[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Leadership window podcast with Dr. Patrick Jenks. Each week through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: And a professional speaker.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: And now, here's Dr. Patrick Jenks.
All right, if you're listening to this on the day that we recorded and aired it, happy Valentine's Day to everybody, Heart day, whatever you want to call it. I'm even wearing red. I was on a zoom call this morning. I didn't realize it and everybody said Patrick's the only day that Patrick's the only one on the call that's acknowledging Valentine's Day with his red sweater. But yeah, happy Valentine's Day to everybody out there. Happy Friday, Happy February, happy all that.
We are going to get right to it on this episode, which is episode 132 of the Leadership Window. And this is, I guess we'll call this a special episode. Not just your normal content. There's a purpose for the time and place of this particular episode. So we're going to get right to it. A recent wave. I doubt that people listening to this show don't know this, but for those that maybe not be familiar with the sector and you're tuning in for the first time a recent wave of federal policy announcements, executive orders, agency communications, has the nonprofit sector, among others, but particularly the nonprofit sector in the United States and abroad, scurrying for some answers and some contingencies and some peace of mind and just kind of, what do we do about this?
And political ideologies aside, nonprofits are going to have to navigate these waters with artful leadership, with clarity in decision making, with some practical solutions and mitigations.
And we're here to just kind of think out loud about that. I want to say a big kudos to a number of state nonprofit associations, including ours here In South Carolina, TogetherSchool, who are out there leading with keeping people informed, presenting advocacy pathways and opportunities.
I also want to say kudos to a number of my consultant friends and partners and colleagues who are standing with the sector right now to help in any way that we can, not the least of which is today's episode guest, I think his third time on the show actually, and that's Forrest Alten from 1000 Feathers. And kudos to him for always being in front and leading with clarity of message. In fact, his open letter to the sector, particularly their clients and partners, is what led me to Insert this episode into our podcast rotation immediately.
I read it. I thought, this is. This is what we need right now. This is the voice. I would say that Forrest probably wouldn't consider himself to be an expert in federal policy and funding. This. This letter is not technical in nature. It is very supportive in nature. And I think it. It helps. When I read it, it was.
It spoke to mindset, which really resonated with me. So let me. Let me set this up just a little bit more as we introduce Forrest. About a third of all nonprofit revenue comes from the federal government. So you may not know that in your community, the little nonprofits that are raising money and holding, you know, bike a thons and direct mail campaigns and United Way campaigns and all those things, that is what we call public fundraising. Public, meaning your community is contributing. Maybe even foundations are supporting you. But about a third of all nonprofit revenue in the states comes from federal grants.
Grants and contracts that provide major support for some of the big initiatives. Specific ones, often restricted ones. And from what we understand, Forest can step in in a minute and add anything to this list or modify it. But from what we understand, there are four specific types of. Of federal grants to nonprofits that are kind of under review if we were to put these into categories.
One is DEI trainings and programs. A lot of nonprofits have. There's a plethora of types of things that go into that, but DEI trainings and programs that nonprofits are running funded by federal grants.
Second, um, more specifically, LGBTQ plus specific programs, programs supporting the community, training, you know, cohorts, affinity groups, whatever you want to call it. That's a second category of program that's being. That's. That's under tight scrutiny right now by the current administration.
Third is immigration programs. You know, we. We all know that the current administration is hell bent on dealing with illegal immigration, and there are lots of voices and perspectives on this whole issue.
But there are nonprofits who are running programs right now, for example, maybe refugee support, for example.
So programs related to immigration are, are on the review list. And then finally, and this may surprise some of you, but environmental protection nonprofits who are specifically doing environmental work.
I'm probably less able to articulate exactly what all these might be, but there are a number of them that, again, are under review.
Now, part of this is a language thing, and part of it is more substantial in terms of what these programs are doing, doing and how the administration perceives them. In fact, the nonprofit council, the National Council of Nonprofits, is actually advising pretty clearly that Nonprofits start looking at their language on their websites and their grant applications, their contracts, their renewals, their. All of that, just from a language standpoint. I'm going to come back to that a little bit later, but first I want to introduce Forrest and just Forrest, I guess I just want to open this up to you and get your stream of consciousness on this. We'll have a conversation as we always do, I'm sure, but not only on your recent public communique, which was just, again, a great moment at the right time, but any insights you have into how the sector can weather this storm.
You know, Americans can and do and will disagree on where federal funding should and shouldn't be cut. But at the end of the day, we're dealing with a reality. And the reality is that for some nonprofit funding, a lot of it from the federal government is on vulnerable ground right now. And organizations whose budgets rely on these funds heavily are having to pause, having to pivot, having to prepare, they're having to act. And I want to be practical today in this conversation. You know, everyone who watches this show knows this isn't a political show by any stretch. And I want to support with moral support and all that, but I want to be as practical as we can, too, which is what I loved about your letter. So, Forrest, please take the mic from me and you start with your letter. Walk us through it if you want, or start wherever you want, but tell us what 1000 Feathers is doing and thinking right now around this issue. And thanks for being here.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Well, thanks for having me, Patrick. And yes, happy Valentine's Day to everyone listening in real time. I did not wear my red today. I'm a little embarrassed I didn't put that together, actually. But glad to be back with you. Glad to have a chance to talk about this issue or set of issues in particular.
I appreciate the kind words in the intro. You know, earlier this week, we did publish an open letter to our clients, partners and colleagues.
I think I might start by saying, because I think it is relevant to the conversation that, you know, I have been doing some level of this work in the nonprofit and social service sector for 25 or so years now.
That includes plenty of workshop presentations and keynotes and, you know, blogs and written pieces and conversations with people. I can't think of a single thing that I have produced in those 25 years that has generated as much response, response, interest and feedback as this letter we put out five days ago. And even more so than the content of the letter, I found myself reflecting on sort of why did this resonate so deeply with people?
