The Nonprofit Exchange 2018 Sessions Review

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Hugh Ballou: Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Today’s session is one we try to do from time to time. This is Hugh Ballou and co-host Russell David Dennis, who is with me every week and adds great value to the conversations. We are going to do a review of the weeks past. What were some of the value propositions that we need to pay attention to as leaders? What can we learn, and what can we apply what we have learned? Then we will talk about some upcoming events for you to put on your calendar and think about. You are probably listening to this podcast in history where the events are no longer relevant. By the end of May, the website will be updated to a higher standard and more engagement opportunities. Russell, thanks for being here with me on the show today. How are you?

Russell Dennis: I am fabulous. It’s great to be here again. I love the people who are showing up and who have shared with us the principles they operate by. April was a very good month. We had a lot of great guests. Clay Neves kicked it off, actually talking about sales. We don’t think about sales in terms of running a nonprofit or charity, but sales is solving problems. When we look at it from that perspective, it changes how we view it. The people who have come have given us new perspectives. That’s what we look to do here at SynerVision: bring new and different perspectives to nonprofits. Our guest last week, Romal Tune, came up with a term for nonprofits I love. He said, “Why not call them for-purpose?”

Hugh: That was a game-changer, wasn’t it?

Russell: I love that. I thought that was brilliant, and it’s something I hadn’t thought of. If we look at it in those terms, we change that perspective. I think sometimes terminology that we have gotten used to gets in the way of what we are trying to do. I believe it was Steve Farber, who was on our program a few months back, who said that nonprofit is a tax status, not a strategy.

Hugh: It’s quite interesting. It’s been a few months. We jump in here, and we talk about the lessons learned and we review this and encourage people to move into the space and apply some of these things. I am looking back, Russ, and it’s been at least two or three months since we have done a review session like this. Let’s pick it up. You mentioned April was a banner month. Let’s go back further than that. There were some significant sessions before that. We could go back to the beginning of the last 90 days, first part of 2018. We started out with revenue generation programs by this guy Russell David Dennis. You talked about some revenue generation programs. I think it’s only fair to lift up this skillset you bring to the table, specifically from your background of working in a nonprofit and working in the IRS that you understand the revenue generation beat. Tell us a little bit about what programs you have that are offered both through your portal and the SynerVision portal that are self-study programs that people could take advantage of.

Russell: The first program that I created was Four Steps to Building a High-Performance Nonprofit. That involves looking at four things. Starting with a solid foundation of who you are and who you are trying to serve. Building effective action plans is that second step. The third piece is staying on track, measuring everything you do. The fourth piece is communicating the value you bring to the table. It’s a full process where you look at the organization from the start to where you are at this current time and seeing what pieces you have in place and what pieces you need. It’s really about building strategy.

My latest course is on the Thinkific platform. That is on building solid fundraising plans. It talks about the strategy of raising the money. This is important to know how much it costs, what the investment is to deliver the services, and how to strategically go after that money. These courses are laid out there to help you actually do that and go step by step by step. It’s a great 30,000-foot overview. It’s a great place to start and get the details you need.

Hugh: I am so grateful for that short overview. On the new platform that we have for SynerVision, we have a learning portal for people to look at all the different programs and they are continually growing.

We then went to How to Get the Most out of 2018 with our friend Mark S. A. Smith. He is the author of 13 books and sales guides and the author of more than 400 magazine articles. He is a guerilla marketing guru. He gave us the five top trends for the year. We will see those play out throughout the year, I’m sure. Omnichannel: how members consume you anywhere and everywhere. How the growing economy creates monetary opportunities. We do bury our head in the sand sometimes as the downward thinking of the word nonprofit. The impact of hiring employment and volunteer force and how to pivot to get all you need. New leadership demands. What is changing and how to stay out in front. I find that the leaders who have coaches who are constantly working on themselves lead a better high-performing organization. The fifth one is turning unrest into peace: how to divorce your organization from the media’s promotion of outrage. Do you remember that really good session with Mark?

