Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 444. Evolved Leadership Panel: How Leaders Can Center Authenticity, Collaboration + Community - Ben Collier, Boi Carpenter, Brooke Richie-Babbage, and Rena Greifinger

Transcript

444. Evolved Leadership Panel: How Leaders Can Center Authenticity, Collaboration + Community - Ben Collier, Boi Carpenter, Brooke Richie-Babbage, and Rena Greifinger · 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 rabid 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: Hey, John, Welcome back everybody.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, this week is all about evolved leadership And I mean spoiler, that's all of us right, and I think we're all kind of looking around How do we meet this moment?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And, man, we got to go back because there was a panel that happened at the Responsive Nonprofit Summit that we co-hosted with Virtuous earlier this year And dang, the conversation there just gave so much wisdom, so much of a North Star of how to show up, and I'm really excited to replay it today on the podcast.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: So the theme and the question is really, what does evolved leadership look like in today's world?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: And you know, we brought the powerhouse experts in this area, we've curated them to come together and they are bringing a fiery panel of conversation to you.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: We're talking about Bowie Carpenter with Johns Hopkins University, rena Greifinger with Maverick Collective by PSI, brooke Richie Babbage BRB with Bending Arc and Ben Collier with the FarmLink Project, and let me just tell you this is what evolved leadership looks like in today's world.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so there's a reason we wanted to start the conversation stage talking about leadership, and the reason we tap these incredible, good humans is not just because we think they're brilliant, but we think that they're living this out loud in this very moment.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And I want to begin by just looking at each of you in the eye and saying what do you believe being an evolved leader means and looks like for us today?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And, bowie, i'm going to kick it off to you, my friend, hop in there with your definition.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: So I think in our ever-evolving world, leadership has no destination.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: So I love that you said evolving.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: It really is a continuous journey.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think that there's a box to check which can make us feel really nervous, right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: So I think that there's really a line.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: There's a line and it really stretches to infinity And we get to be the artist that draws the picture for what that is.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Leaders really, i think, now need to be transformational learners and not just informational learners So we can buy books and read things.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: But what it really takes is us making that shift ourselves within the spaces that we exist in and the systems that we exist in as well.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: So there's sort of two cornerstones that I think of, and that is humanity and humility, and humanity being really sort of loving humankind through a deep understanding of self, kind of mentally, physically, and humility sort of letting go of the ego, because at the end of the day, if you put people before profit, that is what wins the day.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: My friend.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, you're right out of the gate, woo, okay.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So much affirmation, goodness Brooke, over to you.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: What are you happy to say?
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: It's tough to follow.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: That I will say.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: First, it's wonderful to be here with all of you, and what I think I would say about evolved leadership, building on what Boyle is saying, is that it grows out of an understanding of community and what I call sort of leading from one zone of genius.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: I think it's really important to remember that none of us can do what we do alone, and so being intentional about building communities around ourselves, communities of mentorship and peer support, it's just really really critical for sustaining ourselves in this act or practice of leadership.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I also think really accepting that leadership doesn't mean being amazing at every single thing all the time.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: And that right That it's a mental health that we can save ourselves, and sort of finding our unique combination of passion and skills and figuring out what it looks like to lead from that place in a way that fuels rather than drains us are both really important.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, so glad I'm not doing this alone, john, because it would be really lonely on the stage without you.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: We all need each other.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So, ben, i want to kick it to you for your definition, because I just think your team has absolutely reimagined the way nonprofit leadership could evolve for good.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: So what would you say?
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: That's so kind, and thank you so much for having us here.
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: This is wonderful, brooke.