And at least part of that answer is, you know, amidst what has been become a chaotic four or five weeks here, right. It's been, it's been a long year already, and it's the second week of February, but amidst some chaos, some confusion, lots of noise in the atmosphere, it became clear to me that people just wanted somebody to say something, right. That, that was, that was sort of balanced and, and maybe thoughtful and maybe even insightful, but that in the absence of that, all you get sort of the noise and the confusion and the chaos. And I maybe didn't realize it at the time, but this letter ended up being a sort of grounding moment for people to stop, read it, reflect, and say, wait a minute. Yeah, let's, let's take a breath, let's talk about this. Let's find the path forward.
And, and for that I'm thankful. And it has sparked a lot of conversation and discussion and podcast appearances and this sort of thing. I'm glad to be here with you today to do exactly that.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Well, I'm reminded, and we talked offline just a little bit right before we hit the record button about our connection.
About five years ago, there was another crisis in the Nonprofits act, actually the Globals, the Globe that was. And I don't know if anybody remembers, there was a global pandemic that we were dealing with. And. Yeah. And so because we're in this space in the social sector, you and I and Charles Weathers and, you know, your colleague Casey and some others came together and just tried to do exactly what you just talked about. Let's just put some clarity on paper. Let's bring ourselves. I went back and looked at the blogs that we wrote and watched parts of the video that we put out.
They all still apply. And they were all basics. There was no rocket science in there. This. We, we weren't showing up as just like some gurus on this. It's just, hey, somebody needs to pause and, and think clearly and put it on paper and then we'll help others think clearly. And, and I am, you know, we do refer to those documents on our episode page. And so, you know, keep that in
[email protected] you might, if you're listening on Spotify or whatever. Just if you go to the, to our podcast page on the leaders perspective.com you will see a couple of resources that we put there, including those tips that we put out five years ago. I read them. I think the first document had five tips and the second one had 15. And I read every single one of them this morning and thought, yep, every, every single one applies right now. Exact same things. So I appreciate that. Walk us through the letter. That also there's a link to that on our episode page as well. People can read it on their own. I understand, but tell me what your thinking was. You list kind of five things that nonprofits can think about and tell me your thought process through these things. Maybe just touch on the five briefly if you want.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: For sure. I also want to make sure that I don't lose the point you just made. Right. About what we all experienced, frankly, almost exactly five years ago. Right. March of 2020 was the onset of this global pandemic. So almost exactly five years ago. And I'll come back to in a second if that's okay. Sort of why I think these things are the same, but also why I think they're a little different.
But offered 5 thoughts in this letter and, and I should say again, connection to Covid, but also just connection to sort of the non profit sector. Right. One of the things I said in this letter is these aren't necessarily my unique thoughts as much as they are my observations and learning from our clients and partners. And one of the reasons that I can say that with some clarity is the sector, as it were, the nonprofit sector, the social service sector, however you want to define this, is constantly managing disruption. Right. And sometimes those disruptions are massive and major. Right. Like a global pandemic or a change in administration. Sometimes those disruptions are more incremental. Right. The slow drip of disruption, I call it. It's the 3% budget cut here. It's the change in leadership. The we have five vacancies and can't fill them, so half of our staff are doing two jobs. It's the, you know, whatever it might be, the slow drip of disruption is maybe more common than the massive sudden disruption. But because of that, many years ago, our firm at 1000 Feathers started talking a lot about organizational resilience. Right. And the definition of organizational resilience, or a definition of organizational resil is the ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for and respond to incremental change and sudden disruption. Right. The, the ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for, respond to incremental change and sudden disruption in order to not just survive but prosper. And I remember coming across that definition and thinking, yeah, that's it. Right? Like that's, that's a thing I want to learn more about. I Want to understand more, more. And at the end of the day, again, sort of political statements aside, this is a disruption, right? And whether or not funding is cut, the disruption is at least in terms of the communication, the chaos that has ensued, the thinking that has to happen, the is this going to affect me calling the emergency board meeting, right. Rallying the troops as it were, like this is a disruption. Whether or not funding is actually impacted. And some of that we still don't know. Right. Let's be honest about that.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Most of it probably right now, right.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Whether or not people's funding is directly impacted, the disruption in this moment is the time and attention it is requiring to think about and try to figure out some of this and what's happening and what the impact on the organization will be. So I really did lean into sort of our experience helping organizations think about, talk about and manage disruption. That's where sort of these five points came from. And I will go through each of them just quickly and then we can come back to all of them as you'd like. The first is, and Patrick, I know you and I share this because we both do a lot of this work but, but encouraging organizations to stand on the ground, they know. And in this case I'm specifically talking about their mission, vision and value statements. And I sort of said tongue in cheek in the letter. I know you have these as organizations because over the years myself and Patrick and Charles Weathers and all these other consultants have helped you create them. So I know you have them. And now is not the time to keep them on the shelf. Now is the time for your mission, vision and values to be frontline and center and really to, to be used as that North Star. They were intended to be that, that guide that decision making framework. Right? But standing on the ground, you know, the second thing. And again I'm just going to go through the highlights of each of these. The second thing we said was go, but don't go alone, right? And this is sort of a double barreled, should have been 2A and 2B probably. But you know, the first thing is we are going to, especially as leaders have to make some decisions in the moment. We are going to have to take some action. We are going to have to communicate to our teams and to our partners. So I want you to go, I don't want you to retreat to the office, right? I don't want you to hide in the corner. I want you to go. But I also don't want you to go alone. And again, in times of disruption and in times of confusion, sometimes we are, we, we tend to shrink up, we tend to take it all on ourselves. We tend to do it ourselves. And I think this is a moment to do exactly the opposite, right? To have as big a table as possible of, of partners and like minded organizations and like minded people in your circle and having as many conversations like this as you can have.
