Where Do Nonprofits Go From Here? with Beth Kanter
Jul 25, 2021Season 1Episode 1
Julia Campbell
In the premier episode of my new podcast Nonprofit Nation, I sat down with my friend and mentor Beth Kanter - the person who convinced me (unknowingly!) that I could have a career working with nonprofits on their digital strategy.
Beth Kanter is an internationally recognized thought leader in digital transformation and wellbeing in the nonprofit workplace. Named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company, she has over three decades of experience in designing and delivering training and capacity-building programs for nonprofits and foundations. As a sought-after keynote speaker and workshop leader, she has presented at nonprofit conferences on every inhabited continent of the world to thousands of nonprofits.
Not only is Beth super fun to have a drink with, she is such a wealth of information and incredibly forward-thinking.
Here are some of the topics we discussed:
Why we are both very adept typists
The future of nonprofit events in a hybrid world
Her best tips for effective virtual meetings
Strategies for managing a hybrid team
Why inclusion is a vital piece of equity
Techniques to increase workplace well-being
The impact of artificial intelligence on the social sector
A Beth Kanter quotable: "Passion isn't a sustainable resource - we have to renew it."
Do me a favor? Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts (or your podcast player of choice) - it helps this podcast get seen by more people that would enjoy it!
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 thinking and raise more money online.
Clients include GoFundMe Charity, Meals on Wheels America, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
In the premier episode of my new podcast Nonprofit Nation, I sat down with my friend and mentor Beth Kanter - the person who convinced me (unknowingly!) that I could have a career working with nonprofits on their digital strategy.
Beth Kanter is an internationally recognized thought leader in digital transformation and wellbeing in the nonprofit workplace. Named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company, she has over three decades of experience in designing and delivering training and capacity-building programs for nonprofits and foundations. As a sought-after keynote speaker and workshop leader, she has presented at nonprofit conferences on every inhabited continent of the world to thousands of nonprofits.
Not only is Beth super fun to have a drink with, she is such a wealth of information and incredibly forward-thinking.
Here are some of the topics we discussed:
Why we are both very adept typists
The future of nonprofit events in a hybrid world
Her best tips for effective virtual meetings
Strategies for managing a hybrid team
Why inclusion is a vital piece of equity
Techniques to increase workplace well-being
The impact of artificial intelligence on the social sector
A Beth Kanter quotable: "Passion isn't a sustainable resource - we have to renew it."
Do me a favor? Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts (or your podcast player of choice) - it helps this podcast get seen by more people that would enjoy it!
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 thinking and raise more money online.
Clients include GoFundMe Charity, Meals on Wheels America, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
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. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I am really extremely excited for our guest today. Her name is Beth Kanter. Some of you might know her be familiar with her work. She is an internationally recognized thought leader in digital transformation. And well being in the nonprofit workplace. She was named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company and has over three decades of experience in designing and delivering training and capacity building programs for nonprofits and foundations. Beth is a sought after keynote speaker and workshop leader, and she's presented at nonprofit conferences on every inhabited continent of the world to 1000s of nonprofits. I love that so Antartica,
Beth Kanter:
not yet but that's Yeah, it's not inhabited.
Julia Campbell:
That is amazing. And Beth and I were just trying to figure out where we met. And we figured out that it was at the nonprofit Technology Conference when it was held in Washington, DC, which we believe is in 2017. And I had known Beth because john Hayden, who is a dear friend of both of us had introduced me to her work. And that's, you know, this, I told you this 1000 times, you are the reason that I discovered that I could do what I do that I could do consulting and speaking and workshops around technology and digital marketing and Social Media for Nonprofits when I read your book, the network nonprofit, so you know that so thank you so much. And that's also wrote the intro to my second book, wrote the foreword to my second book. So I really appreciate you being here. I know that we'll talk about maybe a little bit teaser at the end for your next book. And I know you need to be writing. So we will get we will We'll get going. So what I like to do on the podcast, I like to begin with kind of a brief story, you know, how did you get involved with nonprofit work, and it might not be a brief story. And that's completely fine.