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: I think we've both read multipliers, or at least I think I draw a lot from that as well.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: I think about leadership and completely agree with what was already said, and I also think about the need for collaboration, not just within an organization, but extending outside of it, looking at the space we operate in within, fighting Hunger, and looking at the intersection between that and the environment.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: We are one organization that cannot do almost anything alone.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: We are a connector and a facilitator, and I think that our leadership requires us to not just look at how we're community building within the members who are building Farmlink, but also alongside the hundreds of other people and organizations and communities that we're building with and building for, and all of the previous people who have gotten us to this point, on whose shoulders we now stand and learn from.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: So I think for us, it's about recognizing that If you're looking at systems change, if you're looking at true mission-driven work, it requires such a commitment to collaboration, and that's something that I think we really try and remind ourselves with as much frequency as possible.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: We're really intent on having the right mindsets as leaders moving forward And I don't know that we've said this, but we believe being a leader, anybody can be a leader.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: You don't need that in your title.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: You can be a new professional.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: The way that you show up to lead within your organization, you have something to bring.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: So talk to us about the right mindsets people can have as they're starting to embrace this new evolution of leadership.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: I love that we're starting with this question, because I think everything stems from mindset and the narratives that we bring to ourselves and that we bring to the work.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: So the first thing that I would say is you have to have a mindset of openness and active learning, right.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: If you truly believe that, as Ben was saying and as Boy was saying, that we are all in this together, that we will need to do our work and achieve social good with partners and coaches and mentors and a community, then we have to have a mindset of openness to learning and changing and trying new things, questioning how can we grow, what is the next growth edge for me, for my team, for my community, what's on the next horizon And, very importantly, who should be at the table with us, alongside us, in our leadership?
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: And what that means is that we will have to learn to work across difference, right.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: Partnerships and community work and collaboration doesn't always mean everybody sitting around the table feels the same thing or thinks the same thing, and so this openness has to also be about building trust for action, right.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: How can we focus on and trust that we have shared values and shared goals so that we can work across difference?
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: And I think that openness is part of it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: And then the second mindset piece that just feels really central for my own growth as a leader and the work that I do with other leaders is abundance.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: And I think we have to believe that the pie is big enough for all of us, whether we're talking about funding or finding the right staff or expanding our program to meet expanding need.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: We have to believe that there are people out there to be rallied, that the funding is there for all of us, that we're not competing over a tiny slice of a small pie It's actually massive and that the impact is there to be had.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: So that belief, i think when things feel tough, that mindset can fuel us.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: again, going back to what fuels us, Brooke, i feel like every time we talk, you talk about the growth edges and you know threading that together with what Bowie said about not having ego.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So if you show up like that, with that posture, it's truly like a way to accelerate a growth and so much more buy-in among your team and staff.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: And, ben, you're leading this in real time.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, i've grown so quickly.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you're surrounded by a team, so I want to kick it to you because y'all are working on an issue that's like systemic level.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I mean a bigger, deeper issue.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Why is this evolving leadership so important when you're tackling something that's honestly hard to even wrap our heads around, like a systemic issue?
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: It's a great question.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: We are just to cover farm link for a brief moment.
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: We're working to access the Oaks or Plus food that is currently going the waste throughout the food supply chain, but starting at farms, and that's leading to tens of billions of pounds per year that, hopefully, some of which we can get into people's homes and to benefit them.
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: And, brooke, i want to actually touch on what you said about abundance.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: We just finished making this documentary about how we got off the ground.
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: It's literally called abundance because we talk about food in this country, in this world, and we grow more than we need to feed the population one and a half times over.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: And you think about the words waste, surplus and abundance, and they're all describing the exact same thing, and food only becomes waste when it's wasted.
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: And so I think that, looking at this systemic issue of there's 100 billion pounds of food that go to waste in the United States alone and it's contributing to up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions And, at the same time, 35 million people in this country are going hungry.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: I think we try and simplify it and we say there is an abundance of food and it's a logistics problem.
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: It's a matter of getting it to the right place at the right time.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: And when we look at it like that, it doesn't feel as unconquerable and it feels like we at least have a first step to take, and so I think it's important for us to look at the North Star in the big picture but then focus on that next step, and that's that's place where we can start small to keep moving forward.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to give a shout out to Ben and the FarmLink team because I think Tenacity really goes with this.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Ben and Aiden and the team over at FarmLink.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: they called more than 200 farmers before they could get one to answer the phone and say, yes, you can come out here with a U-Haul and come grab like 20,000 eggs off of our farm.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: And that is like the inception story of FarmLink, and I think that leaving the ego and embracing that abundance and having that tenacity are just keys.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: And so I want to kick it to Rena, because I think Rena does some extraordinary work as she is collecting women around major issues.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: And I would love, rena, for you to just weigh in and talk about why you think systems level change is so important and evolve leadership and how you've seen that play out.