Russell: I do. One of the gems that really stood out with that was in regards to why people work with you. One quote that he made was that people say yes because your request is in alignment with who they are. This is really about knowing your customer and knowing who your tribe is and constantly having touchpoints and being present with your tribe when they are present. This was the key message around where do you put your message, where do you reach out? That is all depending upon where your tribe is. He really emphasized that, and that was a great thing that he offered us. He had a seven-step process for transformation that was really great. He walked us through those. There were some belief stages and manifestation stages, as he called them. Do you remember those, Hugh?

Hugh: I do. When you get to the podcast, it’s The Nonprofit Exchange wherever you get your podcast. The most downloads we get are from iTunes. When you go there, there is copy in the podcast notes. There is a transcript of it. You can go to TheNonprofitExchange.org, and it will take you directly to the page on the SynerVision website where we have posted the videos. If you want to watch the video again, certainly you can go there.

I am going to continue. If you have more notes, please slow me down. The Role of Creating 20 Million Jobs with Chuck Vollmer, who is the founder of Jobenomics. Very clever word. It was specifically about how do we as leaders in this for-purpose world, social benefit world, social capital world, how do we work to create jobs to do economic development, to do the grassroots movements that make a difference in the communities? There are things governments cannot do that the non-governmental agencies like we lead can do and do well. It’s looking for those and maybe some partnerships. He is bridging the gaps with the private and public partnerships. Some of the Jobeonomics projects around the country. That was a very inspiring session. I am always appreciative about you being on as co-host because you have done your homework, and you had some really good questions for Chuck. What is your memory of Chuck Vollmer?

Russell: I think the thing that struck me about Chuck, because I met him a few years back at CEO Space, the very first time I started looking at the work and his approach to things, it started off with taking a whole different view of how to measure the economy and effectiveness of efforts to create employment. Chuck is a man who has an affinity toward the environment and keeping that clean. He started businesses that specialized in green projects. He managed to bring it all together and say, “Let’s create thousands of micro-businesses to give people opportunities to make good livings. Now we are solving some of the environmental problems and some of the problems in the inner city. Let’s bring nonprofits, businesses, and government together as a group to create synergistic approaches that none of us could do on our own.” It’s brilliant. He has done a lot of great work in Baltimore, Maryland. He had had some success. He is out there cranking away. He has a different view of the economy. These reports are coming out quarterly. If you haven’t read anything from Jobenomics, I would check out that website and look at the work that he is putting out there.

Hugh: It is very scholarly work. Jobenomics.com is his website. That is the interview that was in the middle of January 2018.

Then we moved to doing assessments. Juliet Clark was our guest on the 23^rd of January. Building community and doing assessment marketing. Russell, you’re very consistently reminding us that when we are talking about people serving on our board or as volunteers, we are asking people to donate. We really want to know what they are interested in. You keep bringing that front and center. Juliet helps people publish books and market those, but she builds the tribe while they are writing the book. People are going to expect the book when it comes out. She creates that relationship with the people that matter. It’s the people who are going to donate, who are going to serve in the charity. I really thought the paradigm of let’s talk to people and let’s assess where their interests are and then through that thread, we are building relationships. I find that people want to go straight to the money. We have this great work we do; it’s our mental capital, our intellectual property, what we do. This is what we have. Give us money so we can do this without doing that interim step of building the relationship. That is the big deal that matters. Do you have other memories of Juliet and her session?

Russell: Yes. We got so many different people together. What Juliet does in her work is building communities. You are bringing all these people together from different areas on different platforms and looking at the best way to bring these people together to communicate your message out there. Stay in touch. Keep them apprised of what you are doing. Keep them engaged. It’s about community. That was Juliet’s central message. She has got some wonderful tools for doing that. I actually sat through a session with her where she talked about how to do that. It’s remarkable. I love the work she is doing. I follow her on Facebook. She puts great material out there. She is always delivering value on how to go about building community and to keep those connections going strong.