Beth Kanter:
Oh, gosh, well, right out of school, and I was trained as a classical musician. So I was trying to get a degree in classical flute and I had aspirations to sit first chair in the Boston Symphony. And if you know anything about the music world, classical music world, if you apply for an opera singer job, no matter how good you are, 500 people are applying and they're just really hard to get. So at one point, my flute teacher had said to me, and he was the second flutist in the New York Philharmonic, he noticed that I was tracking on everything and how I was, you know, practicing. He said, You know what, you'd be really good on the management side. Why don't you check that out? So I got all these introductions to interview the general at the time, this was like 40 years ago, this 1982 interview, like the general managers of the major symphonies, including Boston, and I went in like, Oh, I want to be general manager, you know, the symphony, what do I need to know how to do and, and like that they're all being men. You got to learn how to type honey.
Julia Campbell:
Pie.
Beth Kanter:
That was something you had to know how to type to get a job really, and especially if you're Yeah, it's kind of sexist thing to say, but whatever, very sexist thing. So I learned how to type but I took my metronome and my music training, and I slowly went and practice all the typing until I could do it really fast and accurately so I could type like 120 words a minute, really fast.
Julia Campbell:
What I love that you're saying that I just want to interrupt you for a minute, the reason why I think I'm such a fast typer is I took piano. And so you have that I hand her choreography, and that's really interesting. person I've heard say that,
Beth Kanter:
but also to the discipline of practice, you start slowly, and then you gradually speed up. So anyway, I got a job at the Boston Symphony in the development office. And at that point, it was really small. So I learned I did all the prospect research, I learned annual campaigns, I learned a lot. But I wanted to get into the production and management side. So at that point, I went in and asked that General Manager, Tom Morris, it was at the time and he said, well go manage the one of the smaller groups around town. So I became General Manager, the priority Chamber Orchestra. And that's kind of how I started, I was there, I did some really big fundraising things grew them. And then I kind of got into consulting with arts, nonprofits. And then around 19, obviously, 1987 88, I discovered the internet. And I was just enthralled by all the technology. And eventually, I got a job with the New York foundation for the arts for their arts wire program, which was their online network, which was way ahead of its time. I mean, this is like 990 90, and then the web happen. And I started teaching nonprofits how to get on email, how to do the web. So then that like, that chunk of my career was always kind of working in the nonprofit sector, and learning the technology and then teaching it back and working with nonprofits. So it's mission driven.
Julia Campbell:
So tell me about the work that you do now.
Beth Kanter:
Yeah, so I'm still in a sense doing that with technology, you know, and I, my heart is around nonprofit tech, I'm on the board of antenne. And I do a lot of work around digital transformation. And, you know, my social media history. But I'm also I, along this time, I also had a twin track of wanting to be a really great facilitator and a trainer, and both in person and online, even before the pandemic. So I sort of combine those, those the subject matters, and met subject matter, our digital transformation and workplace well being and those relate to my books. And then I do a lot of facilitation of retreats, learning, peer group learning and workshops. And speaking of course,
Julia Campbell:
yes. Well, let's jump into actually facilitation and events. And what I want to talk about, I mean, what what do you see as being fundamentally changed, like fundamental shifts that are happening? Not even just in the sector, but just in terms of events in terms of facilitation and workshops? What do you see having, like, what can we take with us that we have learned in 2020? Hopefully, what can we take with us into the future?
Beth Kanter:
Such a great question. So hyper hybrid, workplace models, you know, sort of, we know that not all of us right away, are going to be back going back into the office, either, because of whatever the public health guidelines are, we don't know what's going to happen with the virus and people's comfort levels. And, you know, when we were suddenly remote, you know, we learned that we could still be productive working remotely to a certain extent, we also discovered that we probably just tried to shove everything into a zoom meeting. And it's exhausting, because the zoom fatigue, and having the cognitive load that it puts on you to work that way. And we didn't really adapt and refine the way we're working to, to be really highly effective and energetic and have a great sense of well being while we're working remotely. So now we're kind of starting to do that. And now we have this other shift coming the hybrid workplace, right. So that's where a handful of people work in the office or and the others are working remotely. Hybrid work is not new, it was here before the pandemic, but before it was, you know, people who are coming in remotely were was a smaller number, those arrangements were negotiated between manager and employee. And and often that was a bad experience for for people who are remote because you probably have this for your remote everyone else's in the room, they have the privilege of being face to face. And sometimes you just forget the remote people. They're just hanging out there. So what's what's going to happen, I think, now is that we think about the main office, the power structure of the main office, right? It just becomes another node on the network or the remote distributed workforce. And I think we really have to put a lot of thought into inclusion, that everybody has the same experience ability to participate. I mean, there's equity issues in terms of equipment and internet access. But there's also something and I'm going to talk a lot about this called the proximity bias. And the proximity bias is, it's also been called the go getter bias. So okay, so who's in the office with the boss that the boss sees you? There's a bias there to think, oh, that person is working really hard and the person who's remote and what are they
Julia Campbell:
scooping off or the person that's staying till 7pm As opposed to the person that's super productive, leaving it three,
Beth Kanter:
Yes, exactly. And then, so you got to think about who gets to be in the office, when if we're going to go to flexibility schedules, you know, a couple days in the office a couple days out. And also, if we're going to give people what their preferences are. And if we think about this, women, one foot more flexible workspaces, um, you and I both know the reason why, why is your door locked,
Julia Campbell:
my door is literally locked right now. Exactly.
