Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell

Organizational Resilience in An Uncertain World with Joan Garry

August 25, 2021 Julia Campbell Season 1 Episode 3
Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Organizational Resilience in An Uncertain World with Joan Garry
Show Notes Transcript

Nonprofits are messy and imperfect, and my guest for this episode, Joan Garry, doesn't hold back in saying so. Annnnd she called us "kindred spirits" - so, #swoon.

Joan is the go-to resource for hundreds of thousands of nonprofit leaders worldwide. Through her blog, podcast and book, Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership, she has become the ‘Dear Abby’ of the nonprofit sector, advocating for the success of nonprofits, large and small.  

As a columnist for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes Magazine, among others, Joan is a preeminent media spokesperson and thought leader on the role of the nonprofit sector in our society and is a sought after voice on issues facing the sector today. 

Joan is also the founder of the Nonprofit Leadership Lab, often called the Netflix for small nonprofits, the monthly subscription they can’t live without, it is an online educational and community portal she leads for board and staff leaders of small nonprofits.

Joan has a super impressive bio, but she is also very funny, and open, and warm - and generous with her wealth of knowledge! 

Here are some of the topics we discussed:

  • How Joan's history at MTV and Showtime inspired her current work with nonprofits
  • What Executive Directors need to understand as we slowly enter this next normal
  • How to "stretch the innovation muscles"
  • Why the status quo is your biggest enemy and how to fight it
  • How nonprofits can reframe their work - and how they can "market the reframe"
  • How marketing is like writing AND presenting a killer book report 

A Joan Garry quotable: “Technology is no longer about just fixing your computers. It is central to your ability to build an army of people who love your organization and want to be a part of it."

Nonprofit Leadership Lab:
https://nonprofitleadershiplab.com/ 

Connect with Joan:
https://twitter.com/joangarry
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joangarry/
https://facebook.com/joangarryconsulting
https://instagram.com/joangarryconsulting

Joan's books on Amazon

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About Julia Campbell, the host of the Nonprofit Nation podcast:

Named as a top thought leader by Forbes and BizTech Magazine, Julia Campbell (she/hers) is an author, coach, and speaker on a mission to make the digital world a better place. 

She wrote her book, Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, as a roadmap for social change agents who want to build movements using engaging digital storytelling techniques. Her second book, How to Build and Mobilize a Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit, was published in 2020 as a call-to-arms for mission-driven organizations to use the power of social media to build movements. Julia’s online courses, webinars, and talks have helped hundreds of nonprofits make the shift to digital t

Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts

Julia Campbell:

Hello, Julia Campbell here with a very time sensitive preroll. I have opened the doors to my brand new course for nonprofits the digital fundraising formula. It's a step by step blueprint to launching wildly successful online fundraising campaigns and a formula that you can use over and over again. And the doors are only open until September 20. class starts September 20. So go to digital fundraising formula.com Digital fundraising formula.com. And take a look, sign up register, and I really hope to see you on the inside. Alright, let's get to the episode. Hello, and welcome to nonprofit nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice. definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie, or an experienced professional, who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the nonprofit nation podcast. Thanks so much for being here. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. I have a very extra special guest today someone that I've been following for several years. I'm a huge fan. It's Joan Gary. She is the go to resource for hundreds of 1000s of nonprofit leaders worldwide. Through her blog, podcast and book, Joan Gary's guide to nonprofit leadership. She has become the Dear Abby of the nonprofit sector, advocating for the success of nonprofits large and small. She's also the founder of the nonprofit leadership lab, often called Netflix for small nonprofits, which I love, the monthly subscription they can't live without. It's an online educational and community portal. She leads for board and staff leaders of small nonprofits. Welcome, Joan.

Joan Garry:

Hey, Julie. I'm really glad to be here. Thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity to chat.

Julia Campbell:

Yes. All right. Well, let's start with sort of how you got involved with nonprofit work? I know that's a big question.

Joan Garry:

So it is not an all the past that I had imagined. And I had been in the corporate sector for about 15 years in the entertainment business. Actually, I was part of the team that launched MTV back in 1981, when in fact, there were music videos.