• 11:18
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much for the question and for this group and I'm just I'm loving what I'm hearing from all of you.
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: You know we think a lot about systems change at Maverick Collective, at PSI, and really, in order to create long term systemic change, we need to reimagine the systems that our societies are built on, and it doesn't matter what issue we're talking about.
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: I think universally, the systems that society is built on are outdated, patriarchal and colonial, and even despite its best intentions, philanthropy is one of those systems, and so if we want philanthropy to work for systems change, we need to reimagine philanthropy, and that really starts with exploring and understanding power and then disrupting the very inherent power imbalance between donors and grantees.
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: And so that's a lot of work that we do at Mavro Collective in really supporting our members and the women that work with us to focus on becoming more authentic, more authentic to themselves and to the world, more accountable to their grantees just as much as they expect accountability back and more activated in the movements that they're funding.
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: We call it bringing your A-game authenticity, accountability and activation and activism.
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: And I think this goes beyond philanthropy, it goes beyond high net worth individuals.
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: This is like a recipe for evolved leaders for evolved humans, and for too long we've had a system where donors, just because they have wealth and money, are calling the shots about what impact means, about what gets funded and what doesn't, about how long it's going to take to see impact, without truly listening to and centering the people and communities who are living the experience every day and who are on the front lines of trying to solve problems, and so we really need a system that shifts power of decision making and control to those who are doing the hard work of solving problems every day and bringing donors along as learners, right as supportive and problem solving, but often taking a backseat to really driving decision making.
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: So we work with a lot of individuals with a lot of different types of capital, financial just being one of them, but you know that I talk a lot about the power of curiosity as capital and coming in at curious as an active listener and active learner in the work.
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: So I think that's just a really important piece of how we are trying to change the system of philanthropy in order to catalyze long term systems change across all the issues that we overcome.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Well, my friend, y'all are doing it, and I mean we got to spend some time with Rina talking about the impact of these women specifically on the podcast.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So we'll make sure and drop that in the comments, because it's truly unbelievable the work that y'all are doing.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that context.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Ok, i want to get into some practical.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of people listening, i know I'm feeling this of just like, what are the skills?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: what are the?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: what are the places we really need to pour into as aspiring leaders or leaders in the moment?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And, bowie, i want to kick it to you to really live this out What are some of the skills that we need to pour into to become an evolving leader?
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm really just still thinking about what Rina said about reimagining systems, because that really does get into that futuristic type of thinking in terms of grounding ourselves to think about what are those signals that exist in our organizations and society and the work that we're doing, that really are an indication that change and disruption is kind of on the forefront And you know, thinking about?
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: I loved sort of the comments around community and collaboration because we really exist in multiple systems And so what I'll do is sort of call out some of the systems that exist, sometimes in singularity, but sometimes multiple systems within larger systems.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: When I think about leadership, you know, the first thing I think about in the nonprofit space is the human capital and the loss of human capital.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: You know, we've lost a lot of our female leaders, our minority leaders, and it really is sort of the great resignation, the great reconsideration.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But leadership impacts are a lie And so that system in and of itself is what sustains the actual nonprofit And that's why this conversation is really so important to start people thinking.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about Ben and I did read up about you, ben, and I'm totally like amazed at what you do, You doubt?
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: right, it's amazing I'm a podcast.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I went to the website And in thinking about technology, i was remembering the story of you in the U-Haul getting all of those eggs after having the 200 calls.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: And when we look across all of the space now technology and systems in terms of data, information, how we actually advance, what we're doing, sometimes even the delivery.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: So I remember you indicating that now you have new delivery systems that have had to come into place.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: I think about even the fact that we're using sort of natural language types of systems chat, gpt I don't think there's anyone that hasn't heard of that yet.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I know about a year ago wasn't really thinking about that.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: How do we use that to curate information?
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: How do we work with our donors in terms of that relationship building, sort of?
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: that's another system that we're in.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: We have individuals where we're trying to create affinity and connecting with them, and how do we draw them closer to us?
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: How do we engage?
