Nonprofit Build Up® Podcast

In this week’s episode of Nonprofit Build Up, “Re-envisioning the Way We Work in the Nonprofit Sector,” Nic speaks with Cassie Haynes, former Co-Executive Director and Co Founder of Resolve Philly, and Jean Friedman- Rudovsky, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Resolve Philly, whose work centers on improving how misrepresented communities are covered by the media. In this episode, Nic, Cassie, and Jean discuss Resolve Philly’s work, the impetus for why the organization was created, essential changes to help the nonprofit sector evolve, and the power of people-centered infrastructure in the sector.

Listen to Part One:

Listen to Part Two:

Resources:

Modifier

“Rest is Resistance” by Tricia Hersey

“Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman

Cassie Haynes, J.D., M.P.H. is an award-winning civic leader and social entrepreneur. Most recently she served as Co-Executive Director of Resolve Philly, a globally-recognized nonprofit organization fostering collaboration and innovation in journalism. With a passion for social impact and amplifying excluded voices, Haynes, also a co-founder of the organization, transformed local news through creative initiatives that bridge the gap between journalists and marginalized communities. A former community development executive with the City of Philadelphia, Haynes holds degrees in classical theater, public health, and law, driving her work to redefine the relationship between social policy and storytelling. Her exceptional leadership and fundraising skills, in addition to her strategic visioning and experience building operational resilience, have garnered widespread recognition. She is a sought-after speaker and consultant and a well-respected thought leader in community development and news media spaces across the country.

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky is Resolveʼs Executive Director and a Philadelphia native who believes strongly in journalismʼs vital role in creating an equitable and just society. In 2018, she and Cassie Haynes co-founded Resolve Philly, a nonprofit newsroom breaking the mold for local news. Jean is an internationally recognized expert on collaborative journalism and a force for solutions journalism in Philadelphia and around the world.

Under her stewardship, Resolve has become one of the most highly regarded young news organizations in the nation. Resolve has also made its mark for its workplace culture that enables staff to show up as their whole selves, being named as a 2023 Best Workplace in by Philadelphia Business Journal. Jean and Cassie have received multiple awards for their co-leadership of Resolve, including the 2022 Al Dia Women of Merit for Non-Profit Leadership Award, the 2023 INN Service to Non-Profit News Award, and the 2023 Online News

Association (ONA) Impact Award. Prior to Resolve, Jean spent over a decade as an award-winning longform journalist reporting from dozens of countries and multiple continents. She has been published in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Vice, Cosmopolitan, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among others.

Read the podcast transcription below:

Episode 98 – Part 1:

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:08] Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies, and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:39] Nic Campbell: Jean and Cassie, I am so excited to welcome you to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

[0:00:49] Cassie Haynes: Thanks very much for having us.

[0:00:51] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: Yeah, it’s great to be here.

[0:00:53] Nic Campbell: Yes, I mentioned earlier, but I’m really looking forward to this conversation. To get us started, I would love to hear a little bit more about each of you and the work that you’re currently doing with Resolve Philly.

[0:01:06] Cassie Haynes: Why don’t you go ahead and start, Jean?

[0:01:09] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: All right, sounds good. I am Jean Friedman-Rudovsky. I am the Co-Founder and now Executive Director of Resolve Philly. I am from Philadelphia originally. I worked for many years as a freelance journalist, mainly reporting outside of the United States, particularly in Latin America and Southeast Asia, but have been back here since 2016. In 2018, Cassie and I Co-Founded Resolve.

Resolve is a unconventional newsroom. We like to think of ourselves as the local newsroom of the future that is designed for community impact. What that means is that our work really centers around three different streams, or three different pillars. One is community responsive and participatory journalism, so offering opportunities for people who are normally just the subject, or path of consumers of the news to get actively involved in the news-making process and making sure that reporting we do really responds to information needs of people on the ground.

The second part of our work is collaborative journalism. We bring together lots of local newsrooms all over Philadelphia to do reporting together, rather than in competition with one another, because we fundamentally believe that the best way to serve the public interest is by having various people in the journalism sector working together, instead of against one another.

The third part is really thinking about how to bridge the information divide and meeting people where they’re at with news and information, so not just putting reporting up on a website, or behind a paywall, but sending out news and information via text message, publishing community newsletters that we distribute all around the city. That’s the work that Cassie and I built over the last five years together.

[0:03:03] Cassie Haynes: Jean said that she’s now Executive Director. It’s because before, she was Co-Executive Director. We shared that executive leadership role for five years, until just a couple of months ago when I transitioned away from the organization. I’m taking a break right now. I’m resting. I am supporting some other clients in the nonprofit news space and not rushing into anything just yet. That’s what I’m doing. I remain a thought partner to Jean and a very enthusiastic cheerleader for Resolve and all of the work. Obviously, it is like a child to me. We’re still navigating what my relationship to the organization looks like, other than cheerleading and supporting from Michigan, which is where I live now.

[0:04:05] Nic Campbell: Great. Thank you both so much. I have some questions that I want to dig into based on what you just shared from each of you. For example, Cassie, when I hear a lot more about resting, just because that has come up when we’re thinking about the nonprofit sector and well-being, so I have some questions there. Before I turn to that, I wanted to hear a little bit more about Resolve, and just why you decided to create it. Because Jean, you mentioned the three pillars of your work. When you were describing it, I thought, “Right. This is exactly what journalism should look like. This is what access should look like.” What didn’t exist that made you say, “We have to create Resolve”?

[0:04:56] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: Cass, you want to take that one?

[0:04:58] Cassie Haynes: Sure. I think, Jean and I came to Resolve from very different backgrounds. I guess, not very different. I’ll take away that on a fire. Jean had been a journalist reporting largely from the Global South for the majority of her career. I, at the time that we met, was working as the Deputy Executive Director of the City of Philadelphia’s agency tasked with eradicating poverty in our city. I mean, it was a really frustrating place to be. I think, without a background in journalism, I didn’t come to the organization to save journalism for journalism’s sake, but I came to co-found the organization with Jean with an understanding of the journalism and specifically collaborative journalism, and specifically collaborative journalism that is really driven by, with, for community members.