Julia Campbell:

Thank you for that. I watched it every day for like 10 hours a day.

Joan Garry:

Yeah. I'm sure your parents are thanking me. Yeah, anyway, sorry, I worked at MTV for about seven or eight years. And then I worked at Showtime for about seven or eight years. And when I was at Showtime, I was working on a startup starting up what it was then called their pay per view business. And the primary way we were making money was boxing, which I had less than zero interest in. And I found myself managing the joint venture between Showtime and Don King. And I just kept thinking, you know, there must be something better I could be doing with my skin. Very nice. And concurrently, my wife and I were having a family. And we had gone to court in the state of New Jersey, so that I could legally adopt my partner's biological kids. So she did all the birthing, I did all the catching. And we won that case. And I kind of had this like cheesy aha moment that one person can actually really make a difference. And we did make a huge difference in the lives of many gay and lesbian couples in the state of New Jersey. And so when a job opened up to run a gay rights organization, I was like, you know, somebody like me, I'd have a job like that. And I figured that I would, you know, if I got it, and I don't, I didn't think they'd hire me. I do it for four or five years. And then I, you know, pay my dues and go back to where I came from. And two things that I am now what you just described in that bio is kind of hilarious, because I arrived to the nonprofit sector with good communication skills, good relationship skills, but not an ounce of prior experience in a nonprofit staff role. And I had never asked anybody for money before in my life. And so that's how I wound up in the nonprofit sector. And I just, I fell in love with it. The thought that I got paid to do something that mattered that I could make the world a better place for my kids. It was almost addictive and transformative for me. So, stay I did. Fantastic. Tell

Julia Campbell:

me about the work that you do now.

Joan Garry:

So I, I became a bit of an accidental consultant because after I left gladd,

Julia Campbell:

Don't we all? Do we all? Yeah, I

Joan Garry:

think, I don't know, maybe, maybe some people do. And we should get their contact info and figure out what Yeah, what was that recipe, my recipe was, I'm going to leave my job at glad to chaperone our three kids through junior high in high school, because that is a full time job. In fact, it was in many ways harder than actually advocating for the LGBT community. So I picked up consulting jobs along the way. And I realized I actually liked it. And then I met up with a guy named Scott Paley, who runs a digital marketing firm. And he said, You should write a blog. And so I did. And it filled this gap. But I mean, I think that that's a really important thing about, you know, entrepreneurial ism and social enterprise is, can you find a gap? Is there something is there a place where your gap that you are uniquely suited to fill is something I talk a lot about when I talk about nonprofit founders, people who found organizations that it has a similar trajectory, and the blog kind of took off and kind of the rest of it is, you know, just became more and more this notion that there were so many people out there, who really needed guidance and advice. And that because I had both for profit and nonprofit experience that I was, I had this sweet spot for them. And I also think so clearly, that boards and staffs are partners in the work that my blog is as valuable to a board chair as it is to a staff leader. And I think that that's another thing that makes it quite unique. So right, and we just keep coming up with different ideas and different ways that we can be increasingly more helpful to increasingly more people. And it's remarkably rewarding.

Julia Campbell:

Exactly, I think, I know, another huge reason why the blog took off. And then the book and the podcast and the membership site, is just that your perspective is so refreshing, you really have like a no BS viewpoint. And you're not afraid to tackle the hard questions that I think maybe a lot of consultants, they worry about maybe losing business, they worry about offending people, I certainly don't.

Joan Garry:

I say this with I do a lot of CEO coaching is the sort of the other piece of my business. And I open oftentimes by saying, you know, I don't really have a fear of being fired, that like if you don't, if this sort of the compassionate truth telling that I do does not work for you. Like, that's fine. When I work for these leaders, I work for their organizations, it's their organizations I care about, that's how I think about it, I think about what am I doing to feel the leadership of this organization that will make the organization itself more effective or have greater impact or whatever it is the, you know, their goals are so that in that cons, I feel like I'm protected in that way. It's like you either you either want the truth, or you don't. And so I and I, I also have, I think, a pretty unique ability to write the way that I talk. And so I think that that makes my blog a little bit more accessible, which is how the Dear Abby thing came up, is that like, people started emailing me from like Yukon, Oklahoma and saying, you know, I have a small choir generally board members out here, you know? And I was like, No, I don't even know where Yukon Oklahoma is. But then it was like, Oh, my God, how many choirs are there around the country that really need help trying to figure out how to build their boards. And that's how the leadership lab came to be.