Hugh: Absolutely. We have had one really great interview after another. Part of what we are doing today is pausing. We have pushed out a lot of great content. We want to bring your attention to the value of that content and how it can make such a difference wherever it is that you lead.

Our mutual friend Sherita Herring, I swear she is like my sister with a different mother. She and I have had a really strong relationship since we first met. She is the queen of nonprofits. Her motto is “You are your only limitation.” Ooh, I love that. In that interview, there were some points that we listed on the site. What motivated you to work in this industry? Did you come out of corporate America? What motivated you to want to change sides? Most people are unaware of the impact in this hilarity of non-governmental agencies we are leading. We call it nonprofit because people understand that is what we are talking about. For nonprofits that have not been successful in their pursuit of grants, what strategies should they use? Why aren’t we getting grants? Let’s look at that. Can a nonprofit make profit? How else are you going to exist if you don’t have money left over to pay for things? Russell, what is your memory of Sherita?

Russell: Sherita is about putting the right systems and the right people together. She has had a remarkable career where she has launched or assisted in the launch of countless organizations. She has helped everyone from ordinary people to celebrities and pro athletes put nonprofits together. She talks about ways to do that effectively. I met her at CEO Space at one of my first trips there. I was looking to change careers from an auditor at the IRS. She inspired me along with you to move into this space and work with nonprofit entities. I had had a heart for it, but I thought, Yes, what can I do based on what I have learned to help people get better? Sherita has been someone I have learned an awful lot from. She has the knowledge, she has the marketing knowledge, a lot of teaching skills. She is a member of our team here at SynerVision. It was just brilliant to talk with her about some of the systems that people need. What I love about her is how she can take someone who may have no knowledge or maybe afraid and encourage them to step into their heart space because you can do these things. What we teach people is a collective here at SynerVision is you don’t have to do any of this stuff by yourself. It’s all about team building, collaboration, and creating a community. Sherita has been on the cutting edge of showing people how to do that.

Hugh: You are so spot-on. I find over and over that nonprofit founders and executive directors, presidents, the person who is in the hot seat gets overburdened with things to do because they didn’t create the right systems and didn’t ask other people to participate. We think we have to do it all. We don’t. that is a downward spiral.

The next two interviews: I did one solo, and you did one solo. We were at different places. I did an on-site interview with Bishop William Willimon at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He is a retired Methodist Bishop and has 70 books. Wow. I think 60 are currently in print. I did an on-site interview with him at Duke. It was pretty profound. He is turning out the leaders in the Methodist church and some other churches. He said without good leadership, nothing happens. It was a pretty profound interview. We talked about some people we knew in common, and we also talked about how he was the bishop that was over the church where I served in north Alabama, for the last few years I was there were his first two years in that conference. He made some profound impact in that whole culture. His two trienniums he was there, eight years as bishop.

I got to know him there and was privileged to have him not only for this interview, but then he came to the SynerVision Leadership Empowerment Symposium in Lynchburg on March 20 and presented and led a group discussion. We had a panel discussion. We had a lot of people in the room who really stepped up their leadership. He taught us specifically about leadership in churches. As you may be very well aware of, we are in a crisis of losing members in most of our main line denominations. I believe it is a result of gaps in leadership. I did that one solo. It is well worth reviewing and listening if you are stepping into or stuck in leading your church. I think some of the same dynamics would work for a synagogue because some of the same principles exist. He is specifically talking about Christian churches.

You did an interview the following week. I had a meeting with the mayor in Lynchburg and couldn’t be there for that. It was about the new movie which is now live on Netflix with Bishop Carlton Pearson. It’s called Come Sunday. Share what that was like.