The third, which is the piece I really want to come back to and make a connection to what we experienced five years ago, is to continue to be resilient.
And again, I just talked about organizational resilience. The nonprofit and social service sectors by definition are resilient. And we have some muscle memory about what it takes to be resilient and to prosper in moments like these. And we need to pull on that muscle memory.
Number four, remembering a quote that I came across that I used in my letter. The map is not the terrain.
And I just, it's a quote that I had read a month or so ago and it just really popped back in my head here. And again, talking in sort of non profit social service language.
Many organizations have a map, have a strategic plan, have, you know, sort of the ideal document that sets them off in the right direction. But it's unlikely that map, excuse me, mentions anything about this rough terrain. Right? So recognizing that you can have a map, but that might not tell us much about the terrain we're currently walking in. And then the fifth, which again gets back to the spirit of this entire conversation, is there's a lot of information flying at all of us right now.
You know, the traditional news is social media, alternative news outlets, just conversations with friends. Right. We're getting bummed, bombarded with information. There are more than 70 executive orders already in circulation. There are agency confirmation hearings happening every single day. Right. Which also layer onto this conversation. And to try to sort of A, keep up with or B respond to every decision, every comment, every everything just adds to the distraction and adds to the disruption. And despite that noise, how do we stay balanced, measured and intentional in our con, in our conversations and communication? So that, that's the, the quick overview of the five things.
You know, again, we could probably do a, an episode on each one of them individually, but no doubt happy to dive in further where it makes sense.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Well, boy, so many things, so many things pop in my head. I've mentioned this on the show before. The word resilient is interesting. People have said that, you know, resilience is the, is the opposite of vulnerability. Or better yet, resilience is the opposite of Fragility.
And I learned something a few years ago from an article I read by a scientist who was talking about how resilience is a scientific term, happens in a chemical process. And he said the opposite of fragility is not resilience, it's anti fragility, which is actually stronger than resilience. And he said the difference is the resilience is the ability to bounce back, recover, restore. Antifragility means that because of the trauma, you're actually stronger than you would have been without it. So it's beyond the bounce back. I saw, and you saw so many nonprofits come out stronger through Covid than they were before COVID And we don't wish a global pandemic on anybody ever again. But I saw a lot of not only resilience, as you did. I saw some anti fragility. I see non profits now who kind of stand higher than they stood before. And not. And part of it's from a fundraising standpoint, but part of it's just from a. I think you said it. When you, when you go through it and you. The muscle memory that's created, I think we've just got to remember that. And I think what you're doing is reminding us, hey, we can do this. We've done this before. We know the drill here. Name the crisis. I ask in culture mapping, how does your organization navigate crisis? And they go, well, what kind of crisis are you talking about? The printer broke down on direct mail day? Or are you talking about, you know, a global pandemic? And my question is, what's the difference? How does your organization navigate crisis? Or as you put it beautifully, disruption.
And we know how to do it. So I really appreciate the reminders on that. The other thing that jumped in my head, I think the most as you were talking about distractions, is you acknowledged right up front what has to be acknowledged. And that is politics, schmolitics, funding, schmunding. The distraction can't rule the day because, oh, yeah, we still have a mission to perform. Like, we still have to do the work. And it's really difficult to stay on the work when you're walking around the office, you know, like to pardon the phrase, but, you know, chicken with the head cut off kind of analogy of, oh, my God, what are we going to do? You know, the funding and Trump and our, our grants and, you know, what are we going to do? And the fear is. I mean, it's real. You got to pause and ask that. But that can't rule the day. That Mindset can't rule the day. And so that's, that's what I loved about these five things is it centers us.
And I really appreciated it.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Well, thank you for that. I love, by the way, the anti fragility is that we use. I, I, I love that. And you're starting to see the resiliency literature catch up to that idea in that, you know, resiliency may not just be the ability to bounce back, but also the ability to bounce forward. Right. And that's sort of saying the same thing.
I, I actually agree with you completely though, about watching and being very proud of any number of organizations that, you know, leveled up, as it were, during post Covid. During COVID Post Covid and still now. And in fact it became one of those filters for me, 2023, give or take, right? When, whenever we were on the other side of that, when an organization would sort of puff up their chest and say, we made it through this pandemic and we didn't change a thing.
And I would look back across the table and say, you know, I don't know if that's the flex you think it is, right? If, if you just went through this moment with your community and with your constituents and you didn't feel the need to adapt or change or strengthen anything or become more resilient or reimagine the way you deliver programs and services, you didn't do any of that the last three years.
I'm not sure you should be as proud of that as maybe you think you are.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: I think I know what they mean there. I mean, their mission didn't change. They stayed on mission, you know, and, and, but yeah, they innovated, you know, very much. A lot of them really, really did. And, and are doing things now that, I mean, just look at all of us had to innovate or, or, or, or die, you know, 100%.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: And so, so Patrick Lip. But let's again, to go back to any point in the letter, happy to do it, but let's go there for one second, right? Think about March, April, May of 2020, right? And we were all immediately flipping the switch into innovation. What do we have to do different? How do we serve, support each other, how do we band together? How do we write?
Let me back up half a step.
On one hand, what is happening right now is indeed a disruption.
The global pandemic, Covid, 2020, also a massive disruption. So, so from a purely definitional standpoint, those two, two things, you know, are the same. And they're also Massive and sudden, right? And, and came at us somewhat out of nowhere.
What makes these things different, though? Or maybe I should put a question mark at the end of that, like, why are these things different?