Julia Campbell:

So one of your blog posts, your recent blog posts, you wrote, for nonprofits, there's no going back to normal 2020 obviously, was an incredibly disruptive year for the sector for entrepreneurs as well, but for fundraising for marketing, and a lot of organizations I work with, I think, unfortunately, they wanted to kind of maybe bury their head in the sand wait for the dust to settle, wait for things to go back to normal. So can you expound on this idea? There's no, there's no going back to normal I fully

Joan Garry:

Sure. Sure. Well, first of all, I don't think normal was all that it was cracked up to be. And

Julia Campbell:

I don't understand what's normal Mad Men years. Like what was normal?

Joan Garry:

No, I don't really know. Normal is I don't budget for a cash reserve normal as I put all my eggs in a gala basket, right. I mean, so normal is I especially for organizations of smaller sizes. Normal is is a board recruitment strategy that I call butts and seats? Yes.

Julia Campbell:

Right. You have a pulse?

Joan Garry:

Yeah. Right. Do you have a right? Like, what's your strategy? I need board members. Like, that's just that doesn't work. Right. So I think the first thing is, I think that normal was not all that was cracked up to be. Secondly, I think that 2020 on Earth to the flaws in normal. So if you were, as so many organizations are highly dependent on your annual gala, and more than 50, or 60% of your revenue came from a gala, there's a profound crack in the foundation that you were avoiding pre pandemic, in the before times. So that's a second thing, right. And the third thing is that nonprofits had to stretch innovation muscles, they had to do things differently, because what they were doing was actually not working. So if they couldn't do a gala, they had to do something different. If they couldn't, they ran a senior center, and they had to support seniors, they had to figure out something different to do. And so it's an interesting thing, Julia, and I suspect that you find this with clients also, is that innovation is what creates nonprofits, but that they actually can be quite risk averse, that they actually are afraid to take chances for fear of I don't know, pissing off the board or pissing off donors or whatever it might be. But there was no choice, right? You had exponentially greater need in many cases, and exponentially fewer resources. And you had a completely change the way you thought about your work. So why is it that we can't go back to normal, because normal was not what it was cracked up to be. And because we all took a serious bite of what innovation can actually do in terms of greater reach and greater impact. And if we act, if we decide to lose the lose that we miss the opportunity to have continued to have exponential impact

Julia Campbell:

in our work. Absolutely. And beyond just technological innovation, there were so many disruptions that really kind of threw us for a loop, especially I work with a lot of marketers, I work with a lot of fundraisers, they want to put their heads down and send their emails, do their social media posts, write their annual appeal letters. But you know, there was the disruption of the election, the capital insurrection, a polarizing political climate, increased calls for racial justice, all of you know, increased calls for racial justice, I completely support How do you coach or talk to your community about having these incredibly difficult conversations once they've never had before?

Joan Garry:

Why I think, you know, it's interesting disruptions. It's an interesting word, really, in the sense that part of what you just described, Julian, is that our society was, had this height was ignited, not necessarily in ways that we would have liked. But, you know, I think I often I'm a huge baseball fan. And I think about there are people in the stands, and there are people in the field. And I actually think that one of the things that happened in 2020, is people became more aware of their role as citizens. And I think that if you become more aware of your role as a citizen, you get antsy sitting in the stance. And I actually think that the disruption brings more opportunity and a lot of ways to organizations to be able to invite those people to come on to the field with them. Right, is that the people are much more My hands are kind of shaking, like ignited energized. Right. And I think you combine that with injustice front and center, you combine that with a public health pandemic, that literally is terrifying to people and you think to yourself Life is short. I need for there to be meaning and purpose in my life. And you are an ignited citizen and that is just a it's a completely different pond I think that nonprofits are swimming in so that's that's how I see the the sort of the impact of the disruptions I see them as in like engagement opportunities maybe that's like a really cheesy but I you know, that's what I see how many people do you know Julia? Who came out of 2020 I have said I need to I need to do something purposeful thing. I need to do something that has some meaning. How many people are going to retire because Cuz they like made it through the pandemic, and there they are wanting to be of service. Like, I just think that our citizenry is much more highly engaged,