It is a powerful tool. A very powerful tool in creating the change that I started working for the City of Philadelphia to try to leverage and just wasn’t seeing the needle move. This felt like a real opportunity to roll up my sleeves and do something that I knew could move the needle.

[0:06:17] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I think I’ll just add to that by saying, Cassie mentioned doing this for communities, communities in Philadelphia. When we say that word, because I think that’s a word that’s thrown around a lot these days, certainly in the journalism field, and I think in the nonprofit space writ large, and of course, clearly we are on this show, because Resolve is a nonprofit. It is a 501(c)3. It is a nonprofit newsroom, which is a growing model in the journalism space, though still, certainly the minority in terms of the overall representation of how newsrooms are constructed.

When we talk about communities, we’re very clear within Resolve that what that means for us, our priority communities are those who have been long excluded by, or harmed by traditional media and narratives. That is obviously a large amount of people. There’s a lot of intersectionality that happens within those communities in the City of Philadelphia. We’re talking specifically about black and brown communities. I should also say, since we are on a podcast, I am white. Just want to put that out there when we’re talking about this work. Black and brown communities in Philadelphia. We’re talking about people who work low wage jobs. We’re talking about people in unsafe and unstable housing. That’s everyone from people within the reentry community, to women who are experiencing domestic violence, as well as the disabled community. Those are our priority communities in Philadelphia. Broadly, when we talk about that word, we’re talking about people who have been harmed by the way that journalism has happened starkly.

[0:07:55] Nic Campbell: Thank you for all of that. It’s really powerful, just thinking about why Resolve exists. Thank you for walking me through all of that. When you talked about the pillars, I wanted to get a better sense of how each of them shows up. You gave a really great description of each of the pillars. I just wanted to see, particularly around community responsive and participation journalism, what does that look like in practice?

[0:08:27] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: Yeah. I can give a couple examples and then Cass can add on. When we’re talking about community responsive journalism, what we mean by that is that reporting is happening that is for people, rather than about them, right? This is like, it’s a switching of two words, but it is a totally different piece, a totally different story reporting about, for example, someone’s first 24 hours after they are released from prison. We can all imagine that narrative.

A reporter from a traditional newsroom spends the first 24 hours either feeling, or alongside someone who has just been released, or that person is vividly recounting their story. That is about that person. It is for an audience who has never had that lived experience. If we think about what is the information, or what is the reporting that someone who has just been released from prison need to get ahead in their lives, to find stable footing, to find a place to sleep, to find clothes to be able to wear for job interviews that they want to go on, whatever it is, we’re talking about a very different set of stories. That’s an example of what we mean by community responsive journalism.

I should say that we also, at Resolve, we don’t presume to necessarily know what information folks need. We have a large community engagement team that spends its time building relationships with community organizations, primarily those who are led by people who have lived experience of the folks that they are serving, really soliciting and trying to understand what information do you need in your lives? How can we as reporters and as journalists provide that? It is a slow process. It is a process that is very time consuming and challenging at times. It’s very different than the way that journalism normally operates, which is editors and reporters sitting in the newsroom, deciding what they think people need to know.

[0:10:34] Cassie Haynes: I’ll add that, I mean, on the participatory side, there are so many examples in Resolve’s work. I want to give two specific ones. The Our Kids Vision Hub, Our Kids is a editorial project that’s led by Resolve’s Investigative Solutions Reporter, Steve Volk. It focuses on families in Philadelphia, the child welfare system and foster care. One really concrete example of this community participation, which is central to Resolve’s work is it’s more than an editorial advisory board. We named it a Vision Hub, and it is really made up of people in the community, who have lived experience within the foster care system in Philadelphia. That’s prioritizing foster parents, kids who have been in the foster system and biological parents and families that have their own experiences within the child welfare system.

This helps Steve with his storytelling. It helps Steve with his reporting. It also is an opportunity for folks to engage in non-editorial parts of the news process. That includes speaking places. It includes telling their own stories in first person. It includes connecting folks to opinion and editorial opportunities with Resolve’s other partner publications. There’s almost 30 of them across the city of Philadelphia. That’s a really specific way that people are participating, not just in the consumption of, but in all phases of the editorial process.

Resolve in the past, has also partnered with Community College of Philadelphia on training for citizen journalist, is one phrase that is commonly used, but really, residents across the community who are looking to build skills and tools to plug in better in more substantive ways to the local information ecosystem that is formal and informal mechanisms for delivering news and information.

[0:12:42] Nic Campbell: Thank you. I think that really resonates, just your way that you’re approaching this, because the word that keeps coming up for me as you are describing that is just authentic, right? Like you said, how do we make sure that the stories that are about historically marginalized communities are being told by historically marginalized communities, or informed by them? I really appreciate that.

You mentioned that Resolve is a nonprofit 501(c)3. When you think about the nonprofit sector and Resolve’s place in that sector, what do you think nonprofits could, or should be doing more of, or less of to strengthen the sector?

[0:13:32] Cassie Haynes: More of paying people family sustaining wages and offering competitive benefits. I think the industry as a whole, often uses its – the tax exam status is a justification, because your work is mission-driven. You’re doing it in part out of the goodness of your heart and therefore, we don’t pay. That’s damaging, especially because we know that this is a sector that is really representative of women and of women of color. I think that it’s important to acknowledge that it’s a sector that traditionally underpays. That’s important.

I think, when Jean and I first set out, we were really, really conscious of what that meant for our organization. We set a goal of a minimum salary of $70,000 by 2024. That was really intentional. The organization adds a new benefit to its benefit suite every single year. We founded this organization five years ago. I think, when you build in as a priority from the get go, solid benefits, aggressive pay that is reflective of the changing environment.