Russell: Bishop Pearson came into enlightenment. He ran into some trouble with the church leadership as his thinking began to expand. He shifted into what he called an expanded consciousness of the ministry because it was all about reinventing and repositioning himself in the church. I think the term he used for himself was sacred activist and spiritual progressive. He is all about strong justice and peace. Carlton is speaking all over the world to all sorts of spiritual organizations. He is talking about inclusion within the church. Whatever you practice, there is this movement where people are looking to expand their consciousness. I certainly have been swept in it in my own way. He is all about inclusion. This movie about him is produced by End Game and NPR. The title is Come Sunday. Look for that on Netflix. He served as associate Evangelist for Oral Roberts, and he was on the board of regents for Oral Roberts University for 15 years. He was exposed to Reverend Ike and a lot of the early televangelists. That was part of how he came up. His approach to spirituality and Christianity all grew and evolved. He talked about how we set these artificial limits for oneself. It is a very uplifting interview. I was certainly inspired by it. It’s about breaking out of these limits that we set for ourselves as leaders. Maybe let’s think about how we can be more inclusive and do things that are a little bit different. The message that I got from him there is life begins on the edge of our comfort zone.

Hugh: It does. We went from there to Christian LeFer who understands the dynamics of not registering. We need to register with whatever state where people are donating money to our nonprofit. It’s a paradigm that was an eye-opener for me. There are lots of reasons we need to register as soliciting charitable donations. Even the passive donate button or Facebook Share button we are required because we are raising money. That was an eye-opening segment.

I am going to step us through because we have a lot to cover. I don’t want to run over the hour for people. I made a trip to Raleigh, North Carolina. We had an interview in 2017 with Ray Buchanan who formed several nonprofits. But the one that most people may have heard of is Rise Against Hunger. It was formed as Stop Hunger Now. They rebranded a few years ago because they couldn’t use that brand in every country where they operated; they operate worldwide.

Russell, their vision statement is to end hunger in our lifetime. This is a case where the founder really fought the board, and it came to light in this interview with the current executive director, Rod Brooks. Rod succeeded Ray. Ray now lives in Lynchburg and has retired from this organization. He is a WayFinder like we are in SynerVision now. He is a non-voting board member, but he is the face of the organization where there are big events. He shows up to talk about his vision. This is a great example of succession planning. Yes, we are the founder. Yes, it’s our vision. But how do we start something that is going to continue without us? Rod talks about that and how he took over and how they busted up the fallacy that the current person in the position cannot hire their replacement. Ray was very active. It wasn’t a straight line. It wasn’t without bumps. It was a negotiated transfer of authority. He speaks very openly about that and how valuable it was to have the founder by your side when you are taking on this new big job.

As we are sitting here in 2018, they are going to package 78 million meals in addition to teaching people how to be self-sufficient in doing fisheries and farming and other ways they need to learn about creating food for the communities they live in. They are on their way to doing 300 million meals and ending hunger. The board fought the founder and his vision until the UN said we are going to cut hunger in half by 2015. They met the goal. Their new goal was to end hunger. There is more than one organization out there that has a passion for feeding people. What did you take away from this story about this huge- It’s in Raleigh, but they have 150 employees all over the country. They come together and pack these meals, which is engaging people in this work, which could be automated. It’s important that people show up and do this. What did you take way from this interview?

Russell: What I love about the work that they do is the ability to mobilize volunteers. I have a man locally here, Travis Smith, of Impact Locally, who has expanded his work of homelessness and serving the homeless to 11 cities. He is headquartered here in Denver. Another person is Susan Elizabeth Lee, who started a campaign. She has ambassadors all over the world.

To start something globally, the thing I love about it is that leaders understand what they can and can’t do. They build other leaders. At some point, there is a shift that takes place from a new organization where it’s founded to an ongoing growing operation. There has to be a shift in the approach to doing things. They demonstrate how to make that shift successfully and grow and not lose the character of the vision, but to grow in effectiveness and the level of impact that they are delivering. I just thought that was a phenomenal interview. I was there when we talked to Ray. We talked to Ray last year. I loved that chat we had with Rod. I think they are doing phenomenal work. There is an organization there that I am working with that we want to plug into SynerVision who are working on eliminating hunger. I do food bank deliveries most Saturdays myself. It’s a very satisfying thing to try to eliminate hunger. There are a lot of agencies, restaurants, and supermarkets, who by health regulations. It’s astounding how much food they throw away. There is no need. We are living in the world’s bread basket. There is no need because nobody should go to bed hungry on any given night. I love the charge that they have. I love being a part of that.

