Ignite the SPARK of Leadership at Your Nonprofit

We dive into that we’re going to catch another minute over there. We have been I’ve been over here you know, I’m here in Philadelphia with the donor, perfect team. And we have been watching your comments watching your questions all day long. Read More

We dive into that we’re going to catch another minute over there. We have been I’ve been over here you know, I’m here in Philadelphia with the donor, perfect team. And we have been watching your comments watching your questions all day long. And starting with my opening session this morning, really started to see the ways in which you all are looking to apply the learning from today and be able to put it into practice inside your organization. So I’ve been actually working behind the scenes with the team over the last few hours. And I have one resource that I just threw in the child. So y’all can see that. That comes from my session earlier this morning around donor motivation and how we how we you how you can put those things in practice right away inside your organization. I know the team is going to be thinking about other resources and blogs related to a lot of the questions that you will have all have had throughout this conference. We have loved seeing the amount of engagement, the amount of excitement all the sessions have been phenomenal. So if you are here in the chat, can you tell me that you are here and how you’re doing maybe if we were live I’d have you do a little like, fist of five with like, where’s your energy at how you feeling? Five is like, oh my god, I’m on cloud nine is the best day in my life. One is like this has been incredible, but I’m a little tired. So like tell me where you are you want to your two year 345. Energize? Yeah, you can give me a word, you can give me a number. I want to know how you’re feeling. I know this has been a lot of hours of learning. But you guys have had the gift of some of the most incredible speakers in our sector who just have so much knowledge. And it’s been amazing to watch how many of you guys need to process Yes, I get that I will be like sitting in a you know, what’s it called, like sensory tank for a while to like, soak all of this in. This has been fantastic. Awesome day. Lots of inspiration. motivated. Oh my gosh, I have no idea to me how you put that image in there. But that is very cool. We all understand these systems so much better than me. But I love best yet amazing. Another image. Very inspiring session. Oh my gosh. I love, love, love seeing this energy. And I know there have been a lot of questions that have been coming through as well. Okay, so now while we’re waiting for Kish let’s some some of you guys already did this where you told me you’re like one word that you’re feeling in this moment. But I would love to hear from you guys as we’re waiting for kitch like, What’s one thing you’re taking away from your time? Like, what’s one action item? One thing that you want to implement, from what you learned today that you’re going to take back to your nonprofit right away? Because I know it’s always hard when you do so many hours of learning to start to prioritize and pick okay, what are the pieces I’m going to implement? Build a better retention strategy monthly giving program Hey, Hey, Dana Snyder. Monthly giving That’s my girl. Okay, I guess everyone Dana, everybody is doing monthly giving. So I love that prioritizing technology, donor journeys, retention, humbly giving programs PLAN strategy, oh my gosh, I love this I love I love, love, love seeing this about retention and monthly giving because because what that tells me is that you all are really here for building deeper connection with your donors. And really thinking about what it looks like to be in connection and in community with them for a long for the long run. Oh, make sure that you type demo in the chat if you want to connect with a DonorPerfect team member after the conference. So I guess you just typed demo in the chat. And that will be a great way to learn more about how DonorPerfect technology and software can really support you in doing all of these things. Yes, Ellen demo, Christina demo. Okay, I love seeing this. Let’s just see how many demos we can get in the chat. Before a kiss joins us. Oh my gosh, I love seeing those other comments too, about fewer steps, how to simplify things. These are some really, really, really incredible takeaways. Already a customer Okay, Patrick, you don’t have to write demo. That’s fine. But I love hearing that you are already a customer too. So that’s amazing. No, I know I can’t even say that word Lin. Westers tasking? Am I saying it correctly? But is she not like the funniest human ever? I just I really love the way that she’s able to bring together like knowledge with humor, and to make everything just more approachable. So that has been her session was awesome to Mina Dawson’s session. cheryan Koshi oh my gosh, I’m just inspiring more more things for you to think about Chris’s session. I love the way he talked about alignment and how you do outreach with donors in order to get a higher response rate on your emails. dun dun da and here she is. Oh my gosh Kish it is so good to see you and I’m so thrilled to have you here today. How are you doing?

I am all right. Let me tell you first of all, welcome to my travel friends. Okay, for those of y’all were all my frontline fundraisers in the House who have seen the inside of more hotels than they care to see. So listen, talk to me. When people move here. Come on, Debra. Come on, Patrick. Come on, Lisa. Come on, Dominique. Danny, come on, Ellen. Listen, y’all. I just want to tell you about something. This hotel that I’m at. I think it’s a gym that happens to have a hotel in it. They have a rooftop. Gym, then they have a whole Pilates studio. They have a full CrossFit studio and then downstairs they have a full tennis court. Yeah, but then you have outside of Olympic pool. I may bring you snacks. But you know where I’ve been in a conference room there’s a gym. It’s a total just snacks. Okay, totally. So that’s one Listen, at least I halfway made up the bed because housekeeping is trash, but it’s fine.

Okay, wait Kish okay, you’re gonna bring the house down. But I have to introduce you fully because I wanted people to be able to see you before I got to start to sing some of your praises. Because y’all because Shawna Palmer, the kushana Palmer, international speaker trainer coach with over 20 years background in fundraising, marketing, talent management, she helps leaders create high performing teams. Because Shauna is a CEO of manage meant like one of the best brand names ever. An organizational development firm focused on helping everyday leaders live well and lead Well, her firm’s work centers on equity and social justice and practical solutions for today’s organizations. She is also the founder of the rooted collaborative, a global community focused on the growth and development of women of color in the social sector. She’s a certified fundraising executive CFR II and an AFP master trainer, I could literally the rest of the session time going through Kesh his bio, but i Her work is going to speak for herself because you guys are in for a serious treat. And I just love that we get to enter this conference with your energy. So it’s so I’m so honored to get to introduce you cash and to have you here. Take it away.