The pandemic happened midway through our short five-year history and that forced us to really think even more deeply about how we were supporting the people who were carrying out this important work. I think more of all of that. Resolve isn’t perfect, but the focus has been there since the beginning. I think the organization will always prioritize supporting its people, first and foremost.

[0:15:24] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: Yeah, I would, I mean, obviously agree with everything that Cassie said. To add on to that, I would say, more of facilitating work environments that allow people to show up as their whole selves. I think, this can happen in a number of ways. I think some of it is really rests on the backs of employers and executives to not just pay people well, but also, as Cassie said, have a whole suite of benefits that enable people, give people the flexibility that they need to be parents, or caretakers, or friends, or partners, whatever roles they play in their lives outside of the work that they do, having that not feel in fundamental conflict with their job obligations, which is I think how a lot of working adults feel and it’s the tragedy.

I think it happens a lot in nonprofits, in part, as Cass said, on this premise of, oh, but this martyrdom that happens and we need to work really, really long hours to demonstrate that we are so dedicated to this mission, that we deserve to be here and deserve to be doing this work. I think breaking away from that and going back to what Cassie said about her ability to take a rest right now and just prioritizing that for herself. I think all of us who are in leadership positions both need that rest and can also facilitate our colleagues and people on our team taking the rest that they need, so that they’re able to sustain the work in the long term.

[0:17:02] Nic Campbell: I agree with everything that you both have shared. A follow-up question I have is, if I am a leader of grassroots nonprofit organization and I’m listening to this and I completely agree with what you both have shared, but I’m looking at my budget. I’m looking at our needs as an organization, our funding and then we’ll get into just what we’re seeing on the funder side as well. What do you say to that leader who is saying, “We’re too small to be able to do that,” or, “We’re not able to do that,” what can they do to get started?

[0:17:37] Cassie Haynes: There are a few things. I want to note that you can fundraise on that. It is not sexy. It’s not the amazing, programmatic, impactful work. It’s harder to tell stories about the impact of $50,000 in capacity support, so that you can raise your wages, or add health benefits for your team. There is storytelling to be done around that, and Jean and I had, I’ll say, tremendous. That might be slightly hyperbolic. But, I mean, decent success at fundraising around this very thing.

We did a campaign towards the end of the pandemic about the rising costs of living and our need to be able to. We shared with our funders, our goal of a $70,000 salary. We set that goal within our budget. We made incremental increases to salaries each year to bring everybody up to parity with the highest paid folks in our organization. We didn’t get there overnight. But when you set it out as a priority, when you look at your, thoughtly, next year’s budget and you say, “All right, we’re going to do a little bit, because this is where we’re going to be in three years, or five years, or 10 years.” Then you build some storytelling around that.

I think there’s a lot to be said for the turnover rate at an organization that gives people space and resources. I think Resolve has seen on top of that the impact of what an investment in really solid structures means for your future ability to take in resources. We, at the beginning of the pandemic, we had a funder reach out to us and say, “Listen, we want to give you a million dollars to launch a thing.” We said, “Yeah, we can do it.” They had the faith in our ability to manage that investment, because they had just given us a grant for a much smaller amount of money, so that we could build our strategic plan, so that we could work with an attorney in structuring a certain part of our work. They had confidence in the partners that we were working with on our finances.

Even as a less than two-year-old organization, we had these structures in place and our funders knew it. That’s really been a key part of all of our fundraising storytelling as we’ve built the structure of the organization.

[0:20:03] Nic Campbell: Thanks, Cassie. Jean, I just want to check and see if you have anything that you’d want to add on that point.

[0:20:09] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: No. I think Cassie covered most of it. I mean, I think here is a line that we sometimes use, which anyone who is listening is welcome to borrow and use, or adapt, which is that really cool ideas and projects are a dime a dozen, right? What is going to make the difference between a really, really cool idea that you can pitch to a foundation and your ability to actually execute and sustain that cool idea over a long time is all of the stuff that Cassie just mentioned. It is the structural foundation for your organization in legal support, in paying family sustaining wages, so that you don’t have an incredible amount of turnover. It’s all of these things.

That is what is going to ultimately make you successful. That foundations are being pitched cool ideas all of the time. If you can demonstrate that you are the people, you are the leader who is thinking about all of the other unsexy stuff, that those funders know is the thing that actually is going to make the cool idea successful over time and lasting over time, that’s going to make you stand out.

We literally write this into grant narratives, saying like, “We know that this is not sexy stuff and we know that you really want to hear about our cool ideas. Just so you know, we are thinking about all of the things that are going to sustain that over time.”

[0:21:38] Nic Campbell: Right. No, that makes so much sense, because what I’m hearing you both say is it’s really around infrastructure, and telling the story of infrastructure and really making it people-centered, which it clearly is. But being able to tell that story really well and have it resonate with funders of the organization. I think, just having that frame of mind and that approach of not have seen, where folks have hidden this and said, “We don’t want to focus on this. This is not the things that funders want to pay attention to.” I think, instead leaning into that and saying, “This is the core of everything we want to do, and this is how we make sure that we have the infrastructure to sustain it.” That all makes a lot of sense.

When we’re thinking, that’s the more what nonprofits should be doing more of, what comes up when we’re thinking of what we should be doing less of as a nonprofit?

[0:22:40] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I think we could be doing a little bit less of – I mean, Cass mentioned this when she was talking about the approach of the ethos that a lot of nonprofits take, which is using our tax status as a justification for a lot of things. Certainly, we’ve heard these conversations in the nonprofit news sector of folks really struggling with alternative revenue strategies and wanting to rely entirely on philanthropy, because of an assumption that’s like, “Well, we’re a nonprofit, and so, we can’t really think, or we’re not equipped to think about how we earn money.”

In fact, it can and often is really important for nonprofits to think about revenue streams that aren’t just philanthropy. As long as they are mission-aligned, that is totally okay and can be an excellent thing for a nonprofit. Not using that. Doing less of using the tax status to think that you have to rely exclusively on contributions, or donations. The way that we think about this within Resolve and not just think about it, but act on it, is we have a consulting practice that is really based on the expertise that we’ve built up as a team.