Hugh: It’s heartwarming to know that people are working so hard and engaging others in organizations all over the globe in fighting hunger. It’s just pulling it together in the most magnificent way. We don’t have a sponsor for this interview, but if you go to NonprofitPerformance.org, you won’t find a better journal on leadership than you will find in our magazine.

We have another bishop here. We had Bishop Willimon and Bishop Pearson. Now we have Bishop Younger. He is here in Lynchburg. It was about his vision. He is the pastor at Ramp Church International. There are 17 or so churches in this conglomerate all over the globe. He is on the go all the time. He came by here, and we did this interview in my living room. He is power-packed energy at the Ramp Church. He was at the Leadership Empowerment Symposium in Lynchburg and participated in a panel on how we come together and collaborate in the community. What stands out to you? He really loved the fact that you landed a couple of zinger questions on him. I told him to expect it, but you were so kind, and all of a sudden, you gave him a real hard one. He said, “Yeah, Hugh, you were right on.” Bishop Younger is a visionary leader. What stands out from that interview with you?

Russell: It’s this desire to go out here and really approach things from how we can do them better and how we make ourselves better so that we are more effective at serving other people. That eye toward growing the community, that eye toward growing and understanding effectiveness in ourselves to pass that on to people we serve is something that characterized him. He is a brilliant young man who is just remarkable how quickly he built that community and how large it’s become and how effective they have become at serving others.

Hugh: Thank you for that. It is quite remarkable. He is a remarkable leader in our community and so active.

The next one was Steve Durie. He is a very successful businessman. He is starting a nonprofit. He is coming tomorrow to be with me, and we are doing his strategy and board development. We are laying down the front piece. I find that leaders who do that before they start to run something where nobody knows they are going, the fact they lay down a road map, is a really important piece of success. What we do at SynerVision is we create the pathway so that people don’t have to worry about what comes next. We take all that worry out. You install our system in your culture, and then it doesn’t run on autopilot, but you steer the process and you adjust it to the specific needs of your program. It’s a template for thinking; it’s not a box that we put people in that you have to do this this way. There is a sequence of implementation.

I find a lot of people are afraid of doing the wrong thing, so they do nothing, or things are creeping out of control. Or we don’t know how to generate revenue because we have not done things in order. The biggest one is we don’t have a board that engages. Steve talks about in this the part we skip over, the background checks. He said it’s alarming in his experience how many of these nonprofit organizations hire people without really knowing. We think about we want to see their misbehavior, but we also want to do a character check. What is their profile? What is their demeanor? Are they going to fit the culture? In his methodology of doing background checks, it covers a lot of stuff. We think it’s an expense. Maybe we can cut some expenses because we are thinking scarcity. We have that nonprofit word. Like our friend Thyonne Gordon talked about, we are the only industry in the world that defines ourselves by what we are not. What I learned with this background check with Steve was quite amazing. What do you remember?

Russell: It’s very important for nonprofits to protect themselves. A lot of times, we are working hands on with people. It’s especially important for organizations that are working with youth. There are liabilities. It’s risk mitigation. It’s no different than insurance to mitigate the risks that you are up against. He has a system that is effective that won’t break the bank that makes sure that you take a look at some of the most critical things when it comes to bringing people on board, whether they are board members or employees, day-to-day people, vendors. We think in terms of what we spend money for. Are the vendors that your nonprofit works with who they say they are?

Hugh: Ooh, yes.