Yes, thank you all. So I’m going to share my window. So y’all just give me one second so I can get my life together. Okay. Say it’s okay. Kids going to get your life together. I’m just trying to do my endeavor best friends. Okay, so as I was saying, so now that I’ve seen what everybody is learning, which is super exciting to me, and I’m going to share with you my screen momentarily so that I can talk to you today about creating that spark in your organization. Lucky for me, actually, no more slides. Whoo. So I am getting ready to drop this in here with y’all. Okay, hold on. Here we are. Boom, bada boom, boom. It’s all good kids. Come on. It’s all good. Kiss me. That’s all right. That’s like saying, take your time. Take your time. Okay, let’s see. I’m sharing myself. And now I think y’all should be able to see my canvas screen. Can everybody see it? Or no? Let’s see, should be able to. It’s all good. Okay, just give me a thumbs up if you can see my theme because I am closing everything out to make sure that we are good to go. So one of the things that I think is really important, everybody can see my screen. Great. One of the things that I think is really important about being a leader is really thinking about how we step into getting that spark. And so that’s what I really want to talk about today. All right, I’m bringing us back home Hallelu back to the beginning, that you can learn about management while we’re doing that. That’s okay. My life is this is what happens when you’re on the road y’all because at home I promise y’all it worked perfectly. Okay, here we go. All right. Great. So we are in business. Thank you Mallory for introducing me. I’ll make sure I keep us on time. Because Shanna Palmer, most people who know me in life call me Kish I have had the pleasure of teaching 1000s of everyday leaders just like you how to live well and lead well grow your skills, your teams and your results. And now I have a little little firm we like to call management. And what we do in management is make sure you transform the way you lead so you can manage a team you love. So this topic about us having a spark is amazing because that’s exactly what we do. And y’all speaking of sparks, I almost lost my spark because I became an empty nester. So where are all my empty nesters? shout me out in the chat where all my empty nesters I want to see you Tell me Yes, kids, it’s me. I’m an empty nester too. So y’all Oh, I see, come on, let’s go, let’s go. And so basically y’all, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Once the Queen ager went off to college last August, I kind of moved to a new city, I kind of wandered around this empty house, I didn’t have 5011 teenagers in the house. And I really didn’t know what to do with myself. And so I was super excited to be able to take a step back, but at the same time, more than taking a step back, too. And so I kind of lost my little Jersey a little bit, I kind of lost my sparkle. And life had a way of catching up with me in such a way that I literally lost my spark. Now, I don’t know if you all have met me, for those of you who met me, you know, I’m a little sunshiny on a rainy day. So you can imagine when there’s a cloud on top of my head, how I might feel. So if you are sitting in the leadership seat right now, whether you have the title, you’re you have a seat in front of your name, your VP, your national director, your Regional Director, if you have a leadership position right now, and there is a cloud hanging over your head, I just want you to drop a one in the chat, just drop a one in the chat because I know I’m not alone. This happens to us a lot. And so what does it mean, for your mission? For your team, for your family for you, when you lose your spark? What is it saying when that happens to you? What are we looking at when you’re losing your spark? And I think we don’t stop to ask ourselves some of these questions, because we are afraid of what the answer might actually be. And listen, y’all I’m here to tell you that we can run by fear. But we don’t want to be led by fear anymore. Because when we are it does not allow us to be our most powerful self. And that’s really important to me. And so I want to talk a little bit about this spark. So listen, y’all, it’s time to rethink the way you do everything. Okay? I want you to say, oh, god kiss, you know, I just got all this information today and action packed. And Mallory just asked us what do you learn, and there’s so much information from the folks who are speaking today, that you can rattle this off until the cows come home. But right now, I want you to think rethink how you do everything in your life, because this is gonna allow you to make space for the spark. All right, I’m checking in making sure I’m good. We’re good on sound we’re gonna do so let me talk about my spark framework. Whoop. Listen, how many of us love a good framework, we love a good acronym, something needs to stand for something, I cannot be the only one who loves a good a good framework. So what is the spark framework? So when I thought about how to put together a framework, I thought to myself, let me do something that’s not going to drive me crazy, that I can remember and that I can jump into with my team, and I can get my team to rally behind and get myself to rally behind. So first, let’s talk about the s in Spark. I want us to think about how we share information. Many of us have learned the hard way all that in order for us to keep our jobs and to keep and to be to stay relevant, that we have to hoard information. Now I know that’s not anybody in here, but drop some eyes for me in the chat if you know somebody who hoards information. So as a leader, when we hoard information, what it does is it puts the weight of the world on us. It is an anvil on our shoulders. We feel heavy, our back hurts. Time is moving at a snail’s pace. And yet, what you end up hearing externally is, if I’m not there to do it, then who will? Oh y’all, if I’m not involved, who will be oops, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done. Hold on. Wait a minute, stop. The reason that sharing information is the big S in getting your spark back is because when you allow yourself to let others into the work you’re doing to show the humanity in yourself, folks actually kind of lean in and go okay, you’re not a robot. Okay, I’ve got this, maybe you need some help, and you allow for ideas and for sharing. Now, this is not rocket science, my friends, but the fact of the matter is many of us just skip it all together. Okay. So then I want you to think about the P, which is playing to your strengths. Now. Um, I might be a little biased. I am a Clifton Strengths coach. But I want you to know y’all. In my second Chief Development Officer role when I was in my late 20s, I went to a conference just like this one in person. And there was one session, and the professor who led this session named it finding your freak within