Beth Kanter:
Because it's in its way, you know, it's so much easier to be a mom, and work when you have flex workplace that isn't having to go into the office. And also, there are studies showing that people of color have a preference for working remotely, because they're not dealing with a slight onslaught of microaggressions. So you think about all of that. And then you think about the proximity bias, you know, you can end up having two classes of employees and advancing certain certain ones over others. So people have to start thinking about, you know, it's really about the deliverables. It's not about the screen time, you have to thoughtfully Think about your flexibility schedules, you know, when you're going to be in the office, who else is going to be in the office? It starts thinking about rethinking physical space. Well, everybody had their own desk, who gets a side office? Or is it going to be we're going to transform the office really just for in face in person interaction? And then I think we really have to get better at figuring out, like, how we do our work together, or our culture, you know, the way things get done? And how do we divide between real time work, which is synchronous and asynchronous synchronous work? I always mispronounce that word. And then my husband shouts in the background, the corrective,
Julia Campbell:
synchronous and asynchronous and
Beth Kanter:
I got it right. So it means that like, we're all used to having the meeting in real time face to face be the central central place of how we got work done. And that's going to shift, we're going to go back to the way it was.
Julia Campbell:
No, I nor should we, I don't think No,
Beth Kanter:
not at all. Not at all. Because why should we give up what we learn in terms of flexibility, because flexibility is a key contributor to people feeling well, having well being at work, that flexibility is really important. So people can maintain that work life balance.
Julia Campbell:
So I think you know, how nonprofits are like steering a cruise ship, to get them to change to get them to adapt from the status quo. And that's just sometimes because of budgets, sometimes because of capacity, sometimes because of board members, sometimes because of skepticism. But what are some tips that you have for managers? For people that really want to avoid this proximity bias? They want to be inclusive, they want to have a vibrant hybrid team, what are some tips and strategies you can give them?
Beth Kanter:
That's a really great question. Now we're talking about changing culture or weight the way things we do around here, and that's kind of like, you know, you don't see it, right. It's not like, you check it off the list. It's not like how to write a grant proposal, or how to send out a tweet. It's about purpose, values, behaviors, recognition, rituals, and cues. And where the stress happens is, when there's a disconnect between values, we say, we're going to do this, but our behaviors are different. So I think it's time to really start with kind of intentional conversations around culture, and things like, for example, like what are our values, articulate those and then relate them to the different kinds of behaviors around getting work done. That's communication, collaboration, feedback, making decisions, being inclusive, handling conflict, handling, how you prioritize work, and also how you measure performance, and then coming up with plans around that, based out of that conversation. So you're, in a sense, creating new norms for a hybrid workplace. And it's great, because it's like a reset, this is a great time to kind of really be intentional about that. Now, when you create new behaviors as part of culture, it's kind of like creating new habits, right, you know, you know, New Year's, you know, we say, I'm going to lose 10 pounds, and I'm gonna start running 10 miles a day, that, you know, it doesn't always happen. So I think it has to happen. And when these baby steps, so for example, let's say that there's some norms, there's a value that you talk about, that we're going to listen to everybody and give everyone voice and be inclusive, right. So maybe that comes a norm that goes on your meeting agendas. And you say those out loud before you have your meeting. And then the thing that you say, how well do we do and it's this learning and this kind of feedback loop while you're practicing it until it becomes part of the way you do things around here.
Julia Campbell:
Absolutely. walking the walk and not just articulating your values and putting them on your website, but really integrating them into every meeting into every interaction. Yes. Oh, I love that. Okay, so there are 10,000 different topics that I want to pick Your brain on because we have you here whatever's left of us. Oh, no, but I, we were talking earlier. And I do think that nonprofits, event planners, fundraisers people want to know, they asked me all the time. And I asked you before and I would love your opinion again, what do you feel is the future? for events for conferences for fundraisers? What do you think, hybrid virtual in person?