Because what I saw in the early months of COVID despite confusion, despite the disruption, was a lot of people coming together, right? And sort of we understood what the disruption was. We understood how to support each other, we understood what safety nets needed to be in place. We, you know, mobilized, we activated. You saw private funders sort of loosen up grant restrictions and provide more unrestricted funding. And there were PPP loans, and there were all of these different support systems and safety nets coming from every different direction.
One of the really important things that makes this disruption different, at least in the moment, is the safety nets haven't yet appeared.
And, and I mean, that sort of four organizations, right? I haven't yet seen private funders and donors sort of flip the switch and say, let's loosen up grant restrictions, let's do some more unrestricted funding. Let's do some of these things. It's, it's pretty unlikely, especially in the south, that any state governments are going to step in and say, hey, let's fill this gap that might be created by the federal government, right? Like so on. In that way, this disruption is very different.
When the global pandemic was here, it was sort of all of us versus Covid right now. And there certainly are some political implications here that, that we don't need to get into necessarily. But I don't feel like it's everybody versus the disruption. I still feel a little bit like it's everybody against everybody else and everybody jockeying for position and trying to figure out where they fit and where they're going to be. And that makes this disruption very different than Covid. And again, I've been thinking a good bit about this, and that is going to make this a continued challenge. Right? Again, and in, in the COVID example, and that was only a couple years ago, the, the parachutes got deployed quickly, right? And, and people change their actions, change their funding, changed the way they were working, became innovative, got together in their communities and had, you know, conversations.
I don't see any of that happening yet. And maybe it doesn't need to happen.
But the point is we're not yet pulling on all the muscle memory that got us through the major disruption five years ago. We're still sort of in deer and headlights mode here and having conversations in the echo chamber, but haven't really mobilized the response.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: That's really good Insight and perspective. And I won't disagree with you, but I'll throw in maybe an extra flavor of perspective.
Did we move fast?
You know, our blogs, for example, the first one was March, the second one was May.
We had if, you know, I'm just remembering back and my memory's terrible, but when Covid first hit, I mean, the first thought everybody had was, you know, hey, two, three weeks we'll be out of this.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: Right. Two weeks in isolation and we'll keep it moving.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Sure. And, you know, it kept on and kept on and then you had all the debate and differences in masks and vaccines and six feet of social distance and can we hold this event? And can we.
There was. I agree. The, I think you're right about the funders stepping in and going, hey, you know, including the federal government, by the way.
Yeah. So, you know, really stepping in with that. One other thing that's different now is it's the uncertainty. Like, funders don't, I don't know that funders know exactly how to step in right now because we don't yet know what's actually getting cut.
Now. I think, you know, I don't know, you may know more than I do about this. I think some, you know, some streams have been paused. You know, supposedly there was the freeze and then there wasn't the freeze and all that, but, but we still don't really know what they've said now is we're rescinding the freeze, but we're reviewing all this stuff. So now everyone's waiting to go, well, what are they going to find in their review do. And so our funder, and this is just a question, are funders waiting to see where they can be of actual most gap versus, you know, if I just step in and start writing checks now to non profits, am I spending money that might not be of the best use until I know what's really going on?
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Well, that, that certainly supports the, the fifth point in this letter. Right. Stay balanced and measured and intentional. Right. And, and let's, let's assume that's what's happening and that that's the, the, the optimistic view of that. That's what's going to happen. What I, what I hope is not the case. Right. And I shouldn't even say this out loud and speak it into existence, but is sort of, how quickly has the sector and our funders been able to recover? Right now we're stacking disruptions and stacking major disruptions. And at some level, you know, thankfully, Covid feels like a Long time ago. But from a very technical perspective and a funding perspective, it wasn't right. And you still have organizations and communities that are sort of quite literally bouncing back and, and coming back to full strength and trying to figure out if they're working hybrid or remote or in the office, and what does our workforce look like and how do we replace people that retired. And all of these things are still very active conversations. And now all of a sudden, we have another massive disruption laid on top of it.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: You know, this is going to test the resiliency of the sector, which includes philanthropy. Right. And, you know, all of that being said, I do also want to make the point about another piece of this that is different than a disruption that is a global pandemic or, or maybe any other disruption.
And that is the sort of layer of this that is personal, as it were, or moral or our own values, let alone our organization's values. And you listed four topical areas or segments of the sector that seemingly have been under particular scrutiny. But again, across 70 plus executive orders, there's still a lot to unpack and figure out here.
But what is pretty clear is that by any definition, what, what we might refer to as marginalized communities or underserved communities, which so many in our sector are serving and lifting up and partnering with, are at best under the microscope. Right. At at worst, sort of being erased from the conversation.
You know, so there's a lot of just heaviness. Right. And the, the sort of moral values character of it all. And those of us that care about people and communities, especially marginalized communities, just seems like an incredible weight. Weight that we're carrying around and that maybe doesn't have anything to do with our, our budget or our, you know, the functioning of the organization. It's just sort of a personal weight that seemingly is getting heavier by the day, not lighter. And that is a, an important dynamic to, to lift up and remember.
And, you know, side note, and I know this was in those pieces you referenced that we wrote five years ago. So I'm calling on me and you and all of our friends in the sector to put on your own mask first, as it were. Right. Take care of yourself. Because we all need to be our best selves moving forward.
And I will be vulnerable here.
I have some days where I sit down at this computer and I am not my best self and I, I feel it, and I have to go take a walk or go, go do something. But, you know, we have to really pay attention to those cues as well.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Man. All, all really well said. And I might even say it a slightly different way or add a nuance to your difference about it being personal. This disruption is intentional.