Some of our clients are newsrooms and we work with them on community engagement and collaboration, stuff around those core pillars that we’ve talked about. Also, Cassie and I and Cassie is still working in this way with Resolve, Cassie and I are consultants for what we call Operational Resilience Consulting. We work with leaders, not only in the newsroom space, but also, in the nonprofits based on broadly, around some of the stuff that we’ve been talking about. How do you create that scaffolding, that infrastructure within your organization that’s going to sustain you over time? How do you make a more resilient organization by rethinking, for example, performance evaluations? Because performance evaluations uck everywhere and there’s better ways to do it. Thinking about how do you improve onboarding processes, all of these things, all of the little things that are actually big things. Yeah, that would be my answer.

[0:25:00] Nic Campbell: Thanks, Jean. I agree with that. I think when you start to look at revenue streams and making sure that we diversify them, it’s critical. I think that often, you see nonprofits getting stuck with, “Well, I’m a C3 and I can only receive funds through contributions.” Just even thinking more about, how do we diversify and less on, we have the status and we can only receive this one type of funding. Yeah, that really resonates as well. Cassie, wanted to get your thoughts as well.

[0:25:37] Cassie Haynes: Yeah, I think I agree with that. I like to think about things as more, because that makes me feel like we’re thinking additive and not from a deficit framework. I don’t know that I have anything to add to that. I agree with what Jean said. I generally do.

[OUTRO]

[0:25:59] Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupcompanies.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.

[END]

Episode 98 – Part 2:

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:08] Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies, and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:39] Nic Campbell: I hear you on that. I think when we flip the conversation a bit and think about funders now, what are we – and you can look at what we want to see funders do more of in this sector.

[0:00:52] Cassie Haynes: Oh, see, I can give you both sides on funders.

[0:00:57] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: We don’t have to be additive when it comes to that state.

[0:01:02] Cassie Haynes: There’s a lot they can do less of. Okay, more is more money. I’m just kidding. I think, I do think funders can do more efficiency. I think there could be more of a labor burden on funders than on grantees in a lot of places, and I’ll give an example. We have had several funders of Resolve that have opted to do verbal reports. The funder takes the notes, and the organization shows up, and they are prepared with an update. They’re prepared with questions that they’re answering. I mean, it’s not like a free-for-all. The funder is getting the information that they’re needing to get, and the organization is saving hours and hours and hours of time. That’s one thing that I think funders could be doing more of, is finding ways to pull some of that burden from grantees. I have more, too, but I’ll give – Jean, you should talk.

[0:02:06] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I’ll do one, and then you can do another. I would say, I mean, the tried and true stuff, more general operating support, more multi-year support. I would say, there is a, I don’t know if we can call it a movement, a trend, whatever it is in philanthropy towards trust-based philanthropy, right? I think my understanding of what that means is you don’t have to prove how you’re going to save the world in the next 12 months with $30,000. I’m not asking you when you write your proposal to explain how you’re going to end racism in 36 months based on the $10,000 that we are going to give you.

It is about saying, okay, I see the work that you’re doing, I see you, I see how your team shows up, I see the work that you have ongoing, I’m going to give you some support for a number of years to do the thing that you are doing. Yes, tell me about what you are looking towards, what you are hoping to achieve and how you’re thinking about measuring that work over time, but you don’t have to give me 25 very specific metrics that you expect to be exponentially greater over the course of a 24-month period. I think, more of the trust-based approach would be incredibly helpful.

[0:03:31] Cassie Haynes: I will add one more, and that’s more collaboration. I want to be clear that they don’t necessarily mean collaborative funds. In our space right now, in journalism, there’s lots and lots of talk about a new collaborative fund, half a billion dollars all going directly to local newsrooms across the country. It’s a huge pool of money. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there. I think, there’s also a lot of the same dangers around gatekeeping, red tapey process. Lots of big institutions coming together with big personalities and all sorts of things that can sometimes get in the way of efficient process of good communication with grantees and with the public.

When I say more collaboration, like what about a fund that just goes and matches a long program? If they’re interested in health, going and matching grants that other foundations are giving, trusting. I think innovation, more innovation, more working together, more using the learnings that other foundations are gleaning from their work, looking a little bit more outward beyond their legacy gifts and the same networks that they exist within. Looking to other industries. Looking to other spaces. Expanding priorities more years, just echoing that, more and more and more years of funding. One year, no more of that, less one year for funding. Okay, I’ll be done with that.

[0:05:12] Nic Campbell: No, but I think all of this, when we started talking about the work that Resolve is doing and how we are viewing nonprofits and the kinds of things we want to see within the sector, what you all have articulated, it makes sense. My question then is, what is the next step for funders, right? If we look at pulling some of that labor, that burden from grantees, what’s the first step that they can take to do that? Because a lot of these suggestions where we’re talking about more of this particular thing, they’re not so outlandish. They’re not outlandish at all, where you could say, “Well, how would we even start?” But it’s not happening, right? Or as frequently as we would like to see. What do you say to funders, who are saying, “We’d love to do that”? What’s the first step?

[0:06:07] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I think, Cass gave an important one around grant reporting. That is a step that could easily be implemented. You’re not talking about changing how boards give away money, or rethinking endowments, or anything like that. It’s just, you know what? We can take some of the onus and labor off of the grantees when it comes to reporting and allow them to submit verbally, or to send a report that they’ve sent to another funder that is related to the work, in some way of easing that burden.

I think, similarly for applications, there are ways for it to be a lot less time intensive for the grantees and not necessarily a verbal application, but allowing grantees to submit language that they’ve used other places, as long as it aligns with the same goals as the funder. I think another quick and easy step, Cass mentioned at some point the gatekeeping that happens in this world and there are those of us with a large amount of social capital and connections to funders and there are a lot of folks that don’t have that. I think, another easy step that some funders and foundations could make is just making themselves more accessible.