Beth Kanter:
I've been grappling with this because one of my main jobs is to facilitate a convening per foundation. And we had to go virtual this year. And we're now planning for 2023. And we're asking this question, and I'm also looking into, you know, what's out there? So I think it's a couple of things. I don't think there's a set answer to that. Because there's so many things we don't know like about what the public health requirements are going to be right? I do hear these murmurings around, we want to get, you know, we're gonna get back face to face, we're gonna get back to the, you know, we'll see you and I have to, I want to see you, Julia, I want to see you at the conferences we used to go to and be able to give you a hug and like, have a glass of wine with you, or whatever, you
Julia Campbell:
know, our gin and tonic like we did in San Diego,
Beth Kanter:
and tonic, and I had a white wine maybe. But I think what's going to happen is that there may be smaller in person events, but there's gonna be hybrid components to them. And so we might have punter and content as easy as we know how to do that live stream, right? And then have a chat going on and be able to have someone in the room who can integrate the people from afar to the speakers in the room, you know, monitoring the chat and verbalize the question to the speaker. What's really exciting me and what I'm looking at are what are all the ways that you can do hybrid in smaller groups that are interactive things that aren't like just a webinar? Like how can you integrate both like in the room sticky notes with virtual sticky notes, lower bound creative processes, like remember the session we did with the
Julia Campbell:
like the posters, the sticky notes where we had the four corners? Yeah, groups? How do you do that? virtually?
Beth Kanter:
Yeah, it's hard. But there's, there are some tools that you can do it. It's easier if it's all virtual, honestly, because I've done a lot of that over the last 18 months, virtual sticky notes and kind of design thinking kinds of processes, but it's how do you do that when there's some people in the room and some people also remotely and I think it comes down to really good bridge moderation and bridge facilitation. So that facilitator, that responsibility is to make sure that the people in the room are connecting with the people who are remote that so it's inclusive.
Julia Campbell:
So it's really being thoughtful and strategic. It's almost like how people should be planning conferences, even if they're in person, making sure it's a great experience for all of the attendees.
Beth Kanter:
Yeah, we know, I'm remembering now that conference, wherever we met in DC, I remember, I'm thinking like it was even earlier than 2017. But I remember at one point, and Tim, and it might have been even before Amy, they were doing some live, remote NTC. And they were all designed as live broadcasts. And they came to me we want to do your session, which was a training session, it was completely interactive. Like we were doing, having people line up in four corners, and all that. And all of a sudden there here's, you know, a laptop with a bunch of people. So we had to assign one person to that laptop, who managed who managed the chat, one of our speakers, and then also brought the laptop over to the small group. Yeah, and could facilitate the conversation, because otherwise it wouldn't work. Hey, there,
Julia Campbell:
I'm interrupting this episode to share an absolutely free training that I created that 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. Another topic that I want to talk about especially going into, I was saying pandemic adjacent post pandemic next normal, new normal, whatever we want to call it is self care, avoiding overwhelm and avoiding burnout. So you wrote the book the happy, healthy nonprofit strategy. For him back without burnout in 2016. But that seems more relevant now than ever. So can you talk about self care and how nonprofits can practice self care why it's an essential piece of doing effective work?
Beth Kanter:
Sure, that's a topic that's near and dear to my heart. So I wrote the book in 2015, published it in 2016, right after Trump was elected, and initially in the beginning needed it then, right, and people didn't want to talk about this, it was a taboo topic, we don't talk about burnout. That's a soft skill, no one want to talk about well being in the workplace and the nonprofit and within the nonprofit grounds. So I was running out, and at the time, and I was seeing people burn out. So I'm like, what's going on here. And certainly, like everything else, that pandemic has really accelerated, and accentuated and made kind of like our, the way we are in the sector, because we're so passionate about it, you know, we tend to overwork because of our passion, and that it's a passion isn't a sustainable resource, we have to renew it. And also, this kind of work from home has like gotten work life balance really out of kilter. It's like, do I can't remember do I work at home? Or do I live at work? You know, and and, you know, it's I was showing you slides, I would show you the slide of a bar graph that shows how many hours on average people work per week in different countries pre pandemic, compared to post pandemic, we can link
Julia Campbell:
to it if it's on your blog.