You know, Covid was a global pandemic that spread. None of us wanted that, you know. No, he wanted it. Yeah. Although conspiracy theorists will tell you that it was intentional. But. But this is different. This is, you know, this is administration again, however you feel about him. He campaigned on this. He said, I'm going to do that. I'm going. We are going to disrupt. I mean, it is a very intentional disruption. And we can talk about that definition of leadership that we've shared so many times about disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb. And, you know, is this. Is this exceeding the absorption rate?
It feels like it. Right. So. So that is another thing about this, is that this is an intentional disruption, which you and I both encourage nonprofit leaders to. To be able to do well. Right. We tell people for sure there are times.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: There are times you need to respond to disruption. There are times you need to be the one to actually create. Creates the disruption. It's what creates growth and innovation and all. But this, I think that's the. The personal aspect of this, is that this is intentional. And so it feels like an attack. It feels like. It feels like an affront. Very intentionally. I've heard people say the nonprofit sector is under attack. Strong language. Maybe it is. Maybe that's not the intention. It kind of doesn't matter. It feels that way because of the way this is rolled out. So I think it's super acknowledgment. I'm coaching.
I'm coaching 40 individual leaders right now in my rotation. Not. Not counting our sort of team work and retreats and things. 40 individual leaders.
And I can tell you that half of them are dealing with the mental health heaviness of this personally.
And so it's a real thing. And I, you know, we've got to find ways to get centered. Put the mask on yourself first. Is absolutely. That we could stop this show now. And we've said. You've said something very significant. It was actually the first of the five points we made in the blog. So I'm totally with you on it. Totally with you on it.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: And I, you know, go. Go all the way back to the beginning of this show. I. I think this open letter showed up in people's inboxes, quite literally amidst all of this other noise. Right? And it was sort of like, oh, here, here. You know, I'm not a Mental health counselor. I'm not an executive coach. I'm not any of those things. I just put some words on paper, but it stood out in people's inboxes vis a vis everything else they're reading and, and hearing and seeing.
You know, we. We haven't had a lot of. Of pieces recently that seemed balanced and thoughtful and reminding us that absolutely, you know, we have some muscle memory and, and these sort of things.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: I mean, forest, as soon as I read it, I. I emailed you. I said, this is a leadership voice. This is the leadership voice we need right now. I, I applaud you for.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Appreciated this invite. And then, then again, the, the emails came and the text came and, And I didn't have any idea it would be received the way it was. But I, I do think again, it's. It's a reminder for all of us, and I'm not talking about a piece that I wrote, that we need to continue speaking our truths. We need to continue holding each other up.
Right? We need to be in place and space with people to have sort of balanced, thoughtful discussion about the path forward. And you're right in many ways. Like in one thing that you said that this feels and seems intentional, right. Because of that, our sort of fight or flight response here. Right. And in this moment, I'm not sure that either fight or flight is the right answer. Right?
But when you're attacked, that's the human element of this, right? Is I, am I. Am I gonna flee or am I gonna fight?
And the answer is probably somewhere in between. Right? I mean, we. We need to.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Well, there's a third. There's a third F in there.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: I don't know psychology well enough to tell you what it is, but there's got to be one.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: There's a third F in there, and it's free. Freeze. And that's the last thing we can afford to do. Yeah, this paralyzes us. Like what? We just. We just freeze. We. We don't. We don't act. And, you know, I think. I think it's. It's fight, fight, flight, or freeze. And yeah, maybe. Maybe there's a fourth one in there. That's the one that's the magic sauce right now. Oh, yeah, maybe. I don't know.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: That's a. It's a fascinating sort of, you know, discussion and learning experience amidst everything else. And I'm not dismissing the very real impacts of any of this. Just like none of us were dismissing. Most of us weren't dismissing the very real impacts of a Global pandemic. Right. But at the same time, I, and maybe this is a position of privilege, but I feel sort of compelled and called to rise up a little bit and continue to have these conversations that are like, let's look at all the puzzle pieces. Let's, let's be, let's be a little bit more thoughtful and strategic, you know, and, and there's a part of me, Patrick, that, going back to the intentional word you, the word intentional that you used, there's a part of me that really believes, like, the chaos, confusion and disruption is exactly the point. Right? We're going to do all these things all at once and throw this all at you and light everyone's hair on fire all at once.
And that, that is actually part of the point and part of the intentionality and part of the strategy here.
And if it was part of the strategy, at least in the moment, it's working. Right? And so, so part of the way to combat that is to take a step back, take a breath, and not let your hair be on fire. Right? That, that in and of itself tells me you're willing to sort of create the response.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: Well said. And I, and I think it seems that that is exactly the strategy. You know, and again, I really do want to not get into the politics of this, but everybody knows, whether you like it or not, everybody, you know, Trump is clear and has been clear about exactly what you just said. We are gonna pull it all apart. We're just gonna rip. It's a, it's a corrupt mess and we hate it and it's gotta, it's gotta get fixed and we're gonna fix it because we only have a short time to fix it, and boom. And we're just gonna rip it all apart. I mean, literally, they have said that's what they want to do. Now, again, there are people who love that. I mean, half the country voted for them, right? There. There are people that say, get, that's what we need. We're tired of just not ripping. Let's just, just fix this all at once. And there are others who are going, okay, time out for a second here.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: Yeah, Like, I mean, I think the, the interesting part of that, right, is, and again, irregardless of who somebody voted for, there are a lot of people across this country who are also getting a sort of rapid education on what, what federal support means and what the, the government actually does fund and what non profits actually do and what, that's.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: Part of the strategy, too.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: What an indirect cost rate is at a University or a research institution. Right. And like all these things that maybe, maybe John Q. Public just hasn't had to pay attention to before, all of a sudden it's like, oh, wait a minute, I, I, I didn't know you meant that. Or I didn't know my family was going to be impacted in this way. Or I didn't know that nonprofit I support, you know, had so much federal funding, or I didn't know, you know, that, that the university budget was lifted up by NIH grants and, and research support. Right. Like, yeah, I think that is also an interesting dynamic here, that, that it will be interesting to see how the human condition responds to all of this. You know, not just the sector.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Well, we got to take care. You know, we do have to take care of ourselves. We have to take care of each other too. And this whole, I mean, we know how divisive and polarized people are right now and that, that adds to it even more. I remember another definition of leadership that I love from Kevin Cashman. Authentic self expression that creates value.