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Maybe we need different systems.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Instead of having a portfolio of donors, we have a portfolio of volunteers And I think about sort of activating.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Activated network.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Fundraising is what I have in my mind in terms of the multiplicity of having this community aspect of things and really growing things larger.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: So when I kind of look across the landscape, those are some of the signals that I'm seeing and hearing in the different conversations that I think are just kind of ripe for having larger conversations.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: And the futuristic conversations don't happen in isolation, they happen in forums like this and with teams.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Bowie, you are such a pioneer.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, we believe in the futurist part of nonprofit.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: If you've not looked up Bowie, please go Google all that she's done on that, because it really is this forward thinking approach And I thank you for all of your comments.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're starting to get into the nitty gritty of this, and so I want to talk about the challenge and the obstacles and the opportunities that are sitting in front of us.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: But I want to pose a question to the chat and to all of you listening right now Talk to us about some of the challenges that you're seeing with your leadership right now.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: We want you to drop those in the chat, because you have this incredible field of experts here who we can pitch some of those issues to and we want to talk about them.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: But I want to go to Rena first, because Rena I think what PSI has done, and Maverick, to sort of address these challenges in a very unique way and really embracing what you've already referenced as curiosity, innovation and the way that you listen to your base before you make any moves, and I'm loving this thread of A's activation, awareness, activism, all the things.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: So talk to us a little bit about how nonprofits can overcome these obstacles That we're seeing, that are facing our sector right now.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: What can leaders do that you've seen work within your organization to really lean into this evolution, to overcome a lot of these challenges?
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: And again, you know, and I'm adding, i'm adding abundance to my A's because it's such a good one and I talk about that Love it.
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: But I really think, you know, there, nonprofits, obviously there's a lot of changes that need to happen, but I still come from I get to sit at this in this interesting point where I work, you know, work with a nonprofit, for a nonprofit, but I also work with donors and I work with individuals who are funding the work, and I really believe that change needs to happen in both.
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: It needs to happen in the relationship between the way donors and grantees work together, and so much of that comes back to this idea of authenticity and, i think, authenticity through proximity.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: So, mavr Collective, we bring our donors in as in practice of what we call experiential philanthropy, where they are able to go beyond the checkbook and engage in the work that they are funding, combining real grant making with hands-on learning, so that they gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the complexities and realities of the problems that we're all trying to solve, And when they can get proximate, when they can be in community with people with lived experience and with those on the front lines, and they get that kind of under the hood learning about how nonprofits work, why we need to work the way we do, why we need more unrestricted funding and less conditions and more ability to flex and try and iterate and fail.
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: When they get more comfortable funding that, then we can really move the needle.
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: So I really I think that finding ways we need donors who are willing to go there with nonprofits and also nonprofits that are willing to kind of let donors in under the hood And that takes a lot of trust building and relationship building to get to a place where you can say to one another we're gonna get into this mess together because it's messy work.
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: If these problems were easy to solve, we would have solved them a long time ago.
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: But when you can get into the mess and learn together, that's when we can start to really use philanthropy as I think is most catalytic for really innovative, non-proven but high potential, highly catalytic solutions to hard problems.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're poking the bear over here because you're bringing up trust, rina, and I think it's just paramount.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've had hundreds of conversations just in the last two years and it all comes back to trust.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And we look across the sector and the studies that come out that show that trust is at an all-time low for nonprofits.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: So it's really imperative to us to figure out, as leaders, how to build that, and that starts from within.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So I love that we're having this conversation And, ben, i see the chat blowing up of people recognizing Yall's journey.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And I wanna talk about FarmLink for a second, because you've created this culture from within.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: That's moved really fast, but there's gotta be a ton of trust that's baked into that too.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: So would you talk about what's been on your mind as you try to build a culture of a fast-growing team and what's important to really lift out from that?
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: Thanks, john.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: I would say that, when it comes to trust, we have the responsibility of helping everyone understand how their work builds up to what we're working towards.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: We've felt like for a long time people join FarmLink for the mission, but they ultimately stay for the community and they stay for how they're able to feel connected to what we're building.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: And so if we are able to have everybody on the team whether you are helping us with our finance invoices or you're directly talking to farmers or you're fundraising every single person is playing a critical role that we wouldn't have them do if we didn't think it helped drive our mission forward.