Julia Campbell:

or fired up. And I know, we just talked about Rachael Rogers, who is an author, and an entrepreneur that I greatly admire. And on her podcast this week, she said, we did not come out of the pandemic, just to be cute. We came out to be fearless, fabulous, we came out fired up, we did not come out just to be safe, just to be cute. So I guess in that vein, what innovations Are there examples of innovations that you've seen in the last year into this year

Joan Garry:

in the nonprofit space that that you can cite as examples? Many of the ones that I guess I would point to Julia are around the use of technology. Yes. And I'm not just talking about zoom. But even zoom has presented opportunities. But I'm talking about one of my favorite clients runs a senior Resource Center in Princeton, and clearly can imagine, you know, sort of how he was thinking about his work in March of last year, right? He has a senior center, nobody could come to it is a senior center to fight isolation and people run by. So how does he think about his work? So he has something called the Evergreen forum, which is a program that you can go to the senior center and take classes like women directors of the 20th century, or like the like, wow, big, substantive, academic classes. And he uses retired professors and stuff like that. Well, he got an army of students, technology army of students to teach these folks how to deliver the content online. And then the job, I would never want a million years, another group of young people who worked with the members of the senior center to teach them how to get on zoom.

Julia Campbell:

I did that this year, I taught my dad How to Get on. Yeah,

Joan Garry:

yeah, yeah, I wanted to make a just a, just a YouTube video of teaching my mother how to use her Kindle many years ago. But he transformed how people could deliver those services and, and, and, in fact, made the seat work of the senior center accessible to people who couldn't get out of their houses not just on lockdown, but even people for whom disability precluded their being there. And he was able to reach people outside of Princeton. And the takeaway is that technology is is not just a customer service function at the Princeton Resource Center anymore. It's actually a senior compliance member, the senior leadership team, who is thinking in an integrated fashion about the programs of the Princeton senior Resource Center, and how to deliver those programs differently. And he's bill a is running a capital campaign to expand the facility itself. So that's one of the biggest innovations, I think, that I have seen in 2020 is that technology, technology is no longer fixing your computers, and

Julia Campbell:

having the Microsoft update,

Joan Garry:

it is central to your ability, which I think is actually a key thing for nonprofits to be thinking about. It is central to your ability to build an army of people who love your organization and want to be a part of it.

Julia Campbell:

Well, that segues into the next topic that I want to discuss because that is something I focus on. With my students with my clients. I talked to them and I tried to instruct them and shift the mindset from technology as a transaction into helping them build an engaged community. You call it an army of engaged. So how can we how can we help nonprofit leaders not only see the digital revolution as a way to maybe turn on this money spigot or Facebook fundraising or an ATM, I almost an ATM machine. And my husband always that's very Massachusetts, for an AGM. But how can we build our army of the engaged?

Joan Garry:

So I think that there's a couple of things. One is that nonprofit leaders have to market reframe, and market the reframe of technology. Oh, I love that. Right. Is that market, the reframe because the funders, the board members, the funders see it as overhead? Yes, right. Why? To me, this is the big aha. Right, is that the funders think of it that way. And the board thinks of it that way. And so they're going to cut it, oh, well, we don't need as much of that. But if we understand technology to be An engine that drives engagement. And if we understand that people equals power for a nonprofit organization, then technology and the digital revolution, as you describe it become Central. The challenges and the challenge are the several. One is that boards don't see it that way. And so I might present a budget for this coming year where I say, you know, I want to, I want my technology person to be an upgraded position. And I wanted to be on our leadership team, why I want my board members to be ambassadors using social media, to not necessarily to ask for money, but that would be fine, but just simply to get the good word out, right? I want them to use their Instagram, like I want technology to be seen as the mechanism by which people are invited to my party guess. And the best way to do that the best way to move your board on this is to actually market the success as you had in 2020. This is why I've done a lot. I've done a number of panels with Stanford Social Innovation review, and Salesforce on this topic, because I want nonprofit leaders to recognize that marketing this kind of innovation to their board is key, because for the most part, board members see themselves as in the business of what they call oversight, and what they translate, as I'm here to make sure nothing goes wrong. And we don't spend too much money. And our funders also see marketing and digital investment as overhead. And it is really time for them to wake up and smell the coffee because essentially just not what it is.