And right now there's a lot of authentic self expression going on.
I wonder how much of it is actually creating value for anyone. You know, there is anger, there is righteous indignation, there is celebration and, you know, gloating, and there's, there's all of these things. Which of them are creating value that lead someone forward. I was coaching a leader, a good friend of mine and someone I just respect so much. He's a listener to this show, so he'll know I'm talking about him, but I won't say his name, but he was expressing to me, you know, Patrick, in my role, it's hard sometimes for me to express myself publicly because I'm connected to my organization and what can you say and not say? But boy, there's things I wish I could could say. And my question for him was just took a coaching moment and I said, what do you want to say?
And it was just silence. What is it you want to say? What is it you feel like you need to say? And then, you know, then the next question was, to whom do you need to say that?
Oh, he's just really, boy, you know, that's a good, I guess to anybody. And the next question, and this is actually goes back to Dale Carnegie, public speaking training. What do you want your audience to do as a result of your expression? Yeah, what's the call to action? Or how do, are you looking to inspire? Are you looking to persuade?
What do you want to get from the message?
And I think when we all pause and say, what is it we need to say? Who do we need to say? Like, do we need to say it? Do we say this out loud? And, and, and, and how we say it matters?
So, so how do we say it in such a way that it's. That it creates value, not just, oh, there's another one. Put the wall up on that one. Right. I get that tone. That's not, that's not someone who thinks like me. Let me shut that down. And so I think that's a big part of it, is we got to create value right now. People are in need of it.
I'm going to jump for us for a second to some practical things. Not that these aren't practical, but, you know, I, I can hear a lot of people going, I. I love it, Forrest. You know, let's, you know, be resilient and stand our ground. But we got fun. Like, what do we do about these employees? We gotta lay off. Right?
[00:48:27] Speaker B: What do we do about.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Yeah, and I. There are some resources out there, and I want to encourage everyone, you know, look for them. We're gonna give you one in particular on the show, and that's the National Council of Nonprofits, whose lawsuit actually stopped this funding freeze, at least for now. And this is the power of advocacy, and this is the power of larger voice.
But we, We've got on our episode page a link to their issue page on this, which they update with a chart. I think the latest update, I looked this morning, the latest chart is February 10th, but their intention is to continue updating the chart. And the chart is fantastic because it's. It literally shows. Here are the various executive orders that are of concern to us. Here's why it impacts the nonprofit sector. Here's what really is at stake. Here's some resources and some things we need to be thinking about. So we're putting a link to that on the episode page. But they also provide some pretty practical things. One I've already mentioned earlier, amend your language. I mean, the council is saying, change your language immediately.
And here's the reality of it. It, people. I know, I know how that makes people feel when you say that. It's like these words are real, though. They mean things. They do. But some of the programs that might be at risk are not. The organization intends for them to promote diversity and to promote equity and to promote inclusion. Okay. But using the terms puts a flag on it.
So, and, and the reality is that many of these grants and contracts that were written for the government were written with that language because the previous administration favored that language. And so we want to add all that language we can to it. Well, now it's the opposite. The language itself will cause. Is causing red flags on much of this. So some of the kind of programs are not the kind of. Of DEI that the feds are after right now. But because they say they are or they say those terms, they could be at risk. And that's why the council is saying, go look at your language.
Equity is a concept.
It's not a program. It's a. It's a thing. So let's look at our language and see what it is we're actually doing. I think it would be a great conversation for the country to. Have you mentioned. What was the word you used earlier?
Disparities. Did you use the word disparate? You were talking about how there are people disadvantaged or.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Yeah, disadvantaged and marginalized communities.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Marginalized. That was the word. Yeah.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Very, very impacted.
[00:51:12] Speaker A: And notice those are not. I'm not hearing anybody. Tell me if you are. I'm not hearing anybody say we're cutting any funding that is dedicated toward marginalized people.
I'm not hearing that language.
So I think it's important. The language that we're using, we've said it many times. You and I have talked about it. All my clients and I are talking about it. Unfortunately, the terms have become political terms. They just are. You can like it or not, they just are now. And yet they're legitimate concepts. So the language. Let me move on. The second thing.
Be thinking now about how do we diversify and acquire new funds from elsewhere, aggressively, with a strong case. And the case could not be stronger right now. So you got. They've got. This is part of that. You know, we've got to push past the distractions and get into something really practical and start diversifying our funds. Third, conduct contingency and scenario planning. One of the really effective things that I saw organizations do during COVID was create things like an A budget, a B budget, and a C budget. Best case, worst case, most likely case, and let's be prepared to pull any of the levers we need to pull. But what it did is it gives people something to see, even if it's not pretty.
People fear the unknown more than anything else. It's the uncertainty. Uncertainty that creates more fear than anything. We learned this during COVID I had people telling me, I'd rather they just tell me I'm laid off than to come to work every day wondering, is today going to be the day. So that vision casting is day to day. It's leaders helping people see the very next step. Here's what we're doing. I remember Casey saying, you can't over communicate. This is your colleague Casey on your team. You can't over communicate.
So that that scenario planning and contingency planning with transparency lets people know our leaders are on this and we can see the different ways this may play out, even if we hope they play out in the best case.