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: And so I think, when it comes to building trust, there's a commitment to transparency that we try and take in helping everyone understand why their work is mission-to-critical, how their work ladders up to our North Star goals, and so, even if three of our team members are ultimately the ones that are talking to the farmers and getting those donations in the door, it takes every single person on our team to enable that to take place.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: And so I think trust comes down to our relationship with communication and transparency and our overall mission at its highest point.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And I wanna make sure nobody missed what Ben said there.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I mean it was across the board.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: It was not.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: The people who have power at the top are trying to get the trust.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: It goes all the way down to the person answering the phone, to the person who is doing your gift processing.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I think there's a responsibility in all of this And I think the futurist part that Bowie teased.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: I think we gotta go back to that because I think that mindset, bowie, is so helpful When you're really we talk about it like seeing over the horizon and really planning ahead.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: How can leaders really embrace that mindset of future thinking rather than being so reactive to the crises that kind of just fall right in our plates every single day?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: I really think that there's so many different things And I know that they're different qualities, and I love sort of what Ben said about being purposeful, visionary and inclusive, because teams want to know why they're doing what they're doing And they want to know that what they're doing matters And it's not a case statement, it's not a dollar goal.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: It really is kind of having that purposeful, visionary, kind of inclusive leader And the individual then says hey, i want to bring my best self to work, i want to do my best work for you, and I think that that is definitely so needed, because reactive leadership does not win the day.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Individuals want to feel they have the autonomy to have input in conversations, they want to be able to engage in a way where they know that their voice has meaning and they too can have impact because they're bought into the mission.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I love that you said that, because I'm sitting here thinking that's what I want, that's what everybody really is seeking in their role.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Is just that understanding.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna drop Julie maybe can drop your episode, bowie when you came on the podcast and talked about this, if you're wanting to cultivate how to think like a futurist, I feel like you gave us a playbook that day, so I want to share that resource.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And now, brooke, i want to kick it to you because I think there's a tension to be managed in that We're sitting in this vortex of solving some of the world's greatest problems, or leaning into them, and also managing a team.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: That's right here.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: It's doing the work that we know.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of mental health crisis happening.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of challenges happening.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: How do you show up for both at the same time?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And just kind of, some words.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: You've got it in this conversation.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Hop in there.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: So, having been a founder and executive director, as we have talked about in the past, and worked with hundreds now of organizations, especially during COVID, this question of sort of balancing the meeting the needs of having the impact and the real human piece of doing this work is both very central to what it means to be a leader, and I think Maybe this is hopefully changing, but not something we have talked enough about as just part and parcel of leadership.
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: I think executive directors have to wear so many hats And the way that I think about this question is about calibration right, that there are these dimensions that leaders have to sit in and balance, and there are really three that I think about sort of working together to sustain the people doing this work.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: The first is the personal right, the self, and, going back to what we've talked about the beginning, this idea of sort of putting your own mask on first right, if we are depleted, if we are burned out, if we are exhausted, if we've lost sight of our North Star, then it's really hard to show up for and support our team and our people.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: It's hard to be abundant, it's hard to be open, it's hard to do all of these things that we've talked about.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: So that first dimension in the balance is am I making sure that I'm fueling and feeding myself as the steward?
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: I think the second dimension is creating a container, an organization that is intentionally designed to be healthy and stable.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: It's a place that people love working, that your team wants to show up, where they feel safe being vulnerable and trying and failing forward.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: And to me, that second dimension has always been about intentional organizational design.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: Right, there is an institution that is holding space for people to carry out good work, and so the people are part and parcel of that.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: And so are we designing our organization in a healthy and stable way?
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: right, is our strategic vision clear?
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: To Ben's point, is the North Star one that people understand and are excited by?
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: Does it make them want to be on the team?
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Are we designing our culture in a way where the dynamics are healthy and people feel safe being their whole selves?
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: So that intentional organizational design is the second dimension, and then the third is community.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Right That?
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: the community that we are in and part of.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: We have to ask ourselves how are we showing up?