it, I said it was a fundraising conference, y’all. And so I, of course, mosey on over because I wanted to see what was this all about? And how did it make it to this conference. And what he talked about for that entire time was essentially, you’ve got to figure out what makes you you. And so he gave the example of all his life getting in trouble for standing up talking loud and using his hands, right? I’m a definitely a jazz hands, were my jazz hands, put some hands in the chat. If you’re a jazz hands, too. I talk with my hands. And so then what he said is, oh, my gosh, but now I get paid to use JSF. And to stand up and talk. Those are my strengths. And so as a leader within your organization, do you actually use your strengths? Are are you limping along in the weakness Wonderland. The reason playing to your strengths gives you that spark is because once you’re honest, first with yourself, then with your team, about what you’re really good at. You allow other space to help you manage through the things that you are not good at your weaknesses are a roadblock to you being successful. But the answer to that is not to work on your weaknesses friend, just like if you came to a detour in the road, you would pull up ways pull up the GPS and go, Okay, get me out of this thing. That’s how you dial up your strengths. Okay, hold on, get me out of this thing. And so learning about your strengths, and playing to those strengths are a critical component to having that spark. The next thing I want y’all to talk to think about is asking for input and appreciating different ideas. Now, I’m going to talk to my assistants, my associates, my directors, I know I’m sure I have a couple of interns on I want to talk to folks who have to report two and three and four up. How many times have you watched a situation in your organization happen over and over and over again, and you keep raising your hand and you keep saying but Hello, but I have an idea. But Hello. And then so finally you give up? Because you’re like, I can’t be heard. Then on the flip side, when I talk to executive leaders, you know what they tell me all they say, I don’t get any input. I don’t understand why I do everything myself. I don’t understand why anybody, nobody has any good ideas. If you were in the room, when I was having some of those conversations, if you’re a fly on the wall, you will be rolling your eyes because you’re like, hello, clearly, you are not dialed in, and you’re not paying attention. So in order to have that a in Spark, you’ve got to ask for input. And you have to name for your team. This is what input does. In my decision making. This is the place that it holds. And so what you’re looking for as input, so you can recognize some themes that you’ve got a name that, you’ve got to say when I asked for input, what I’m really looking for is x because I have these particular decisions to make. Oftentimes, as leaders, we do not tell our team members why we’re doing the things we do. So if you have any questions so far, just drop them in the chat because as I move along through the last couple, I’m actually going to leave some time for us to just talk. Okay, so I want to make sure that we have time for that different kinds of keynote. Okay, we are having an afternoon conversation. And then I want you all to appreciate different ideas. The thing that bugs me the most is that when I see organizations in the same city for 56789 10 organizations doing almost the same thing, I think to myself, before the the newest organization launched, did they do any research to see the other nine organizations? Because when we keep doing the same thing over and over again, where is the innovation in that? And so as a leader appreciating different ideas, and your organization encourages growth and innovation and the iteration of the activation of your mission, by the talent you have so that you don’t have Kathy leaving your organization because she is sick and tired of your mess to go start a similar organization down the street and then have to go through the process of building an organization again, if can be felt like you were listening, and that her ideas were appreciated, and that she could bring that to the table. Hello, y’all. That’s one of the keys of engagement. So as a leader, are you creating space for your team to engage with you, because that engagement is going to keep you energized. So that’s our ED, you have to wait me, we’re gonna take a commercial break, I want to know where you’re at, on a scale of one to five, where five is like Kesh, my spark is on fire, you don’t even have to tell me r and k, I’ve got it. And if you’re a one you like cash is raining over here, tell me something, I need that R, I need that K. Because you want to keep going, I want to see what y’all thinking about in the chat. Give me the information. And if you want to know more about how I do this, y’all see them I have this commercial makeup, stay connected with me, because using the tools that you are getting today in this conference are critical to being able to have the operational policies, procedures and practices to run your nonprofit organization to ensure that your donors and your prospects have a good experience, but to ensure that your team members have a good experience. Okay, I see we’re ready for the are ready for the arm. So then I want you to recognize and respond to individual needs. Why is it that we think that we do not have the capacity to be able to have one on ones with our teams? This is a question. Not rhetorical, y’all. The reason I asked this question is because when I go into organizations to do coaching, and I go into run retreats, facilitate conversations, you know what my team members tell me, they say, I haven’t had a check in with my manager in weeks, or it gets canceled five minutes before, or they never seem to have time for me, or I know they’re busy, and they’re on the road. But I don’t understand why I can’t connect to them. I don’t know them, and they don’t know me.