[00:53:30] Speaker B: Patrick I think that's exactly right. And sort of, you know, put all those together right. In some sort of Venn diagram or something. The, the communication and transparency currency part is at the center of this.
[00:53:41] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: And it's communicating with your team, it's communicating with your donors, it's communicating with the communities you serve. For all of the things you just talked about, right. Being clear about budget scenarios internally and what we know, what we don't know. Right. What's still unknown.
If I'm going to take just as a hypothetical take DEI language off the website, also communicate the why I just did that right. To your team, to the communities you serve, to others to say, look, and I hope this is true for most people. We haven't given up our commitment to serve communities. We haven't given up this value.
But in this moment it makes good sense for us to change this particular sentence or to remove this language. Right. But don't just do that and not tell anybody why or tell anybody sort of what it means or what, you know, clear communication with your donors about.
Here's what this means for us in this moment. Here are the funding streams that are likely impacted. Right.
We were, we were just in a conversation recently with an organization that works in the homelessness and affordable housing housing space.
And you know, again, think about the sequence of impact here. There's a federal grant that is at risk that they have that currently provides rental assistance.
There are 40, 50 landlords in this particular community who receive revenue because of this rental assistance. And to now get on the phone with those 40 or 50 folks and say we could use your help and support here because your income stream is about to be drastically impacted. Like those are the sort of downstream impacts maybe that again, John Q. Public isn't necessarily thinking about, which makes it really, really important for us to communicate, to educate. Right. About impacts. And that's not just yelling into the air about how horrible this is or that's right. How awful decision is that is being thoughtful about if A happens. Let me tell you what B C and D look like in our community look like at our organization. That's thoughtful communication.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:56:04] Speaker B: Sort of yelling into the, into the air right now is, is frankly probably more disruptive than it is helpful.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: It's authentic self expression that does not create value.
[00:56:16] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. Go back to that definition. Exactly right.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: That's it, that's it. No, very, very well said. And you know, again I just go back to. You can't, you can't over communicate. Yeah, very true.
The fourth piece here is that non profits can do practically is advocate. Connect to your state nonprofit associations if you have one. If you don't, connect to the national Council, connect to your, if you're the Boys and Girls Club. What is the national organization doing? Stand on that United Way worldwide has position papers and thoughtful sort of language and resources tie into those. And where you see opportunities to let your voice be heard in a valuable way, do it. Write letters, write a letter to the editor. Write, you know, sign on to a letter to Congress. Call your congressman, leverage your association's advocacy. Use social media.
You've got a voice, it's time to use it. It, you just got to use it effectively.
[00:57:27] Speaker B: Exactly right. And I, I just, I, I know it's an inherent part of the advocate definition, but I'm, I'm finding myself intentionally adding the word educate here. Right. So it's advocate, but also this idea of educating people on the very real impacts. Right. And, and there's no reason for us to be hypothetical. There's no reason for us to have to exaggerate. There's no reason for us to any, this is real, it's in the moment and we can be crystal clear about what decision A might mean for organization B. And so advocate and educate simultaneously.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Well, and what the word that's coming to mind, as you say, all that is facts. Yeah, right. Stick to the facts.
You can.
Again, whether your political ideology is right or not.
Right now, what's important is to get through this with the most support and unity as we can with each other and our donors, et cetera.
So we use this in one on one coaching all the time for us. I'll hear people say, you know, I'll oversimplify some.
My co worker doesn't like me. Okay. And I'll say, is that a fact?
Well, I mean they certainly, they certainly don't act like they like me. Okay. Have you ever asked them, like, how do you know, do you know that they don't like you? Maybe they like you and they're Jealous of you. Maybe they, that two things can happen at one, like, what are the facts here? Or somebody looked at me a certain way during a meeting and I know what they meant. I know what they meant. They were putting me in my place. It's like, oh, do you know what they meant? Do you? So the facts, when you know, you've read crucial conversations, probably, that the whole framework in that is you got to have the conversation about what is real, what is real that we know you led with that in your, in your thing, stand on the ground, you know, and so it's one thing to say, you know, dear Donor, our country is unraveling right now and we're under attack by the current administration, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, Right. If you're, if you're communicating to the right person, they'll be all over that.
But if you communicate just what you said, a, has happened. The council's doing a great job on this, by the way. Here's the order. Here's what it means. Here's what's at threat. Here's what we need to do. Like, this is it. And they're saying things like, these executive orders will almost undoubtedly be challenged by the courts as to whether or not they're even constitutional because Congress holds the purse. And, you know, you're, you're, you're cutting funds. You're threatening to cut funds that Congress has already approved for a budget cycle and et cetera, et cetera.
[01:00:18] Speaker B: Right, right.
[01:00:19] Speaker A: But that doesn't, that doesn't change the fact that the funds could get cut, even for a period of time. So.
[01:00:25] Speaker B: No, that's exactly right. And again, as we know more.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[01:00:30] Speaker B: Our messaging has to get better and get sharper.
[01:00:34] Speaker A: Oh, good.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: Right. And, and I, I think that is also a part of this. And again, this is a whole nother episode and whole nother conversation. Happy to come back anytime. But the real impact of all of this noise, we are about to learn a lot more about as all of these confirmations happen.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: Right. It's one thing for there to be an executive order, but the real question is going to be how does the new HHS leadership implement this order? How does the new Department of Ed, you know, leadership implement this order or interpret this conversation? So there is still a lot that we don't know and a lot left to come.
And, and as a result, a, we have to be, continue to be resilient, and B, we have to continue to sharpen our messaging and our communication for all these reasons. You're talking about, but being factual about the impact, being clear about the impact and not just I don't like this thing or I don't like this person, but this decision is going to cause this result. Yeah, those are, those are very different approaches to messaging that, that we could all benefit from.