Russell: There are thousands of dollars and all sorts of risks that you can save by doing all of these things up front. There are these questions we are afraid of because starting up and running a nonprofit or in the growth stage, there are many phases of the process that can be scary. It’s a systematic process. The 22-point strategic framework that has been developed by SynerVision, it is very extensive. The board members look at that and say, “Some of this stuff is intimidating.” This is where you bring in people like Christian LeFer. After you develop your strategy, you bring in people like Steve Durie to help you make sure you are staying on track and that you got everything in place that you need to protect yourself and operate efficiently. Our processes are a lot of work, but when you do this work up front, you’re working smarter, not harder, from that point on. You’re actually getting traction, and you are more effective at what you’re doing. I think that what we’re doing is very helpful to people.

Hugh: There is some really significant points in each of these that people can apply right away and get traction. You started out with highlighting Clay Neves. We already covered some of that, but we are always having to overcome the fear of asking for donations and not knowing how to do it. He puts it in his personal sales dynamics perspective. We are selling a concept. We are not asking for money. We are not begging for money. It’s not for us. Get over it. We are giving people an opportunity to provide value and to actually put something behind their passion and to see a difference. Unless you have another note on Clay, I want to move on. Do you?

Russell: When we talk to him about the challenge that people have of asking for their support, it’s that conviction that donors and sponsors are supporting us because it’s a one-way transaction. We are showing up on the doorstep with hat in hand. That’s not the case. A nonprofit brings value. They are bringing a skillset, an expertise, a knowledge of the people they serve to help solve a problem that that donor and sponsor want to have solved. It’s a partnership, not a handout. That view is the thing that Clay challenged. It’s looking at it from a sales standpoint. That is what a business does. A nonprofit is another business. Sales is about telling people how you solve problems that matter to them. That was the big takeaway from that session for me.

Hugh: We then interviewed our mutual friend Danna Olivo. Seven Steps to Building Awesome Customer/Donor Relations Program. We treat our tribe poorly. They give us money, and we don’t talk to them until we need money again. How to build an infrastructure around this, create these touchpoints for our donors. She gives you seven steps. It’s really quite brilliant. It’s embedded in the interview and in the narrative that goes with the podcast. If you download it from the iTunes store, the transcript from the interview is there. She has a win-win strategy here. It’s a step-wise process. That was good. Do you remember the Danna interview?

Russell: The two things that she talked about most were building that infrastructure. That was what she talked about. She says that the purpose of that infrastructure is to create an experience. This is what draws sponsors and donors. We are creating an experience for these folks. Those seven steps, she broke it down to service. That is really worth going to listen to if you did not have a chance to see that. What are these seven steps to building that relationship? What you’re doing should be scalable. You focus on the essential information. It should be relatable. You should relate to the donors. What motivates them? It needs to be valuable. You have to deliver great service. Keep a high level of engagement with your donors. The time to talk to them isn’t just when you want money, but it’s to talk to them about how what they’re doing to support you is impacting the lives of others and always thanking them, always reminding them, always keeping them informed of where and how they want to be informed. It’s involvement. Then there is credibility. Creating that trust through transparency, integrity, consistency. Then the E in Service is for Expect or Expectations, to build that belief of what you can do and find out what people want more of. What do they want to see? It’s always keeping the pulse on what’s important to the people who are paying for those services. It’s really great. She goes into more detail than I just did, but that’s a podcast that is worth going to because individual donations in many forms make up over 70% of the support that most charities get. I know there is a lot of emphasis on grants and other sources of funding. This is the biggie. If you don’t get this right, you could find yourself on life support. There is a whole science to donation.

If you go to that Thinkific platform that we are going to put in the notes, I have a free short course on creating a devoted donor base. That will give you some general information on that. But Danna has a lot of expertise and experience specifically on donors, so you will want to listen to that podcast. That was on April 10. That was our second broadcast of the month.