When you have that kind of disconnect, what ends up happening is that you end up believing whether you say it explicitly, or you believe it implicitly, that people should be here because they love the mission. I ah, everybody doesn’t love the mission, the way you love it, particularly for my founders, okay. Some folks love their work. They like the function that they do. They’re interested invested in how they maintain the CRM, they’re interested in invested in how they’re able to go out into communicate with donors and have great stewardship opportunities, because they have the data and the information at their fingertips to do so. They’re excited about launching a monthly giving program, because they’re able to do that with ease. They’re not necessarily excited about your mission. And that UI is okay. Somebody say ouch. Because I know somebody is gonna say to me, because China, I don’t even know what to do with that. I don’t even know what to do with that. And I want you to know, that’s a whole nother keynote. But that is part of recognizing and responding to individual needs, understanding how your team members are showing up, what is motivating them in this season, to be able to do their jobs with excellence, to bring that part of themselves to work that shows up and shows out, I want you all to be thinking about that, as we continue on, because I’m going to be ready for some questions I want you to recognize and respond to individual needs. Here’s a cheat code for you before I move on my friends. One of the things that I do, and I’ve done it since the beginning of my career, I do it at management now. It’s something I believe very deeply, and it didn’t save my marriage. But I want you to know, it has worked on every team that I’ve had over the last 23 years. And that is The Five Love Languages. So there’s a lot of different iterations of this particular book. And there are lots of different types of books that talk about how teams come together. But one of the things that I have learned is books aside, frameworks aside, whatever, you know, we’re in the business of my friends, we are in the business of relationships. I said it. Some of us are not in a good relationship. Some of us are the person who needs to get out. Some of us are the person that are causing the pain. I’m looking at you and if it’s you come in and lean in. I want you to know that you can turn that around right now. By recognizing where you are in this season. What is weighing you down? Where are you finding joy? That’s work is about joy. It’s about finding the goodness in what you’re doing. Where are you seeking that? How are you finding that, that’s something that’s really important as you think about how to get that spark. So for those of you who are like kushana, I’m not in the C suite. I’m not, I’m not at the top. I’m not the leadership. That’s okay, you get to lead up, which to me is a gift. That means you have more time to learn how to read the room, to learn how to understand people’s desires, motivations, their need, what drives them. We do that when we’re talking with our donors, we do that when we’re communicating whether it’s digitally or in person, we figure out how to get to the heart of what people need to activate them. And then y’all, we come back to our workplace, and we forget it, we should get on with it. But Hello, my friends, we are still people. And we’ve got to remember as leaders, that if we don’t recognize what season we’re in, and where we’re at, and where our teams are at, if we’re not paying attention. If you’re not walking the digital halls of your organization, for those of you who are completely remote, if you’re not participating in activities as a leader, for those of y’all who are in hybrid, if you haven’t stopped by someone’s desk, if you haven’t left a note on someone’s desk, if you haven’t left a flower, if you haven’t said Good job to someone recently, as a leader in your organization, how will you know when there’s a shift in the wind of your organization? And then lastly, oh, I know somebody’s gonna say out to me. I need us to keep our commitments. And the reason I changed from keep your commitments to keep our commitments because I had to talk to myself, friends, I am a recovering people pleaser. How many people please do I have in the chat, just drop it in the chat for me just drop it in the chat list. Okay, we are all friends now. Okay. And you we have a support group in the chat right now for the things we’re doing. So if you’re a high achiever notes, I’d say overachiever. If you’re a high achiever, if you’re prone to perfectionism, if you’re prone to procrastination, because of it, if you’re like, oh, my gosh, I will burn myself to the quick in order to get something done for somebody else, but I won’t even do it for myself, I need you to drop some eyes in the chat. We got a support group going. So I’m in that group with you. And I had to get literally, I had to get checked by my team recently, who said to me kushana, I know you mean, well. But you promised us this thing here. And you keep falling short. Yeah, what do you think I said, I know somebody’s gonna get into challenges. So it starts with oh, I sent out books, I felt my edges go away. Yeah, they got snatched, because I was left bear with my team. But what happened was, I was running out of energy. So my spark was Dimon. And I thought to myself, they’ll be okay, it’d be fine. I’m not gonna worry about them right now. And that was not the right attitude to have. And so for me, it’s really important to make sure that before you say, you’re going to commit to something that you really try and just assess, even if it’s quickly, what is going to be the impact that you’re having on your team. Because the guilt of making commitments, but not being able to keep them. One, it erodes your credibility, to it makes you less likely to be vulnerable. Particularly if you haven’t been particularly if you come from the type of work environment, you’re like, I gotta see why a and that’s what I got. It is hard for us to be able to keep our commitments, and do it in a way that does not wear us out. Because many of us are burnt out, we are tired. You might be saying kushana I wish I had an eighth of your energy. Or you might be saying hell, I could have had a VA, we are not focused on the things that allow us to be in a space to keep our commitments. And so because I believe that so deeply, I’m going to stop the slides really quick. I’m gonna come right back to them. But I want to just talk to everybody okay, I want to talk to everybody and then I’m gonna come back in and so now when Ooh, time is Tammy said never over promise and under deliver the quickest way to lose trust with team members and donors talk to me. Okay. I see Listen, Ruby, say amen. I really, the recording really juicy okay. I really feel like a lot of times when we get into this work How many of us slipped and fell on the kitchen floor and started raising money? Who’s Who’s Who’s like that would be? Am I the only one? I can’t be the only one. We just slipped and fell. Next year we’re raising money or like, how did you get here? Okay, we were singing that song. And then some of us chose it, which is amazing. I want to be the folks that have chosen this. What I did at the time, Emma, we young 20s. Okay. I thought I was going to be a trailing spouse, y’all. I just knew I was going to be traps in all over the world with my then husband. And so I thought to myself, I stopped working on Wall Street. What’s a career that I can have? Look, y’all let y’all in on a secret? That’s easy. And I can do anywhere in the world. Y’all. Can you believe I said that raising money was easy. I thought it was going to be what Tammy said, easy. Hold on. Kayla says, um, excuse me, excuse me. Hello, excuse me. i Oh, Megan went from a dancing costume character to a fundraiser, listen. And yet, Danica says and yet the hardest and most challenging work that I have done in my career outside of being somebody’s mama. And keeping that Baby Alive is around helping people to understand how to invest where they live, and where they work. I don’t know what it is about that. But folks get very confused. You know, we and then they have to be convinced, which really isn’t the thing. And so until I learned how to help folks see their way to investing into where they live in work. It wasn’t easy. And so what do you think I got along the way, y’all I got lumps and bumps and bumps and lumps. And it was a hot patootie mess. So clearly, I was one of those individuals that came out of the corporate environment that says, You know what I want to do, I am going to fundraise because it’s easy. I’m gonna work for nonprofits so I can rest.