[01:01:46] Speaker A: And you know, what occurs to me, Forest, is that we have to be, we have to be careful not to just make this just a non profit issue.
I mean, we're, hey, you and I, you and I have clients right now that were considering and moving into engagements with us on things like strategic planning or whatever. And they're putting us on pause. Right. This is affecting consultants. I know a curriculum designer whose job has been paused completely. Just a complete independent freelance curriculum designer. Because the company that they're working for is doing a program that. It has been put on pause because it's tied to the federal government. And one of the, one of the issues there. So there are workforces that are going to be affected by this potentially in a big way. I mean, business has a stake in this. This is not just relegated to the non profits. I think we have an opportunity to educate our whole communities.
[01:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's right. And in some way, you know, again, I'm not trying to be overly predictive here, but you might look back in 6, 9, 12 months and say, wow, the, the non profit sector was the canary in the coal mine. Right. And we should have, we should have listened. It's not traditionally a sector that sort of drives the narrative.
But, but we have a chance to now if we're thoughtful, imbalanced and clear. And again, not just my, my, my colleague and friend Kevin Dean, who, who actually runs the Tennessee Nonprofit Network.
His quotes in my letter, this is a game of chess, not a game of scream real loud and hope something changes. It's a brilliant quote and I, and I think a real good summary of, of all of this.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. But a very good summary of all of it. And, and you're right, we could, we could definitely go on and on. I'm reminded of a futurist I had on the show a couple of years ago, Forrest. He was doing some future work for Google actually at one time. And I don't remember the exact numbers now I need to go back and listen to the episode. But he was talking about how the amount of change, just not, not what changes, but the amount of change and the speed of change change that happened in 2020. Because it wasn't just a pandemic. Remember, there was, there was the election and there was the, the George Floyd thing and there was just this whole. And it changed all the landscape just so fast. Right. In a period of months.
And what the futurists will tell you is that the amount of change, the amount of time it took for that amount of change to go through the, the bandwidth 10 years from now, that that same amount of change will happen in. Within a three week period. Yeah, we're five years. We're five years out of COVID And what's happened in the last three weeks? Just Right. Just one. Yeah, I mean we're not even, we're not even at the 10 year mark. Change is going to continue to come at us faster and faster and faster and we have to be nimble and agile and on our game as leaders.
And you know, keep, keep. I, I hear people say, you know, look, we just got to keep our heads down and stay in the work. I tell people, keep your heads up because that's what helps you pay attention to other people. Your people, your people need you right now.
[01:05:21] Speaker B: I like that a lot. And, and again, I, you know, just a reminder that for a lot of the reasons we discussed over the last few minutes here, this feels different. It maybe is different, but you know, Maybe on an 8020 principle here, a lot of this is a disruption and the sector and the communities we serve have been managing disruption their entire lives. Lives and their entire careers. And part of keeping your head up, in my opinion, is activating the muscle memory. Right. Of how we get through a disruption and doing those things. So if, if the letter I wrote and this podcast episode helps somebody go from head down to head up, I'll, I'll feel accomplished.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: It will have been authentic self expression that creates value.
[01:06:17] Speaker B: I love.
[01:06:17] Speaker A: Look, it's created value for me. This conversation has created value for me. I've picked up some things that I can help with and I know you have and you're thinking about it constantly with your team. I think we've got to. We are all in this together.
And let me close with this.
You all have heard Forrest on the show before.
Forest is one of the premier consultants in, in this space period.
I respect him greatly. That's why, that's why he's here.
He's leading.
We're working on some things in partnership.
We are not in this as competitors. We are in this together. And I really appreciate that about Forrest and his entire team. If your organization or community is in need of transformation, the kind that some facilitative, meaningful dialogue with the right partners and stakeholders and people who are willing and ready to think innovatively about change in your organization, in your community. I can't think of another organization I'd refer ahead of 1000 feathers. That's the work they're in.
Can they do one offs? Of course they can. And Forrest can do practically anything you ask him to do in this space. But their goal is really around helping nonprofits and organizations move in a transformational way and systemically.
So please his website. We've got a link to his open letter on the episode page. And if you get to that, you're on the website. So just go browse it and look at the whole thing. Look at the kind of work they're doing. It is not your father's typical strategic planning board retreat kind of stuff. It's transformational and I appreciate that. So please don't hesitate to reach out to them if either one of us can be of help to you around this situation. Just an ear to bend or a shoulder to cry on. I think we would both say to do that if you. I would say contact us at the leader's perspective for systemic executive and leadership team coaching.
I say all the time. I'm not a consultant. I can play one occasionally if it's an area that I feel an expertise around. But we take a coaching approach. We also do some strategic planning, but our wheelhouse, our center point is coaching leaders to lead.
And so we've got some crossover work that we do and some space that we share. But 1000 feathers is pretty unique as a, as a consultant in this space. So their Website's on. It's 1000cheathers.com the number 1000. Not the word 1000feathers. Calm. And again, they'll. They'll be on the. The episode page.
Go to the episode page again if you're. If you're listening on another platform, go to the leaders perspective.com and you'll find our podcast link very easily. At the bottom of this episode page is the link to these various things, particularly the council of nonprofits.org it's actually council of nonprofits.org if you're listening and just want to mark that. And there's a, there's a link to that. Keep your heads up and, and, and keep the faith. You all are in the trenches. You're doing amazing work.
You're. We're gonna get, we're gonna do this. This is not the first disruption, is it? Of course.
[01:10:06] Speaker B: That's right.
Thanks for the kind words and thanks for sharing your platform.
[01:10:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you, Forest. All right, folks, lean on Sa.