Julia Campbell:

Hey there, I'm interrupting this episode to share an absolutely free training that I created that's getting nonprofits of all sizes, big results. sure you've been spending hours on social media, but what can you actually show for it? With all this posting and instagramming and tick talking? Does it really translate into action? In my free training, I'll show you exactly how to take people from passive fans to passionate supporters. And I'll give you specific steps to create social media content that actually converts head on over to nonprofits, that convert.com. Again, that's nonprofits that convert calm, and start building a thriving social media community, for your nonprofit right now, without a big team, lots of tech overwhelm or getting stuck on the question, What do I do next? Let me show you how it's done. I can't wait to see what you create. It's interesting how nonprofits seem to ignore the world around them and ignore consumer behavior. I talked to a lot of obviously marketing directors, sometimes development marketing directors, and I say, you know, you go to the board meeting, every board member has a phone, I'm sure they have a phone right next to them. I'm sure that they have conducted payments online, I'm sure that they're involved with texting, I'm sure they check their email first thing every morning, and probably probably quite

Joan Garry:

a number of times during the meeting. That's right. That's

Julia Campbell:

that's also true. And my mission is just to convey that digital, like you just said is not an option. I mean, digital is part of our lives. Certainly the platforms you choose are up to you. You don't have to be on clubhouse, and Twitch and Instagram and Facebook and email. And you don't have to do all of the platforms

Joan Garry:

I had, I have to know what twitch was to be to even know whether I should be on it. But I do know all the others, you made the

Julia Campbell:

largest live streaming platform in the world. They didn't

Joan Garry:

you know what, I have to talk to Scott Paley, my digital marketing partner to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, Julia Campbell told me about something I don't know. No, don't

Julia Campbell:

do it because the shiny object syndrome, right, right. But twitch actually, Twitch is an interesting example. Because it completely exploded in 2020. It has a reputation for being just for gamers. So a lot of people that are on the platform, they play video games, and their audience watches them play video games, right, which I have zero interest in, you probably maybe have zero interest in

Joan Garry:

I think I have less than zero,

Julia Campbell:

right? But we are not the audience for twitch right now. But there's millions and millions of people that watch it. And these people have hugely engaged audiences. And if they do a fundraiser, they raise millions, you know, 1000s millions of dollars, because they have that audience. So I think that what you're saying You know, the army of engaged people equal power. It's leveraging these platforms and not necessarily trying to create something from scratch. Like, I would never go on Twitch and try to just like create a platform. If I was a nonprofit, I tried to market myself or connect with someone who already has the audience on there. That make sense. Yeah. So I think that is one of the innovations, one of the ways that we kind of have to get out of our own, get out of our own way. Yeah. But I'd love for you to talk more about your advice to executive directors that want to build this budget for the future, you know, combat this overhead marketing, communications technology, myth. So how can we best market this technology to our boards and to our funders?

Joan Garry:

Well, I'm going to answer your question differently, Julia, by talking about another thing that I think that nonprofits need to do a much better job of, which is, what's your destination? What's the destination? You know, if I'm a donor, and you're cultivating me to invest in where we get what your work is, I want to get kind of goose bumpy about where you're headed. I often tell the story about it's only slightly analogous, but what the hell you get a station wagon? They don't even have those anymore, right? You're in a caravan. Ron de, and you've got three kids in the backseat, and you're driving six hours to Disneyworld. Oh,

Julia Campbell:

right. I just literally did that. By the way, not just Busch Gardens in Florida.