I hope that the person who interviewed me laughed in the face of that foolishness. Just like we’ve heard people say they know who said they slipped and fell. And 14 years later, they hear Yeah, Diana said that. But can you imagine, oh, I’m gonna go work for a nonprofit organization. It’s gonna be easy. Facebook, Inc. No. So the reality is, I have to keep coming back to myself to come back to that reservoir. My challenge was, I’m using a boxing matches that don’t have the little, the little charcoal at the end. I’m just striking what I would. And I wasn’t making any fire, there was no spark. By the time I realized that there was no spark in what I was doing. It was literally my body, the one vessel that we have said, Oh, you don’t want to sit down? No problem. I’ll sit you down. Oh, you don’t want to rest so you can get your spark back? Not a problem. I’ll take away all your matches. Oh, you want to give your time to you don’t want to give yourself time to rejuvenate No problem. I’ll make you so ill that you’ll be praying for life. Friends, why do we not listen to that internal alarm that starts off slow, you know, for those of you who have iPhones, and you know, there’s an alarm in the morning time that can wake you up. And it sounds like a symphony orchestra. And it starts slow, and it moves up in time. And it’s so good, as opposed to the thing that I woke up to as a kid which was my mom busting down the door telling me breakfast was ready. So until my body started beating down the door get up. I did not understand I couldn’t even see that I had lost my spark. How many of you have lost your spark and it showed up in your work? We will have some more friends here and you had to get it together. How many of you might have been quit fired because you just you just ran out? And or as an organization, we did not provide opportunities for restoration for our team members. When it’s free to do so just to be clear that as a leader in order for you to continue to have the spark you’ve got to be inspired and typically it is not by the mission itself. It is by the people who activate amplify and accelerate mission. Colleen says burnout is real healthy orcs are rare. Let’s see the health we need to see. Oh, Christina, thank goodness I am finding it back and this conference is hell come on pom pom pom pom. So I’m going to talk to you about ways I did that. But let me take a quick pause. And let me go to the q&a and see what we have for questions. Okay, I’m gonna see if y’all gave me some hard ones. Ooh, hold on, hold on. Okay, question one, okay, have an anonymous user. As a member of a small fundraising agency, I find everyone at all levels have to show leadership. What are some ways lower rung staff members can contribute to the spark concepts in our orgs. Love that. So I am a believer of leading where you are. One of the things that I teach my team, they do this now, every team I’ve ever run, and that I work with clients to do is to learn something that may be an unpopular opinion. But let me tell you something that $100 million. And, and and continuing with small organizations, I might know a thing or two about what I’m about to say next. And that is, your job is to make your manager’s job. Easy. That’s it. I don’t care if your job description has three pages, nine pages, 37 pages, 245 360 degree check marks to do lists, y’all. That’s it. That’s the job. And when we get it in our head, that that actually is the job, guess what happens? All of a sudden, the world opens up, creativity opens up, innovation opens up, we are starting to think about things. Not as working harder. Like Tammy said, I agree with that, Tammy, but trying to work smarter. That’s an opportunity to read people that’s an opportunity to anticipate needs. It’s a pain in the butt. But let me tell you what, y’all what did I say at the beginning of my talk, we are in the business of what it starts with our we’re in the business of let’s see if it comes into chat. First person in chat, let me see it. We are in the business of Yes, relationships. Thanks very first want to knit relationships? Come on Carson, relationships carry relationships. I’m gonna keep saying it over and over again. I’m sure him to go I think I said that. Right? We’re gonna say it until I have no more breath. Okay. So one of the things I had to learn because I moved into the C suite pretty early, till a couple of years out of grad school, I think I was 22 when I took my first director role, and in my 25 years, the chief development officer, so I moved pretty quickly. And so I had to catch up to my learning. And then it allowed me an opportunity to understand how my team members in different positions were feeling. And so when you are in a position in your organization that doesn’t have leadership by title, I want you to think about how can I lean into my talents, things that come easy to me, are valuable, and we get compensated for and not as much as how can I increase my skills, which are things we learn and then we’re typically concert compensated for it. I think when you do that, it is a lot easier to glean what you need and then to move on. One who will Oh my managers in the chat I want all of my people managers in the chat to give me a plus one because I’m going to answer the next question but I want to see where a while I’m working with where all my people leaders. Let me see one in the chat. Let me see one in the chat. One in the chat. Okay, we’re coming in. Come on God. Come on Patrick. commotion and Jenny moron. Megan, let’s go. I see my manager in the chat. Come on the Bonica. Marlene, let’s go. Come on. Amanda and Richard. So we are people managers. 70% of your team success is on your shoulders. Yeah, hear me 70% When employees are take surveys on employee engagement, and my seen and is my work valued at work? Do I have a best friend? Does my manager understand me? Do I have the resources I need to be able to do my job? Well. All of that are things that you as a people manager can help to foster and to create. And so can you imagine y’all, we did this whole job search this whole search for new position. We interviewed 27,245 candidates in a six step process and they did exercises and they come into the organization and you think who finally I’m going to be able to what, get some stuff off my plate. Now Kachina comes to tell me that I 70% of their success is still on me. I’m exhausted, I gotta go. But it’s the truth of where we are, which is why it’s so important, as a leader to be able to first pour into yourself and then pour into your team from the overflow. I’m still here, y’all. I’m not sure why my camera went out but I’m here. I think I might say Oh, I got something. I must have touched something young. Give me one second. Okay, that came well, I don’t know. Okay. Something happened and my camera ran out, but I’m good. So this is one of the things that I want us to be thinking about as we go. As we kind of lean into where we’re at as an organization. Let me go to the next question. Okay. Okay, so I like this one might be a comment my supervisor moves very quickly to but she is often quick to jump to conclusions in conversation. And it’s often multitasking Lord, hoo, doo doo doo doo. When I tell you, I understand multitasking, making it hard for her to truly be present in our conversations, how do I bring these things to her attention without offending her? Friends, let me tell you, we’ve been all guilty, we have been all guilty of it, we’re just trying to get something done. And then we start to see working alongside our teams and check ins as a nuisance, as opposed to a gift. Your job as a manager, is to make sure that when your team member moves on, because I want my team members to move on, I want them to move up to Director development to VPS to chiefs, I want them to move wherever their heart’s desire, your job is to ensure that they are healthy. And how you ensure they’re healthy is by taking a pause to check in. So I would say to you to say to your manager, Francis, I really enjoy our time together. But I realized that when we have our check ins, that you have a lot going on, what time of day would be better for you to be for us to connect without distraction. I want to be able to have that one on one time, even if it’s just for 30 minutes, what can we commit to together?