I don’t know, hosting office hours once a month, where just when someone goes on to your website, they know how not just to contact you, but actually, have a way to get their foot in their door and introduce themselves. Because those of us who do fundraising know that it is all about relationships.

Ultimately, when foundations or individuals choose to give, it is in part based on the work that you are presenting and it is also based on their impressions of you as a leader, or you as a fundraiser and their faith and trust and confidence in you to be able to carry out the work. Relationships matter, and I think funders have a varying degree to how much they want to feel like partners, or feel like they’re involved in the work, but I think all of them, at least all of the ones that Cassie and I have interacted with over our years of doing this work, want to feel like, we have some relationship. That they know us, that we know them.

We’ve been fortunate enough and also, fortunate enough to have had some doors opened early on and then really worked hard to cultivate those relationships. But for people who are just starting out, or who are small, or who don’t have these networks to begin with, as a funder, if you can offer an opportunity to have there be less of a gate between you and new folks through office hours, through meet and greets, whatever it is, that could go a really long way.

[0:08:46] Nic Campbell: Thank you. I think all of those are just very practical. If funders are listening, I think those are really great first steps to get us closer to where we all envision this sector going. We’ve talked a lot about infrastructure and our focus here at Build Up is really on infrastructure being at the core of how an organization grows and builds and really is able to innovate. I wanted to get your thoughts on how you are seeing infrastructure, the role of infrastructure show up in the work that you are doing. I think, it also gives us the ability to return to this concept of rest and really seeing rest as part of that infrastructure as well, and just love to get your thoughts on how you’re able to weave in that infrastructure building and focus within the work that you’re doing.

[0:09:47] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I mean as you can probably tell, Cassie and I are pretty process and infrastructure focused people. I will admit, I have become so working with Cassie That was not at all my inclination, or natural tendency when we first started working together, and I have learned so much from her over the years and feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from and alongside her in these ways.

I think when it comes to infrastructure, it’s got to be a priority that is set out from the highest level, in the sense that those of us in leadership know that one of the best ways to lead is by example. If you as a leader are taking time to establish processes for your organization, and by processes, I can mean, everything from project management software. I mean, we rely on Asana. I literally don’t know what we would do, or how we’re going to function if we didn’t have it.

By processes, I mean, thinking really critically about how we onboard people and making sure that that is a very slow and intentional process that enables folks to feel really welcomed and included on our team from day one. It’s thinking about meeting structure and meeting times. How are we having conversations? Who is included in those conversations? What conversations are being prioritized, or deprioritized? Constantly assessing whether the meeting structure that we established two years ago makes sense for us now.

I think the core lesson that I’ve learned is you’ve got to dedicate the time to having those conversations and to paying attention to that stuff, because it is so easy to let the “work,” the programmatic work of whatever you’re doing overrun everything. I think when you do that, ultimately, the work will suffer, because the success of the work is dependent on the success of the processes. I know, if we weren’t this intentional about it within Resolve, I think we would have seen huge staff turnover. I think we would have seen just a lot of internal issues of lack of communication and siloing and left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I think, ultimately, we would not have had the impact that we have in the world if we hadn’t been focusing on the infrastructure from the beginning.

[0:12:15] Cassie Haynes: I will say, on the topic of an infrastructure for rest, resolve offers unlimited paid time off. Paid time off is encouraged in some specific ways, that I’ll share in just a second. But there’s also two opportunities annually, once in the summer and once between Christmas and New Year’s where the whole office closes. I think, this has been really important, because I think especially, when people are connected to the mission, when the work is so value-aligned. Also, because the folks who carry out the work on Resolve Philly’s team are in lots of ways, very much in proximity to the communities that we are serving, rest is hard. Rest is super hard. It’s hard to rest, I think, also, knowing that the work doesn’t stop and that your co-workers aren’t stopping. It becomes easier for everybody to rest when everybody is off. Having those two points every year and we have done that since the beginning. I think, that’s been really key.

The other practice that Jean and I started doing for one another and now our colleagues at Resolve do it for each other, and that’s just putting in time off on one another’s calendar. It’ll be maybe two or three weeks from now and I would go into Jean’s calendar and just, “I feel like, she needs some time off. I’m going to put Thursday and Friday off on Jean’s calendar in late April.” That’s just another example of how that has been built into the infrastructure, both because Resolve offers unlimited paid time off, and also, because as leaders of the organization, that was something that the two of us prioritize. We set that example.

Now, people are looking out for one another and encouraging people to take time off. “Man, we had a huge push to get X, Y, and Z accomplished. You should really take some time off. You should really find a couple of days in the coming weeks to take off,” is a common conversation.

[0:14:15] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I’ll just add to that by saying, colleagues looking out for one another. Also, our COO is literally doing quarterly checks on folks’ calendar to make sure they are taking enough time off. If she has noticed that someone hasn’t taken time recently and they’ve been working a lot, she will have a direct conversation with them. It’s the informal stuff and also, they’re literal processes built in, because what we know about unlimited paid time off policies is that one of the downfalls is it often leads to people not actually taking as much vacation as they do when there are allotted time amounts.

I mean, Cass has a great expression that unlimited paid time off is one of those policies that is not a crock pot policy. You can’t set it and forget it. It takes continual monitoring and upkeep. I also just want to make sure that folks who are listening have an understanding of the size of our organization. When we started out in 2018, it was Cassie and I. It was the two of us. It was the two of us until the spring of 2019, when we hired our first small group of folks. We are now 23 full-time employees and this has been over the course of a little over five years. Throughout our organizational history, we’ve been able to maintain a commitment to these practices, even through our exponential growth.

[0:15:43] Nic Campbell: I think that is amazing. I think it’s so critical. I think it’s something that is often overlooked, and that it’s built into the fiber of the organization, I think, speaks volumes. When you were talking about infrastructure, Jean, some of the words that jumped out at me and really resonated, where you talked about being intentional, prioritizing it and making it a focus. I think that that’s so important when we are building our nonprofits, when we are leading nonprofits to make sure that infrastructure is built into the way we work. Not to forget that people are part of the organization, that they are really the heart and core of the organization. When we talk about infrastructure, you can’t do that without talking about the people.