Go to the iTunes Store and look for The Nonprofit Exchange. You can also go on the YouTube and search for SynerVision Leadership and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Those are two ways to get this because since this broadcast started up, we’ve had some excellent business and thought leaders who have come on to talk to us about things that are important for growing your nonprofit. So you will want to subscribe. You will want to go into some of these old broadcasts. We have topics on everything ranging from your relationship with money to how to improve yourself internally to become more effective at leading your teams within your organization and serving your community. There is a lot of value here made possible by a lot of great sponsors that support our work here. Please avail yourself of these podcasts. We are going to continue to go out and find thought leaders that can bring you the latest information on ways to make both your organization and yourself more effective.

Hugh: Yeah. Our interviews are under an hour. Just a technical point, Russell. The April 10 was the interview with Danna, and it goes live on the podcast the following Sunday. That was April 15. We have two more in five minutes. I think we can get through the rest of these.

Barry Shore. He went from being totally paralyzed to now, how far did he say he swam? 6,000 miles or something.

Russell: It’s thousands of miles, and that is a great interview. I love how he talks about becoming a giver and how he defined being a giver. A giver is somebody who puts others first. How do I benefit others? That goes beyond just writing a check. It’s soul-deep, an emotional level. Adversity has been something that showed him a path to create transformation in the lives of other people. I love his platform. He’s got three criteria for being a service to others and making something powerful and effective. The first thing is it’s got to be easy to use. The second thing is it’s got to be fast. It’s got to be fun. And the third thing is it’s got to be free. There is no cost for people who support others. You will want to listen to that broadcast and find out about his platform Dlyted and how you will be able to support organizations that matter to you using that. I love the power and simplicity in the approach because he talked about three things: having something that is mobile, making use of gift certificates, and having it be digital. When we lay a path for people that makes it easy for them to support us, they are much more likely to do that. Please make sure you give that podcast a listen.

Hugh: Easy was important to me. The last one was just last week, Romal Tune. Amazing speaker. Amazing resonance with what we believe in in SynerVision. He has gone through trauma of healing as a man. He talked about us, the manly men, and how when we go through our healing and get released from what is holding us back, the profound impact of life, leadership, and legacy, that was a game-changer for me, that interview last week. What do you think?

Russell: I think he was really spot-on when he said we have to go to these wounded places of discomfort to show us what we need to step into our power and become great. That whole discussion was on how to become more effective as a leader to have the courage to be vulnerable. The key point, the one thing that he said, is you can’t take anyone where you haven’t been. That was the remark that he made that stood out to me. It’s all about becoming the type of leader that inspires visions and brings people along. That is what a lot of you people are doing out there. You are inspiring people. We want to get you the tools to help you bring others along in a way that is going to make a difference for more people.

Hugh: We continue to offer live events. LeadershipWorkshop.org is the listing of where the next live events are going to be. We have done 27 of the one-day Leadership Empowerment Symposium events around the country. Now we are going back in June 2018 will be in Vero Beach. August will be in San Diego, California. We are looking at Denver and Salt Lake City and Chicago again. We are going to come back with an advanced session. It’s an advanced power session, a three-hour session. One session is Integrating Strategy and Performance. We fail because we got a piece of paper and we don’t know how to connect it with all the stakeholders in the organization. What do they do when? How is that the basis for driving revenue? The second advanced workshop is the funding workshop. How do we create those eight pathways of regular recurring funding to enable us to do the work that we are called to do?

Russ, we have share the whole time. Time is up. But you have brought great detail to all of the work and the value that we have brought to people. We want to encourage people to go to TheNonprofitExchange.org, look at these, and go to The Nonprofit Exchange wherever you get your podcast and subscribe. It is well worth it. This is just the last three months. We have been doing this for four years now. It’s a knowledge vault of really good information. We encourage you to subscribe to The Nonprofit Exchange. We will see you here on the next session, won’t we, Russ?

Russell: We will be here next week, same time, same backchannel. We are looking forward to bringing you more thought leaders who are out there trying to make a difference.

Hugh: Thanks for being here. Take care.