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Are we showing up in ways that are value aligned, where we are accountable to and with the people that we're trying to serve.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: I always talk about how organizations, every healthy, stable organization is a blend of clarity, which is that strategic vision.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Capacity, which is the people power.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: And capital, which is the resources and the funding.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: And I think, to the extent that you, as a leader, keep your eye on those three dimensions, then you are moving in the direction of holding space for people to show up as their whole selves.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, you know, i'm in a mode on that, like we just need to take a hard pass, a hard stop, because there's so much here And I want to make sure that you listening out there, if no one has told you yet.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I like want to create some hard pause to say you are worthy of rest.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, you are worthy of rest in this work.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: We simply cannot keep pouring into these missions and these problems if we are depleted.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: So thank you for saying that.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: And the last thing I want to say about Brooke Ritchie Babbage is she lives this.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: The first time I ever met her, she gave me her cell phone and she talked about the sustainable sisterhood that she has built around her.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: She has women literally built around her who are in nonprofit roles and they just all pour into each other.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: They listen, they vent, they swap ideas, they celebrate their joys.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I even got to meet someone in her sustainable sisterhood.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: We just talked as moms and as people trying to change the world.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Find your community, because when you are less alone, these things seem like we can achieve them.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: And so I want to stay with this theme of community and collaboration because, reena, i just think Maverick PSI does a beautiful job with collaboration and listening, talk about the role that that plays in this evolved leadership that we really want to see in the sector.
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: Well, it goes back again, again back to this idea of abundance and that I think that in the nonprofit sector, we are so accustomed to operating from a place of scarcity and feeling that we have a lot of to have to be in competition over collaboration, and that just absolutely needs to change And there's a lot of kind of people and spaces in the system that need to change to allow that to happen.
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: But, you know, at Maverick, on the philanthropy side, we had been hearing for years that women found philanthropy to be overwhelming, confusing and lonely, and women wanted to come together and practice philanthropy together, to invest together so that they can move more money more boldly to, you know, innovative ideas and solutions, but also to learn from one another, to just to build friendships, to build lifelong partnerships.
• 31:57
  Speaker 6: I mean, this is something that I think it's not exclusive to women and I don't wanna gender the conversation too much, but it's certainly something that was a foundation that we built the collective on And what we found is that when on the donor side, when our donors come together in community to invest together and learn together, they are and to be vulnerable enough to allow others to witness them learn, which I think is something that is really hard for a lot of people, particularly people with power or money or who are in the public eye, to be vulnerable enough to say and I'm coming with curiosity and a learner's mindset and it's okay that I don't know everything about this problem.
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: In fact, it's actually a good thing that I don't or you don't, because there's a lot of experts on the ground to do, and I think coming together in that way has been transformative, not only for them and in their lives and in their professions and in their philanthropy, but also for us as an organization to be able to collaborate with donors in this really authentic, transparent way.
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: And when it comes to collaboration as an organization, psi has been around 53 years.
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: We're one of the largest global health organizations in the world, operating in 46 countries.
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: We've been at this a long time and when we look at ways to collaborate differently, what we're finding is that where we're getting some of the most interesting, juicy, different ways of working is collaborating with the types of nonprofits that are super grassroots, community-based, community-led organizations, feminist organizations, grassroots groups that might not even have a full registration as a nonprofit, and finding ways for us to collaborate and bring each of us, bring our superpowers to the relationship and to the partnership, and to talk about and work with these types of partners in ways that we, as a big organization, are gonna also shift power the way we're asking our donors to so that we can work in the same system, each using our superpowers and our values and sharing and teaching one another so that we can lift up the entire system and, in our case, change the world for women and girls.
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: And that takes so many different types of players.
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: It takes big NGOs, it takes tiny grassroots orgs, advocates, researchers, implementers, service providers, young people and girls themselves, and we all need to be able to come to the table and talk about ways that we're gonna coordinate our actions.