The fact that we have prioritized and been very intentional about how people rest within that organization as they’re doing their work, I think, is a real model for others to follow. I feel like, I could continue talking with you both about this for hours, but I do want to make sure that we ask one more question before we wrap this conversation. It’s about a book, or artist that you think we should know about, or should be paying attention to.

[0:17:08] Cassie Haynes: Well, on the theme of rest, I am going to recommend Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey. I think, particularly as a black woman, rest is something that culturally is hard. It’s not celebrated when we rest. We are celebrated when we are strong and when we are fierce and when we are doing all of these things that I love those words, too. I do. Also, rest is so important. The way that Tricia and some people might know her from the nap ministry, but the way that she talks about her grandmother resting in that connection to ancestors, that connection to, oh, gosh, it’s beautiful. I strongly recommend that. It’s been a book that I’ve gone back to, not in a linear fashion throughout my sabbatical over the last few months. Strong recommend.

[0:18:08] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: For mine, I am listening to a book called Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. The subtitle is Time Management for Mortals, that I actually think that that’s a real misnomer, because his whole premise is that it is a false premise to believe that we can manage time. Time is this thing that happens and our need to try to control it constantly is actually getting in our way of being able to enjoy life in the most deep and real way. It’s been revelatory for me, because I am absolutely one who thinks constantly about how do I structure and control my time to be able to meet the demands of my job and being a parent and being a partner and being a friend and a daughter and all of these identities that I hold.

He actually gives this really wonderful – I’ll just circle back around, or finish us off on this topic of rest that we’ve been talking about. He cites these fascinating studies that were done in Sweden, about how the use of antidepressants went down. Had a inversely proportional relationship. Went down anytime Swedes were off from work as a nation. There’s been a few of these different studies that have shown, basically, that time and rest is not just an individual good, is a network good. It is more valuable to us when other people are doing that same thing.

It made total sense for me in part, because of our experience of what Cassie talked about how we shut down two times a year in the summer and the winter to give our whole team a rest. Because literally, it is just easier to rest, first of all, when you now that your colleagues aren’t working. Also, when the other people that you want to spend time with are resting, too. It is just a mood booster and makes people genuinely more happy and seen in their lives if they are not just able to rest whenever they want, but also, when people that they love and want to spend time with are also resting.

Another plug for employers out there. We, in some ways are in the business of saving lives. We like to think that giving people access to accurate and authentic news and information is life-saving it is. Also, we can take a break for a week, or two, or three every year and the world still continues on. I think, probably most of us in the work that we do can afford to do that.

[0:20:42] Nic Campbell: Agreed. Thank you both so much for sharing both of these books. We will make sure that we put them in the show notes, so that others can look them up and put them on their bookshelves, or in their audio players, so thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation. It has been so incredibly powerful and it has just made me think about the way that we are working, the way we think about infrastructure within organizations, particularly as we often say, people-centered design, or people centered work. Really thinking about, how do we ensure that our infrastructure is people-centered.

I think the examples that you shared, the work that you’re doing and just very clear that you are being very intentional about it and I just think, again, it’s such a model for folks to take a look at and work from so. I just want to say thank you again so much for your time, for your honesty and your insight about your work and the way you approach your work as well. I think, hearing this conversation will allow others who are listening to ensure that they are continuing to build their organizations bravely. Thanks.

[0:21:57] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: Thank you so much. It was great to talk with you.

[0:22:01] Cassie Haynes: Thanks very much for having us on.

[OUTRO]

[0:22:05] Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupcompanies.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.

[END]

EPISODE 84 Part 2

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:08] Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies, and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:39] Nic Campbell: I hear you on that. I think when we flip the conversation a bit and think about funders now, what are we – and you can look at what we want to see funders do more of in this sector.

[0:00:52] Cassie Haynes: Oh, see, I can give you both sides on funders.

[0:00:57] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: We don’t have to be additive when it comes to that state.

[0:01:02] Cassie Haynes: There’s a lot they can do less of. Okay, more is more money. I’m just kidding. I think, I do think funders can do more efficiency. I think there could be more of a labor burden on funders than on grantees in a lot of places, and I’ll give an example. We have had several funders of Resolve that have opted to do verbal reports. The funder takes the notes, and the organization shows up, and they are prepared with an update. They’re prepared with questions that they’re answering. I mean, it’s not like a free-for-all. The funder is getting the information that they’re needing to get, and the organization is saving hours and hours and hours of time. That’s one thing that I think funders could be doing more of, is finding ways to pull some of that burden from grantees. I have more, too, but I’ll give – Jean, you should talk.

[0:02:06] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I’ll do one, and then you can do another. I would say, I mean, the tried and true stuff, more general operating support, more multi-year support. I would say, there is a, I don’t know if we can call it a movement, a trend, whatever it is in philanthropy towards trust-based philanthropy, right? I think my understanding of what that means is you don’t have to prove how you’re going to save the world in the next 12 months with $30,000. I’m not asking you when you write your proposal to explain how you’re going to end racism in 36 months based on the $10,000 that we are going to give you.

It is about saying, okay, I see the work that you’re doing, I see you, I see how your team shows up, I see the work that you have ongoing, I’m going to give you some support for a number of years to do the thing that you are doing. Yes, tell me about what you are looking towards, what you are hoping to achieve and how you’re thinking about measuring that work over time, but you don’t have to give me 25 very specific metrics that you expect to be exponentially greater over the course of a 24-month period. I think, more of the trust-based approach would be incredibly helpful.