Joan Garry:

My condolences to you. Yeah, the kids are fighting in the backseat. Right? And they're focused on you know, my my iPads not working. Tommy's giving me this, I feel like I just did this. I'm sick. I'm going to throw up on my backpack. Right. But rather than focus on the tactics that are happening in the back seat, if the parent can and maybe you did this, Julia, yes. When you get to Busch Gardens, what's the first ride? You're gonna? Yes, no, we absolutely did that. Right? What's the first ride you're gonna go on? And all of a sudden, you're not in the back seat anymore. And if I actually am, and I'm inspired, I'm working with this. I'm working with an organization that's about to start up that's looking at the intersection of the disability and death communities and criminal justice. Well, you can actually reduce the number of people who are incarcerated, if you actually address that there are people in jail in prisons, who are in comas, there are people who are in solitary confinement, because they're deaf, and they didn't understand that they didn't understand the instructions. If I could grab it really quickly. Yes. Hold on a second, because

Julia Campbell:

this sounds completely revolutionary. And I want to, I think there has been a very valid focus on increased calls for racial justice. But what I've been seeing lately are now increased calls for disability activism around seeing his ability. Yes, right.

Joan Garry:

And this is exactly what I'm talking about is it's all and residing. All right, is rolling sectional. So a full two thirds of black men with disabilities will experience arrest by the age of 28. Oh, my God, right now. So you take some of those facts. And then you start to draw a picture of what could be possible. And you get me at hello, I do care about your strategy is, of course I do. But I am so ignited by your destination of reducing incarceration by just focusing on the intersectionality of disability and deaf people and the criminal justice system that I am just in, I'll give you all I'll give you $10,000, you do with it as you please. And that's what I think that's the key that unlocks things. That's the key that moves you from restricted funding to, I want you to go to that destination. destination, I trust that you're going to get me there. I'd like to hear about that. And, and sort of know about that. But like there, I want to go there and I and that's how you get multi year gifts, right? And multi year unrestricted gifts for that I could invest in technology, and all those things. Exactly.

Julia Campbell:

So it's Simon Sinek. Start with why a lot of my teaching is always the curse of knowledge that organizations have. And they go too into the weeds, especially on social media and digital platforms, and they start going, here are the 25 programs we provide before they've even said hello to you before they've even gotten you on board with the mission and get on board with the destination. I love that. So if you have that destination, if you can bring people along with the destination, then you can start educating them.

Joan Garry:

Yeah, and when I'm In this when we talk about destination, I are not talking about some parallel, you know, some kind of, you know, aspirational, like, you know, you're at a cocktail party and somebody says, What's the vision for your organization? We are a expect to you know, our goal is to end human trafficking. Right, right. Where in the world, and you know, the, and you're, you're at that cocktail party, and you're like, Well, good luck with that. Good luck, okay. I'm not, that's not the kind of destination I'm talking about. Okay. Right. I'm talking about something that's aspirational, but actually achievable over a period of time and very specific, that that is specific, and that I can picture and that I want to invest, invest in, for lack of a better word.

Julia Campbell:

I think a great example, is Feeding America, they do their No Kid Hungry campaign every summer. So their campaign is let's save summer for kids. And they talk about in specifically each state. How many children go hungry, because they don't have free and low cost meals from school? Yep. And it's a very specific campaign that they run in every state like I've known that the campaign in Massachusetts. Yeah, I think that's exactly. It's not let's end childhood hunger, which is obviously their grander vision. Yeah, right. You say something like that, to me, I say, I want to be on board with that. But I don't really know where to begin. I don't understand like, where do I start? But if I donate $25 $250, I can help save summer for these particular kids or I can help alleviate this particular specific aspect of the problem.

Joan Garry:

Well, and I think so much of what you do, Julia is about helping nonprofits to understand that marketing matters. Right? That No, I mean, I think it's so important. I think there are, you know, folks who are older boomers who are about to retire out of nonprofit jobs for whom marketing seems like, like almost like a dirty word, right? It's like, Look, I do really fine work, I shouldn't have to sell it. I often talk about it as like, a take two organizations. And one organization has written this like kick ass book report. Yes. But does not believe that I should spend a moment on a cool cover. Right. And then I have another organization. And maybe it's like a, you know, that reports good start great. Maybe it's a B instead of an A plus. But it has a fantastic cover. And I'm not suggesting that people do B level work. Don't make them a mistake. I know that's four or five numbers, right? But the the power of the cover about how you talk about your work about the stories you tell about using real people's names, right about those things actually matter because they are the keys to an invitation, write an invitation to know more and do more for our you know, our cause.