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: That's true collaboration rather than being kind of competition with one another, operating from that scarcity mindset.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Rina Greifinger in the pulpit like preaching it out.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: I see hearts like popping up, because I really think you're right, rina.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I think this is a new era that we're embracing, an era of, and I absolutely love Tamara Fox's comment.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I hope everybody's in the chat right now talking about the power of vulnerability.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I am so excited that the sector is sunsetting this Norman Rockwell approach to the way that we do our business and the way we talk about our stories.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: We need to give the full spectrum of the picture and that starts with vulnerability, it starts with authenticity, it starts by when somebody says and I saw your comment up there, julie, this is the way we've always done it That is a trigger word for something that we need to radically revolutionize and we need to relook at the way we are doing things, because we do want that equity, we do wanna shift that power, and so, as we're sort of winding down, we want you to definitely drop your comments in the chat if you have any questions for any of our panelists.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, like on the We Are For Good podcast, we end all of our episodes with a one good thing, and we wanna go around the room and have you all give us your one good thing, and then I think I'm gonna start with you.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: We actually just had our third birthday at FarmLink, and I think that the one good thing that it felt like we could reflect on during that third birthday and we continue to is every few months I look back at FarmLink and I still feel like we are at the start of our journey And, to Rena's point, it still feels like we're learning, and especially, you know, given my personal experience, having that learner's mindset is very easy and it opens a lot of doors for us, but I think that in mission-driven work, in purpose-driven work, until we make ourselves almost obsolete, i think that we are gonna feel like we're at the start of this journey And that's something that we wanna always have as our mindset that we're just scratching the surface.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: This is the tip of the iceberg, and so I think if you can couple this learner's mindset with this beginner's mindset, it makes tackling new problems or answering difficult questions, it makes not knowing all of that right away a little bit easier, and so that'll be my one good thing for today.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: That was just casually on Ben's head.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: That was like a bomb a wisdom bomb that just dropped.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Nicely done.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I love it Bowie.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: why don't you round us out with your one good thing?
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Sure, i don't know how I'm gonna top that off right.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: So one thing I just wanna draw on something that even Brooks said and that is, i think about from a leadership lens really be intentional about how you give your power away, because that really can take away from your energy.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Bar, embrace, discover, rediscover your why.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: And then I know Ben had said earlier like, what is your mission critical statement?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: And so I think taking the time to really work on what your mission critical statement is and understanding how to conserve your power and not give it away really is needed for leaders in the nonprofit space to be grounded in this moment.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: That really is so very complex.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Fran, that was brilliant.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, Brooke, over to you.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: I will build on that and say, if I can only do one good thing, i would say check in on your superpower.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I think that it's really easy when you do this work to be conscious of the balls you feel like you're dropping and the distance between where you are and where you want to be.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: And I think rounding out a learner's mindset with occasionally remembering to pat yourself on the back for the things you actually have done, the things you do do well, the balls you have managed to keep in the air, is just really important and we can forget to do that.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: So that's what I would say is check in on the things that you do really, really well and say you know what, today I did this thing and it was great, and go me.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I mean grace right out.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, give yourself grace.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Do we do that?
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: And that is not a cultural norm for us.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: So I absolutely love this and give yourself a pat on the back because we are doing really hard work.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Rena, finish this off.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: What have you got with your one good thing?
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: I think that, like the one good thing is the team and my team, our team, right The people around you.
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: As a leader, you only shine as brightly as your team does and the more that you can uplift and ensure that your team is shining, that the people who are doing who are usually doing a lot of the grub work you know that kind of allow you to lift up and shine and be expansive and be strategic and come onto great events like this.
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: That's because usually, if you're lucky, there's an incredible team that is doing a lot of the really hard and sometimes less sexy work and making sure that every single person on your team really sees themself in your team's success, feels the success that you're creating together and finding every opportunity to lift those people up and allow them to shine, and you will only shine more brightly.
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: So I think it always comes back to your team.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, can you understand why we gathered these four humans to speak into us?
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I feel the pep in my step And I just wanna remind you everybody listening, these are all humans here Reach out Like following along.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: With each of their journeys, i can tell you, has completely changed our world, rocked our world.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: So go find them on LinkedIn and go follow them on their newsletter list.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Go support the organizations, because these are world changers that also deeply care about you as the individual, and that's like a banner of this conference is that you belong here, that we want you to feel seen and supported, and I can assure you everyone on this call today is rooting for you.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for that, reach out, find them Appreciate your time.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Panelists, thank you for your hearts, thanks for your wisdom.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: We just love you dearly.