[0:03:31] Cassie Haynes: I will add one more, and that’s more collaboration. I want to be clear that they don’t necessarily mean collaborative funds. In our space right now, in journalism, there’s lots and lots of talk about a new collaborative fund, half a billion dollars all going directly to local newsrooms across the country. It’s a huge pool of money. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there. I think, there’s also a lot of the same dangers around gatekeeping, red tapey process. Lots of big institutions coming together with big personalities and all sorts of things that can sometimes get in the way of efficient process of good communication with grantees and with the public.

When I say more collaboration, like what about a fund that just goes and matches a long program? If they’re interested in health, going and matching grants that other foundations are giving, trusting. I think innovation, more innovation, more working together, more using the learnings that other foundations are gleaning from their work, looking a little bit more outward beyond their legacy gifts and the same networks that they exist within. Looking to other industries. Looking to other spaces. Expanding priorities more years, just echoing that, more and more and more years of funding. One year, no more of that, less one year for funding. Okay, I’ll be done with that.

[0:05:12] Nic Campbell: No, but I think all of this, when we started talking about the work that Resolve is doing and how we are viewing nonprofits and the kinds of things we want to see within the sector, what you all have articulated, it makes sense. My question then is, what is the next step for funders, right? If we look at pulling some of that labor, that burden from grantees, what’s the first step that they can take to do that? Because a lot of these suggestions where we’re talking about more of this particular thing, they’re not so outlandish. They’re not outlandish at all, where you could say, “Well, how would we even start?” But it’s not happening, right? Or as frequently as we would like to see. What do you say to funders, who are saying, “We’d love to do that”? What’s the first step?

[0:06:07] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I think, Cass gave an important one around grant reporting. That is a step that could easily be implemented. You’re not talking about changing how boards give away money, or rethinking endowments, or anything like that. It’s just, you know what? We can take some of the onus and labor off of the grantees when it comes to reporting and allow them to submit verbally, or to send a report that they’ve sent to another funder that is related to the work, in some way of easing that burden.

I think, similarly for applications, there are ways for it to be a lot less time intensive for the grantees and not necessarily a verbal application, but allowing grantees to submit language that they’ve used other places, as long as it aligns with the same goals as the funder. I think another quick and easy step, Cass mentioned at some point the gatekeeping that happens in this world and there are those of us with a large amount of social capital and connections to funders and there are a lot of folks that don’t have that. I think, another easy step that some funders and foundations could make is just making themselves more accessible.

I don’t know, hosting office hours once a month, where just when someone goes on to your website, they know how not just to contact you, but actually, have a way to get their foot in their door and introduce themselves. Because those of us who do fundraising know that it is all about relationships.

Ultimately, when foundations or individuals choose to give, it is in part based on the work that you are presenting and it is also based on their impressions of you as a leader, or you as a fundraiser and their faith and trust and confidence in you to be able to carry out the work. Relationships matter, and I think funders have a varying degree to how much they want to feel like partners, or feel like they’re involved in the work, but I think all of them, at least all of the ones that Cassie and I have interacted with over our years of doing this work, want to feel like, we have some relationship. That they know us, that we know them.

We’ve been fortunate enough and also, fortunate enough to have had some doors opened early on and then really worked hard to cultivate those relationships. But for people who are just starting out, or who are small, or who don’t have these networks to begin with, as a funder, if you can offer an opportunity to have there be less of a gate between you and new folks through office hours, through meet and greets, whatever it is, that could go a really long way.

[0:08:46] Nic Campbell: Thank you. I think all of those are just very practical. If funders are listening, I think those are really great first steps to get us closer to where we all envision this sector going. We’ve talked a lot about infrastructure and our focus here at Build Up is really on infrastructure being at the core of how an organization grows and builds and really is able to innovate. I wanted to get your thoughts on how you are seeing infrastructure, the role of infrastructure show up in the work that you are doing. I think, it also gives us the ability to return to this concept of rest and really seeing rest as part of that infrastructure as well, and just love to get your thoughts on how you’re able to weave in that infrastructure building and focus within the work that you’re doing.

[0:09:47] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I mean as you can probably tell, Cassie and I are pretty process and infrastructure focused people. I will admit, I have become so working with Cassie That was not at all my inclination, or natural tendency when we first started working together, and I have learned so much from her over the years and feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from and alongside her in these ways.

I think when it comes to infrastructure, it’s got to be a priority that is set out from the highest level, in the sense that those of us in leadership know that one of the best ways to lead is by example. If you as a leader are taking time to establish processes for your organization, and by processes, I can mean, everything from project management software. I mean, we rely on Asana. I literally don’t know what we would do, or how we’re going to function if we didn’t have it.

By processes, I mean, thinking really critically about how we onboard people and making sure that that is a very slow and intentional process that enables folks to feel really welcomed and included on our team from day one. It’s thinking about meeting structure and meeting times. How are we having conversations? Who is included in those conversations? What conversations are being prioritized, or deprioritized? Constantly assessing whether the meeting structure that we established two years ago makes sense for us now.

I think the core lesson that I’ve learned is you’ve got to dedicate the time to having those conversations and to paying attention to that stuff, because it is so easy to let the “work,” the programmatic work of whatever you’re doing overrun everything. I think when you do that, ultimately, the work will suffer, because the success of the work is dependent on the success of the processes. I know, if we weren’t this intentional about it within Resolve, I think we would have seen huge staff turnover. I think we would have seen just a lot of internal issues of lack of communication and siloing and left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I think, ultimately, we would not have had the impact that we have in the world if we hadn’t been focusing on the infrastructure from the beginning.

[0:12:15] Cassie Haynes: I will say, on the topic of an infrastructure for rest, resolve offers unlimited paid time off. Paid time off is encouraged in some specific ways, that I’ll share in just a second. But there’s also two opportunities annually, once in the summer and once between Christmas and New Year’s where the whole office closes. I think, this has been really important, because I think especially, when people are connected to the mission, when the work is so value-aligned. Also, because the folks who carry out the work on Resolve Philly’s team are in lots of ways, very much in proximity to the communities that we are serving, rest is hard. Rest is super hard. It’s hard to rest, I think, also, knowing that the work doesn’t stop and that your co-workers aren’t stopping. It becomes easier for everybody to rest when everybody is off. Having those two points every year and we have done that since the beginning. I think, that’s been really key.

