, if you're aligned on the one thing that you're trying to chase, then it makes the competition slip away a little bit if you have that tenacious leader that's willing to put the ego and the power and control aside. And I want to thank you for even bringing up inclusivity and saying, you know, very frankly, that that even adding something like that will slow us down. But I'm telling you, it is worth it, folks, it is worth it to spend the time to do these things.
• 28:48
  Becky Endicott: Because if you can show up authentically, and with your arms wide open, your ability to gather more is going to scale and go so much faster. Michelle is so smart. So okay, I have to ask this question, because I can't wait to hear your answer.
• 29:06
  Becky Endicott: We want to know story of philanthropy that has touched you personally. And this could be something during your time with your family growing up in your childhood, or it could be something you know, you've seen on the front lines of network for nonprofits. So let us let us like have a little glimpse into your heart.
• 29:27
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah. So I'm actually going to tell a story about my mom. So my mom is she's I won't say how old she is. But she, she certainly qualifies for AARP. We'll just say that and that will make her happy that I didn't reveal anything else. Um, you know, during COVID, she could have just kind of shut down and not done anything. But she looked around and realized her little church of about 150 people hadn't been doing their food pantry. And so she was like, I know what I can do during COVID.
• 30:03
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: So she went around and she called every local supermarket and restaurant and got them to donate food. She networked with her local like Second Harvest food pantry and figured out how to like run her food pantry that like three days after there so they could get all the things they didn't give away. She could give away this little church of 150 people. She has over 50 people volunteering for this thing and they're serving 130 families a week.
• 30:34
  Jonathan McCoy: Oh, my God, it's like 33%
• 30:37
  Becky Endicott: of the church.
• 30:40
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Well, that's families, they're serving like triple the size of the church because she was willing to step up. And I will, the thing that I love it is my mom.
• 30:49
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: She's a tenacious leader, she just asked, She's bold to call anybody and ask for anything.
• 30:54
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And because of that, when their local food pantries in the area shut down, they became one of the only food pantries in their county that kept running during COVID.
• 31:08
  Becky Endicott: Okay, I just have to say, I got it, I gotta, like backup this train, and say that, Michelle, you are living walking example of what happens when you bring philanthropy into the family into the children.
• 31:22
  Becky Endicott: And you can if you can start this so early, and normalize and condition, this kind of behavior. I look at what your mom is doing. And I'm gonna bet she has been a tenacious leader her entire life. And I think it's because again, she was a believer, you know, more so than she was a donor. And she wasn't going to let it fail. And the fact that she has been modeling that for you for years, is now a gift that we all get to enjoy in network for nonprofit and social impact. And the ripple of that is profound so and you know what, it's like we always say everybody can do something in the space where they're at to have a tremendous impact, even a woman of a certain age that we won't talk specifically about, can go out and COVID and create a massive movement that fits a need. And she literally created a network. Go mom.
• 32:24
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, we don't want these office hours with our favorite new college professor here to end so I'm trying to I've been holding off when to go here. But, you know, we end all of our conversations, asking one good thing, what's the secret to your success, or maybe just a piece of advice you could offer us?
• 32:40
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: So I'm going to actually offer one of the tools for network instigators that we have in the book that I think actually serves me well in my life, too.
• 32:50
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And it's a tool for root cause analysis called the Five why's.
• 32:54
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And, you know, I've talked about my kids like it's the five why's is kind of like your kids growing up who just when something is presented to you, they take the beat and say why?
• 33:04
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: And then why and then why right like that continuing this idea of the five why's sometimes when we're faced with a social problem, when we're figuring out how to get involved in it. We just tried to we skim the surface, we just address the symptoms. But the five why's asks us to say okay, so we think that there is a problem with one of the works that have been doing is around health equity.
• 33:29
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: So where there's a difference in health equity outcomes, why, right? And starting to unpeel that onion and ask again and ask again. And usually the thing you end up with at the end of that is the thing under the thing.
• 33:45
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Yeah. And that's so much more powerful a way to make a social impact than addressing that first appearing symptom. For for me, and some of the work that I've been doing that has meant, like really getting into the depths of hospital systems and looking how that they've worked through equity issues, and they've done outreach to communities and they've made culturally competent health care. But I wouldn't have started there. If I had just seen the kind of the top of the funnel first blush problem. So I use five why's I use it in my personal life, too? I try to use it with my kids. Like, why are they doing that? Oh, okay, like I can get the thing under the thing? Well, you
• 34:25
  Becky Endicott: know, I have a seven year old who just in the last few years quit asking me why about everything. And now I'm thinking, well, maybe she was on to something there.
• 34:34
  Becky Endicott: That's a really smart tip. So, okay, Michelle, we want to know how to get your book, how people can connect with you give us all the connection points to how people can come learn more about you, and just network for nonprofit and social impact.
• 34:48
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Sure. So our website is in en si app.northwestern.edu. And so you can learn all about the research lab there. We've got reports we can maintain a really active blog, we do an impact insights newsletter for nonprofit leaders, you're welcome to check that out. I am really active on LinkedIn and because Shumate is a somewhat unusual name, you can just search for Michelle Shumate and find me pretty easily. And if you go there and find me, then you can at the top of my page, there's a discount code for the book, and you're certainly welcome to check it out. It's also available on Amazon. And then last, if you just want to kind of check in with me and have a conversation.
• 35:27
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: You find me on Twitter and I'm Prof. Shumate, PR o f Shumate on Twitter. And I there I have a lot of nerdy conversations with other people who do what I do.
• 35:40
  Becky Endicott: Well, if you geeked out on this, you have 280 characters to talk to ya show on Twitter, go find her and geek out with
• 35:48
  Jonathan McCoy: like, our heart is very full from this love where this conversation took us today. Thank you for being here.
• 35:53
  Becky Endicott: And just so glad that you are pouring into this specific space in the sector.
• 35:56
  Becky Endicott: I'm just really excited to follow you and see all the good that's gonna come from this.
• 36:01
  Dr. Michelle Shumate: Thanks so much for having me. It's been a wonderful conversation.
• 36:05
  Julie Confer: Hey, friends, thanks so much for being here.
• 36:07
  Julie Confer: Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics. Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. 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. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at WWE are for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community.
• 36:38
  Julie Confer: Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie confer and our theme song is sunray by Remy Boris boom