Beth Kanter:
Sure. And, but basically, we're working longer hours, because because we're working from home, in part because, you know, we couldn't go out, you know, so what else we're going to do work. And I think we, it's so easy for us to carry that into where we're going. And the other thing that's happening is the we are in the midst of a kind of public, a mental health crisis, depression, anxiety, all of those things are on the rise. But you know, because of the pandemic, because we've been closed off from a lot of our support systems. And then there's another like kind of condition, Adam Grant called it languishing,
Julia Campbell:
you might love Adam Grant, languishing, I read, I saw that talk, or I read that article that described exactly how I have been feeling. And me too, it's
Beth Kanter:
kind of blah, not motivated, you feel dull. And so the idea is, is that we need to like go from languishing to flourishing, which is really being alive. And like flourishing, I think of wash flowers, I think of gardens growing and you know, and so that requires us taking care of ourselves doing things like getting enough sleep, creating moments of joy in our life, getting enough exercise, working to, you know, putting boundaries around things, boundary management's really important. As we both know, yes, with your family, and both around digital. So really putting these practices in place, so we can switch this languaging languishing to flourishing.
Julia Campbell:
I love that. And I love following you on Instagram On Facebook, seeing your walks in San Francisco. So how did you practice self care? During COVID? What are some ways that you did
Beth Kanter:
three things, I'll come back to the moments of joy. I installed a hummingbird feeder on the window in our house. And maybe you've seen some of the photos of the hummingbirds and, and what I learned about them, they're very territorial. And we had this one bird. And Anna's Hummingbird with the Red Hood. I his name was Billy bird, and he would chase away all the other birds. So I read that if you put up more feeders, there's too much for them to try to like take over. So I put up another five feeders and so he couldn't control them all. And so now we have more and there's a little bit more harmony. So incorporate moments of joy. The second thing is change your view. And my husband I have this thing like go to the coast stay like well decide like at two o'clock in the afternoon. We're 45 minutes from the Pacific Ocean and it's gorgeous. We'll just take off and go to the coast. Go for a walk, go stay with the waves. It's healing. Sometimes I've just like I'm going to take my laptop and my phone and just go work like in Half Moon Bay. Because I have that flexibility. I love
Julia Campbell:
Half Moon Bay. Oh my
Beth Kanter:
Yeah, so and then the third thing is this walking I have my fake commute. So I walk every morning and there is research that just came out from the Microsoft Human Factors lab that if you're taking even a five minute break to walk around the block or something that that helps fight that zoom fatigue so I've just continued my walking 15,000 steps a day on the Fitbit no matter what
Julia Campbell:
no way oh my gosh for my hero I got a Fitbit for Christmas and I don't wear it because I started to feel bad about a few steps that I that I got. I tried to take a lot of walks though.
Beth Kanter:
Well, I guess there's like three to you know, there are three different personalities they get Fitbit some they get it and stop because of that others track for a while until they know like what 10,000 steps feels like and then others they get totally obsessed like If me, yeah, I have like roots in my neighborhood that I know that's 1000 steps, I can do that in five minutes, or I have 20 minutes, I'm going to go out and I can get another 5000 steps. And I'm just obsessed with it. Since 2013, so yes,
Julia Campbell:
and you've always talked about it, and you've been really public about it. You've also been, I love promoting walking meetings, even before COVID calling really strolling meetings now strolling meetings, yes. Because not everyone can walk so some people can roll so you can stroll. Exactly. So I would be remiss if I had one of the preeminent digital thought leaders in the nonprofit sector here. And I didn't ask, what do you see as some of the most important and noteworthy future Digital Trends for nonprofits?
Beth Kanter:
Oh, that's such a great question.