The other practice that Jean and I started doing for one another and now our colleagues at Resolve do it for each other, and that’s just putting in time off on one another’s calendar. It’ll be maybe two or three weeks from now and I would go into Jean’s calendar and just, “I feel like, she needs some time off. I’m going to put Thursday and Friday off on Jean’s calendar in late April.” That’s just another example of how that has been built into the infrastructure, both because Resolve offers unlimited paid time off, and also, because as leaders of the organization, that was something that the two of us prioritize. We set that example.

Now, people are looking out for one another and encouraging people to take time off. “Man, we had a huge push to get X, Y, and Z accomplished. You should really take some time off. You should really find a couple of days in the coming weeks to take off,” is a common conversation.

[0:14:15] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: I’ll just add to that by saying, colleagues looking out for one another. Also, our COO is literally doing quarterly checks on folks’ calendar to make sure they are taking enough time off. If she has noticed that someone hasn’t taken time recently and they’ve been working a lot, she will have a direct conversation with them. It’s the informal stuff and also, they’re literal processes built in, because what we know about unlimited paid time off policies is that one of the downfalls is it often leads to people not actually taking as much vacation as they do when there are allotted time amounts.

I mean, Cass has a great expression that unlimited paid time off is one of those policies that is not a crock pot policy. You can’t set it and forget it. It takes continual monitoring and upkeep. I also just want to make sure that folks who are listening have an understanding of the size of our organization. When we started out in 2018, it was Cassie and I. It was the two of us. It was the two of us until the spring of 2019, when we hired our first small group of folks. We are now 23 full-time employees and this has been over the course of a little over five years. Throughout our organizational history, we’ve been able to maintain a commitment to these practices, even through our exponential growth.

[0:15:43] Nic Campbell: I think that is amazing. I think it’s so critical. I think it’s something that is often overlooked, and that it’s built into the fiber of the organization, I think, speaks volumes. When you were talking about infrastructure, Jean, some of the words that jumped out at me and really resonated, where you talked about being intentional, prioritizing it and making it a focus. I think that that’s so important when we are building our nonprofits, when we are leading nonprofits to make sure that infrastructure is built into the way we work. Not to forget that people are part of the organization, that they are really the heart and core of the organization. When we talk about infrastructure, you can’t do that without talking about the people.

The fact that we have prioritized and been very intentional about how people rest within that organization as they’re doing their work, I think, is a real model for others to follow. I feel like, I could continue talking with you both about this for hours, but I do want to make sure that we ask one more question before we wrap this conversation. It’s about a book, or artist that you think we should know about, or should be paying attention to.

[0:17:08] Cassie Haynes: Well, on the theme of rest, I am going to recommend Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey. I think, particularly as a black woman, rest is something that culturally is hard. It’s not celebrated when we rest. We are celebrated when we are strong and when we are fierce and when we are doing all of these things that I love those words, too. I do. Also, rest is so important. The way that Tricia and some people might know her from the nap ministry, but the way that she talks about her grandmother resting in that connection to ancestors, that connection to, oh, gosh, it’s beautiful. I strongly recommend that. It’s been a book that I’ve gone back to, not in a linear fashion throughout my sabbatical over the last few months. Strong recommend.

[0:18:08] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: For mine, I am listening to a book called Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. The subtitle is Time Management for Mortals, that I actually think that that’s a real misnomer, because his whole premise is that it is a false premise to believe that we can manage time. Time is this thing that happens and our need to try to control it constantly is actually getting in our way of being able to enjoy life in the most deep and real way. It’s been revelatory for me, because I am absolutely one who thinks constantly about how do I structure and control my time to be able to meet the demands of my job and being a parent and being a partner and being a friend and a daughter and all of these identities that I hold.

He actually gives this really wonderful – I’ll just circle back around, or finish us off on this topic of rest that we’ve been talking about. He cites these fascinating studies that were done in Sweden, about how the use of antidepressants went down. Had a inversely proportional relationship. Went down anytime Swedes were off from work as a nation. There’s been a few of these different studies that have shown, basically, that time and rest is not just an individual good, is a network good. It is more valuable to us when other people are doing that same thing.

It made total sense for me in part, because of our experience of what Cassie talked about how we shut down two times a year in the summer and the winter to give our whole team a rest. Because literally, it is just easier to rest, first of all, when you now that your colleagues aren’t working. Also, when the other people that you want to spend time with are resting, too. It is just a mood booster and makes people genuinely more happy and seen in their lives if they are not just able to rest whenever they want, but also, when people that they love and want to spend time with are also resting.

Another plug for employers out there. We, in some ways are in the business of saving lives. We like to think that giving people access to accurate and authentic news and information is life-saving it is. Also, we can take a break for a week, or two, or three every year and the world still continues on. I think, probably most of us in the work that we do can afford to do that.

[0:20:42] Nic Campbell: Agreed. Thank you both so much for sharing both of these books. We will make sure that we put them in the show notes, so that others can look them up and put them on their bookshelves, or in their audio players, so thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation. It has been so incredibly powerful and it has just made me think about the way that we are working, the way we think about infrastructure within organizations, particularly as we often say, people-centered design, or people centered work. Really thinking about, how do we ensure that our infrastructure is people-centered.

I think the examples that you shared, the work that you’re doing and just very clear that you are being very intentional about it and I just think, again, it’s such a model for folks to take a look at and work from so. I just want to say thank you again so much for your time, for your honesty and your insight about your work and the way you approach your work as well. I think, hearing this conversation will allow others who are listening to ensure that they are continuing to build their organizations bravely. Thanks.

[0:21:57] Jean Friedman-Rudovsky: Thank you so much. It was great to talk with you.

[0:22:01] Cassie Haynes: Thanks very much for having us on.

[OUTRO]

[0:22:05] Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupcompanies.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.

[END]