Julia Campbell:

I love what you said, inviting an invitation to the party. And you can come and if you don't come, that's cool. Maybe you come to the next one.

Joan Garry:

This is what I talk about this a lot when it comes to fundraising, right? My job is my job is to send out the invite, tell them it's going to be a great party. Right? Once I've done that my job is done.

Julia Campbell:

And then to create a great experience for your guests that want to come

Joan Garry:

right. And when they come it should be a great party, right? I should I write and I it is a lovely thing, to invite someone to make a donation to an organization because or to volunteer because it brings them closer and the closer they come, the closer they want to be, it's a gift to invite them, they can decide either that they're busy that night, or that that's not the party they want to go to they actually really are into this party over here. But if people started to think about this, in my my baseball stadium metaphor, as I'm doing this incredible work down here on the field, it's meaningful, it has purpose, it's going to change the world in some small ways or large ways. I'd like to invite you to come down and play third base, whether they choose to come down or not, is their choice. But it's my choice to actually make the invitation. And I bet back to our earlier conversation. I believe that more and more people up in those stands are just waiting for the invitation. Yes. And I think that technology is a way to expand just like an invite to expand your invitations to those folks.

Julia Campbell:

I think that's a perfect note to end on. I completely agree. Let us know. Where do you want people to connect with you? Where do you want them to find more Find out more about you and the leadership lab.

Joan Garry:

Yeah. So john Gary calm with two R's is actually sort of the best place to start. Learn more about the nonprofit leadership lab either through that, or at nonprofit leadership. lab.com. But you can, if you go to john kerry calm, you'll find your way to my book and my blog and my podcast and the leadership lab. So it's a pretty much a one stop shop. I mean, I think you share one of the things I was really happy to be invited on to this podcast, Julia, because I think we're kindred spirits in the value, the real deep, profound value that nonprofits play in building a truly civil society. And I do feel like 2020 put a spotlight on that. And I'd like to see, thanks to voices like yours and others, you know, for, to scan this time for us to stop talking about those nice people who work in nonprofits. They're not just nice, they are doing the most important work there is they are where we should all be looking to for. If you want to know what a leader looks like, you don't have to necessarily look at elected officials. And in fact, they disappoint us often, but they the leaders of nonprofits never do. They provide us with hope. They model what it means to actually get out of the stance and onto the field. And so I like to think that 2020 if we actually don't go back to normal, and we really sort of embrace innovation, that it can really be, you know, the year of the.org, if you will, yes, I love that get

Julia Campbell:

out of the stands. And onto the field. We are on the field. We are we're encouraging those in the stand. Come on down, come on down. And I love baseball as well. So just a little plug Go Red Sox.

Joan Garry:

That's not my team, but it's okay.

Julia Campbell:

Yes. All right. Well, maybe we'll see a game together. That would be amazing. I would love that.

Joan Garry:

That would be pretty awesome. And my daughter lives up in JPS. So

Julia Campbell:

yes, if you're ever up here, yes, please let me know I will be a game at Fenway.

Joan Garry:

I have never been to Fenway. So I would actually, I would actually think that would be quite fun. And Isn't it fun to think that that travel is something that is on the horizon? It's on the horizon? Tanya menu. Well,

Julia Campbell:

thank you so much, Joan. It's always a pleasure. And we will link to all of that in the show notes, the leadership lab, they open their doors very infrequently. So make sure you get on John's email list. If you're interested in a spot in the labs, you'll get notification when they next open their doors. So thanks again. It has been a pleasure,

Joan Garry:

always a pleasure to talk with another kindred spirit who's trying to show leadership in the nonprofit movement. So I welcome to the opportunity and enjoyed the conversation.

Julia Campbell:

Well, hey there, I wanted to say thank you for tuning in to my show, and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app, and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it.

Unknown:

I'll be back

Julia Campbell:

soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell seven, seven. keep changing the world. Nonprofit unicorn