In and so I want to make sure that that is something that we all kind of think about name the thing. Notice, I didn’t say anything about Francis, I just named here’s what’s happening. What can we do together to get a different result. And I think if you try that, your manager might go oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Or I just really Oh, wow, I didn’t even realize I mean this. And your thing is I say hey, it’s totally fine. I just want to work alongside you, ooh, gotta kill, you took the words right out of my mouth. I had a team member who was a runner. And she would fidget in our team meetings in the office. And so I realized she needs to get out of the office, and we got to go walking. So we did all of our check ins on a walk. So we did a two mile walk. And in that two miles, one mile, one mile down back to the office, we were able to have a conversation and get some fresh air I got to hear about her life, she got to talk me through what she was, because she’s not looking at her paper, and you should glance at our phone for her our agenda. But because she’s not looking at the paper, she’s not doing one of these numbers trying to rush. And I don’t want to know her ticker tape of activities. Put that thing in writing. And let me read it later. Okay, but I want to know how as your manager, can I help you move things along, some of us do not have the spark anymore, because we are caught up in the drudgery of the to do list as opposed to freeing ourselves from it, and giving our team members the space to figure out the how we don’t need to dictate how we’ve hired professionals. So once you give somebody the job, you have signaled to them, you know what you’re doing. I don’t care where they are on the hierarchy. And so, oh, I love that Aaron, there has to be somebody else’s between managers and those that you manage. When you give me the tools to do my job, well, it makes your job easier, boom. So if my job as your team members to make your job easier, and your job is to make your managers easy, and then the chief is to make the CEOs job easier, and so forth, and so on, that I have a responsibility. My reciprocity, is to give you the tools to do so. And so I think that that to me, if you want to take that as some sample language, let me know how that goes. Make sure you drop me a note. I’ll make sure my info is up before we get off the line so that you can do that. Okay, let me see. I’m gonna see what the up boats are. Three boats holding, I’m just reading through. Okay, I love this one. My supervisor moves very quickly, but to but she is often quick to jump to conclusions and conversations and is often multitasking. Okay, so that’s the same one here. Let me talk about that first part about the multitasking and jumping to conclusions. I wonder if her brain is just on 1000. And so the question I would want you to ask her is, how can I give you information in a way that is digestible enough for us to focus on moving this body of work forward? Because that is that kind of response. She may be in a kind of perpetual stress cycle. And it’s not your job to alleviate her stress. But you can lean in, in the spirit of building collegial relationships, and say, I want to be helpful, but I don’t feel like I have space to be helpful. So what can I do? What do you need from me? What can I take off your plate? What can I put on your plate so that you have space? And therefore you’re able to be more plugged in with me? So that’s one of the ways I would I would talk about that. Okay, let me see what else we have on. Yes, presentation is available. Oh, okay. Here we have another one that it won’t get done. If I don’t do it is hard to abandon with a team of five people? Do you have recommendations for how to lessen that burden on a skeleton crew? So I would say five people is not a skeleton crew, I bet money you have too many goals. So here’s what I’ve learned over my 20 something years, y’all. As adult learners, we learn three to five things, it’s what we can memorize, I stick with three, because you know, sometimes between the bifocals and hear me, okay? So if my team can’t off the top of their head, tell me what our goals are, and why we have too many. If I got to look at a paper to tell you what my priorities are, either the priorities aren’t clear, or they’re too many. So I want you to first work with your team together and get laser focused on what is a must do? What is it would be nice to do and what we’re not gonna do. Okay, just as colloquial is that, what are we leaving off? What are we putting on pause or slow down? And what are we getting in the HOV lane to do and let your team tell you what that is, take a load off, you don’t have to make all the decisions and then prioritize. If we knock over these dominoes, we might get to these results. Talk with your team about that, bring them into the conversation name for them. I feel like I’ve had the experience that when we have lots of things to do that I ended up taking on a large portion of that work, and it is lonely. And I’m wondering if there’s another way for us to go about this so that we can redistribute the load so that everybody gets at least 70% of what they’re designed to do. The other 35 30% Okay, we got to figure this out. Try that. And let me know how that goes. I have found oftentimes, team members just want to be a part of the decision making. And if you have a multigenerational team, the way you get your spark is allowing your newer team members who may come from like, you know, they might have their master’s in nonprofit management. And they may have their bachelor’s we didn’t learn about that didn’t have that when I was graduating from business school. Allow them to bring in some of that new theory. Allow them to bring in some of those new ideas, allow them to fail fast and get up to have to walk you through their thinking so that you can start to get that creative juice back into your bones. To keep working on it. Let me see what the chat says. Oh, Brianne says You are so lucky to have five team members. Hello, really good one. Okay. I’m gonna go back to the questions and keep dropping the questions. And y’all we have about 10 more minutes. And I want to get to as many of them Oh, okay, we have a compliment, that I want to read that what I love about my supervisor is that she is very cognizant of her staff, emotional states, we have an intertwined