Julia Campbell:
You can segue into maybe a little teaser for your,
Beth Kanter:
for our Well, I think, just initially, some of what we've been talking about. I've seen the pandemic because it wasn't a choice. We've seen so much movement on digital transformation, the nonprofit sector and people realizing Yes, we can do this, and the resistance kind of melt away. And that's a good thing. But we also had like frictionless adoption. So which meant that some weren't necessarily adopting strategically, I'll give an example. Like, now we could put our services online. So we're not just focused on the local geographic community, we can serve other people, but they didn't really think about that in a strategy way. So I think coming, people are maybe going back and rethinking business models, or as we were talking before, about rethinking the way they do their work to incorporate this hybrid, new technologies that are coming in. They're already here, automation and artificial intelligence, Allison find and I are writing a book, and we call them smart technologies. So we're writing a book called The Smart nonprofit, staying human centered in an automated world. And we're looking at the impact that automation will have on nonprofits fundraising programming back office. And it's not a book that looks at all the bright side, because there's so many unintended consequences and unintended harms that can happen. And so looking at processes, like you know, how to do threat modeling, how to figure out what those unintended unintended consequences are, how do you, like have a thoughtful way of staying human centered with this while keeping your ethics at the highest moral standard, and then ways that you can really iterate an inch your way into using the tech versus like, kind of full on adoption? So that's what the book is going to cover with initial examples. And what we're seeing we're still in the early stages,
Julia Campbell:
right? Did you see any great examples of digital transformation or nonprofits sort of adopting digital incorporating it into their work during the pandemic? Or have you seen any innovations in the last year,
Beth Kanter:
I saw one that and we looked at it in the book, and I'll get the cool side, and then I'll give the this didn't happen. But the potential unintended consequence. So I think I might have been Boston actually aware, one of the food banks, because of that the height of the pandemic, a lot of the food banks have volunteers, a lot of those button volunteers tend to be older, so they weren't coming into the food bank to help pack boxes and do inventory. So they had robotics come in to do some of the volunteer tasks of packing boxes with food and kind of doing the inventory and also to sanitize, which I thought was really cool. I think now, like one would wonder, okay, so as things change, do you keep this and just go into default mode? Or do you actually kind of look around and talk to those volunteers about how do they feel about being replaced by robots? Right, well, that disenfranchise them. And we know people who volunteer then tend to be donors. So it's thinking about like, okay, now, as we integrate something like this, how do they co bot effectively alongside, you know, the humans, you know, how do you, you know, how do you like, figure out like, what gets automated, what goes to the machine, what goes to the human, it's not totally replacing the human job, but it's, you know, working together, and you have to prepare your people for that prepare your processes, but I thought that was there were a lot of innovations directly related to COVID. Like even the vaccine research was accelerated, in part because they use machine learning algorithms to kind of predictive analytics to take a look at, like what combination of proteins might work. So that was accelerated. There's also it didn't work great in the beginning, but algorithms around deploying the vaccine initially, we're seeing a more the use of automation in terms of now having vaccine registries, those sorts of things. I love that.
Julia Campbell:
I love that. I want to just ask you one more question just to kind of get your input on this. How do you counsel nonprofits that are afraid of change? How do you counsel them and consult and just give them tips on how to manage the constant constant tidal waves of change that we're going through? Especially with technology? Oh, gosh, oh, well,
Beth Kanter:
we have to address it, you know, change as hard. As we know, like, even when I'm doing training, I usually start with a exercise around to think about all you know, how does all this change make you feel? Right? put
Julia Campbell:
that out there, let
Beth Kanter:
it out? And then what do you need to do to you know, what do you need to do to make I must do x, right? And then when it's all said and done, you know, what's the outcome just so just sort of think about, like, the why you're doing it, the benefit, to understand how the change is impacting you and to be able to develop strategies to like, buffer yourself from that directly. But first, you have to recognize that it's there. Recognize it's there and not get caught in it.
Julia Campbell:
I love that. Thank you. Well, that thank you so much. I want to know, how can people reach you? How can they get in touch with you and learn more about you?
Beth Kanter:
www dot Beth kanter.org on the web. And then you can also always find me on Twitter at Cantor are also on LinkedIn.
Julia Campbell:
Awesome, fantastic. Thanks so much. Check out all of Beth's books. We will link to them in the show notes. We will link to them anywhere that we have this episode, you know published. So and I would love to have you and Allison on to talk about the book, artificial intelligence and automation. What's it called the smart nonprofit?
Beth Kanter:
Yeah, staying human centered in an automated world.
Julia Campbell:
I love that. Just a quick question. Did you ever hear about Stephen shaddix? book? robots? Terrible fundraisers? Yes, yes. Great book. Yes. So shout out to Steven Shattuck that made me think of that I thought that was I thought that was really I thought that was it. Yeah,
Beth Kanter:
the robots can take your donors out to lunch. Exactly.
Julia Campbell:
All right. Well, thanks so much. And we'll have you back on the podcast. I hope so. Take care. Great, thanks. 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. I'll be back 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