relationship out of necessity, and she alerts me to times when I need to step back, take a day off or just talk when I might feel fine. A little checking goes a long way. I wonder if she’s heard me speak before. Listen, y’all. I am known for telling my team members to take a day off, don’t come back. I had team members who have creative pursuits. So when you work with me at management, and when you work on any team I’ve ever led. If you did not have an outside pursuit, we had to have a talk. You might say why Kish because I’m a recovering workaholic. And I do not want to encourage that kind of behavior. Because if I don’t put that boundary in place for myself, and that guardrail for my team, I become resentful of any team member. That doesn’t work the way I work. So I’m working until three o’clock in the morning. I’m the one who stayed up all times in a day and night. I’m the one who’s doing all these things, but I’m resenting you for having the nerve to take care of yourself. So that is something that I want y’all to be really thinking about, as we think about like, how do you really lean into ensuring that you have the spark that your team members have the spark? Now have you noticed when you ever see a good good western movie or something where they’re going to light the dynamite and the dynamite goes for a long period of time friends, right? And then it goes kaboom.

I want that kaboom to happen not because you’ve blown up from exhaustion, but because we are ignited, we are sparked, to be able to do things differently. We have access to all of this technology. We have access to tools to AI tools, the things that can speed up our work that can make things simpler for us. But we got to slow down to learn it. And trust that that slowdown is like when you are seeing NASCAR races and they’re doing that fight Indy 500 and it’s going and it’s going and it’s going even the most Tip Top racecar drivers have to pull into the pit. get the tires changed, get their water figured out, make sure the car is good and then jump back on. So I want you to see leveraging DonorPerfect software, I want you to see leveraging tools I want you to see leveraging those things as opportunities to pull into the pitstop make sure everything is working, and then pull back out. Because when you pull back out and you take off, guess what happens y’all that spark Whoa. So sometimes we have to slow down to speed up. Okay, I’m going back into the questions because I see the comments. But yes, Tammy, I love that recalibration is vital for reigniting that spark love, love, love, love, love that. And I love that I see Colleen said exampling healthy boundaries, allows our team to follow suit. Love that. Friends. Boundaries are an invitation for how people can treat you for how they get to be in community with you. If you’ve ever gotten invited to a wedding, on it says black tie, or my say created by tie black tie optional casual dinner starts at six. We’re only going to have a cash bar, open bar, whatever we know what the specs are before we are a guest. So when you put boundaries in place, that’s the invitation you are sending out for how folks are going to engage during the event. Then guardrails are the things that you put in place for your team and for our executive directors and CEOs on the line for your organization. Think about those guardrails? Actually, I’ve said this before, it’s one of my favorite analogies. Like when you go learn bowling, I was a whole wrong woman, y’all before I realized that you could put up guardrails, his bumper rails at the bowling alley, okay. The purpose of the guard was a bumper Rails is for that no matter how the ball hits, it’s still gonna knock down some pins. So what policies, procedures and practices do you have in your organization? That no matter what the bounce is, we hit gold. We don’t burn out our people to get to the outcome. We make sure we take care of our people. Here’s how we might not have all of the financial resources we need. But here are the ways that we help to create better lives for our team members. What are the guardrails we’re putting in place to ensure we get to success? So we’re not leaving our team members out on their own? If you’re with me, just give me a give me a thumbs up in the chat. Let me just use these emojis. If you want me give me a thumbs up in the chat. Give me a thumbs up in the chat. I want to make sure my folks are paying attention. Give me a thumbs up in the chat. Yes, I see them coming in. Come on, Ben. Come on. Marlene, these are my regulars. Come on. Natalie. Come on, Donna. Let’s see some new folks. Come on. Michelle. Come on. Erin. Come on. Amy. Come on. Melanie Marijana. Megan, Vicki. Alicia. Come on. Whitney, come on. Kelly this go Tammy. That’s my regular. Come on. Julia. Come on, Amanda. Y’all see I’m going here. I want y’all to make sure that you are energized from the opportunity to share the load. That instead of looking at it with dread, trust yourself that you hired the right people. And if you didn’t release those people with joy, make sure they’re good. And then find the folks that are actually supposed to work alongside you. Be honest about how you are showing up in this season. Name it if all of a sudden you are a caregiver for your parents, and also for your kids. You are sandwiched in and stressed out. Name that for your team. Let them know if I’m short on Fridays because I take my mama to dialysis and she gets on my nerves. Name what’s happening so people can support you so that they can go Oh, yeah, okay, what do you need? Okay, so no meetings, no emergencies. No. Got you got you covered. That’s part of how we get that spark. If for those people who you know you’ve smoked a time or two if you lit a match you alighting the outside candle from mosquitos, okay, you got to cover the flame in order for the spark from the light I’d like to go off. How are you covered? So that you can get that spark going? How are you covering your team so that you can get that spark going? Okay, I have one more question I think I can answer before I wrap up. All right, let’s see. Okay, I went from helping an org helping children to an org that helps in health care. I move cities hence why the change? How do I ignite the spark when I’m more experienced in a particular niche, helping children in various forms, and not as familiar with my current niche philanthropy and health. Okay, here’s the sauce that has worked for me and the teams that I have run and how I coach my clients. I want folks to fall in love with your function. Do you like what you do? If you don’t love major gifts, I don’t care if you work for the mission of your dreams, or you have to go someplace because you got to feed your family, you are not going to enjoy your work. But if you love accounts payable, or if databases are your jam, they sing to you they have songs in them that make it happen. You can see the storytelling in the data. If monthly giving it your whole heart running, and you get your blood flowing. It really doesn’t matter all the way that that mission hasn’t hit you in the heart yet. It’ll take some time you’ll find go out programmatically get with what you will find, get in the work, you’ll find something that makes your heartbeat speed up. But first, you’ve got to make sure that you have your heart beating for your functional role. And how many of y’all can identify with that you’re like when I like my actual job, okay, I can get with it. But if I don’t like my job, I don’t care what the mission is. I’m only gonna be here for as long as it takes for me to get another job. Okay, that’s when we start working for the paycheck. And we already know what that looks like. Okay, friends, I am coming down to the last two minutes, I want to make sure that I share screen with you one more time so we can make sure we stay connected. And so you’ll see this with me in one second, I’m gonna be back up. I know y’all can see me twice. Okay, so I want to make sure that as we think about, okay, I’m sure now, as we think about what’s next, for those of you who are like kushana, I really want to know more about how to really manage up, I have something for you for that. First, I want to clue you all into the books that I love and read, I have a massive book list, I want you to check it out everything from life, to psychology, to theology, to restoration, to revolution, to relationships that allow me to be able to have an expansive experience when I am raising money. But if you want to know tactical things, specifically, around managing, managing across, I’m having to invite people to find happiness, other places, figuring out how to build trust in your team that I want you to take a look at all the free videos I have on YouTube, because they’ll be able to help you in getting started. And if you need us to come in and do more with you, because you’re like God, this was a bite, but I need so I need some more than looks at us for compassionate coaching for strategic consulting, facilitated learning experiences, we normally talk about training, we want to give you a learning experience and restorative retreats. And I want to make sure that everybody is connected. And so I’m kushana Palmer on every platform. If you’re hanging out with me on LinkedIn, that’s mostly the business if you hang out with me on Instagram, that’s my daily life, y’all. And it’s jokes over there. And on Facebook same and on YouTube. It’s all about learning. So I wanted to make sure I gave that to y’all. I want to thank you all so much. I’m gonna stop sharing so I can see you again. Thank you all so much for having me for allowing me to come into your space. I want you to know that you have everything you need to be successful in your work that the spark already is in you and you just need that little that covering to light it up. So let’s light it up y’all. Mallory, I’m back. I’m done my friend.

Oh my gosh. Like I said, Kish is gonna bring the house down. I love seeing all the claps give love to our girl because Shawna Wow, yes. Wow. Amazing. Thank you all of the things y’all. Thank you guys so much for being here till the very end with us today. What an incredible day ended with the one and only kushana Palmer before you go do not forget that everything starts tomorrow with Lauren she had at 10:30am eastern standard time the President of DonorPerfect is going to open up day two with sparkling connection and efficiency with DonorPerfect followed by DonorPerfect expert trainers who would navigating you through DonorPerfect with a lot of amazing session topics. There is so much more good Nunez, I will be here with them all day tomorrow, jumping into the chat learning right alongside of you. Do not forget to put demo in the chat if you want a little bit of one on one action there as well. This has been the most incredible date Kish thank you for all of your wisdom. I’m like over here with my computer like taking notes and you’re like, oh, yeah, and I gotta do this thing, and I gotta do

it with you all the time. I’m like Mallory’s like I’m like Paul. So we’re gonna do Brent, you are the one who is listening. I’ll tell you all the secret. Mallory just finished writing her book she turned hers in mine is due in in 10 days, I look at the calendar. Oh my gosh. And one of the things I happen to know I said, let me go look at a PhD in organizational psychology because my friend Mary over here is the number one genius when it comes to the brain and how we raise money and she not gonna show me up when I looked at how long it was gonna take to get what and I said you know what, let my experiential experience like that experience experience, let it lead me into what I do. But I want to thank you friend for being bold for actually bringing in a new way of thinking about how we raise money and for supporting me and talking about how we can be well in our life in order to be well and to lead well in our organizations. I cannot do this without you and thank you to the DonorPerfect team for allowing me to share space with your community today. And I mean, you know, it almost made me itchy to get back in I just want you to know just a little bit

oh my gosh, well okay, I know folks have to go so I want to say goodbye but this was amazing because Sean his book is coming out this fall as well. So you all like put some alerts in your calendar because you’re gonna be buying some books. And yeah, and Kish Thanks for always like setting the bar so high, both for like how we lead inside our organizations, how we show up in community with each other. And y’all I hope you’re taking notes on like energy and public speaking because this was a masterclass in that too, as usual. So thank you so much. Thank you to all of you for being here with us. What a love fest and we’ll see all bright and early tomorrow.