Creating a Joy-Filled Culture

Heather M. Day is an author and ministry leader with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of marketing, communications, and nonprofit ministry. She is the Director of Marketing for Barnabas Foundation, where she provides marketing consultation and support for more than 200 Christian ministries. She is the author of Money and Spirit: Surrendering Our Finances to the Work of the Holy Spirit.

As leaders, we have the opportunity and responsibility to set the culture for our teams. We can create a joy-filled space where our employees feel valued, challenged and empowered. We can have fun in the workplace, but it requires intentionality, authenticity, humility, vision and grace.

In my role as director of marketing, I see my two greatest contributions as hiring great people and then equipping and empowering them to do their jobs well.

Heather’s Resources:

• Blog: HeatherDay.net
• Her new book, Money and Spirit: Surrendering Our Finances to the Work of the Holy Spirit

More – https://barnabasfoundation.org/ 

Interview Summary:

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. Stories, tools, and wisdom shared by leaders for leaders to help you raise the bar on your own excellence and release the potential inside of you. Now, here’s today’s show.

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, founder and president of the SynerVision Leadership Foundation and host of this interview series where we help especially nonprofit leaders get tools and systems to do our job better. And we’ve had some great guests. Heather is no exception. Heather Day, Tell people, you’re going to talk about creating a joy-filled culture, but before that, tell us a little bit about you and your background.

Heather Day:
Yeah, so I am a Director of Marketing for Barnabas Foundation, where I have the pleasure of working with, leading a staff, producing marketing materials for nonprofit ministries. I also, in my personal life, I have a loving husband, I have two kids, and one is truly one of the, things that I believe strongly is just providing and creating a culture of joy wherever I am, whether it’s in the workplace or home, of just fostering that kind of atmosphere where the people around me can thrive.

Hugh Ballou:
So talk about this joy-filled culture. It sounds too ideal, but you make it happen, right?

Heather Day:
Yeah. Well, that’s what I aspire to do. Um, I, you know, we, we have taken, um, so many of you may be familiar with the, um, with the instrument called best Christian workplaces survey. Um, and I’ve been a part of that a couple of different places, both that, um, in my former role, I’ve spent nine years, a director of marketing for, uh, for, uh, university. And then also have taken that in another organization. One of the things that I always thought was kind of interesting that they measure is I have fun in the workplace. which seems like an outlier when you look at productivity and you look at what’s the bottom line and what is, how much revenue are we making? Why in the world are we measuring fun? And yet, I think the reason why they measure that and why it’s so important is because when people feel joy and they love what they’re doing and they’re happy in their workplace or they’re happy at their home, they’re at their best self and most likely to more likely to be able to collaborate, they’re more likely to want to be there to give their best. So it really is a critical component of any family, any organization, whatever you’re leading it really making sure that that people feel joy in the workplace. That doesn’t mean That’s not the same as happiness. Happiness comes and goes, but joy is this underlying, I feel, you know, I really think it comes down to a few things of I feel safe and I feel valued and what I do matters. I can belong. And those are things that as leaders, we have an awesome opportunity and responsibility to help foster that for the people that we lead.

Hugh Ballou:
I think if you’re watching this live, we may have a couple of hiccups because I’m having marginal signal. And so Heather, that was brilliant. That was brilliant. Your signal is going to go to the recording, so that’s fine. And I’ll clip out my little blip later. So you’re hearing this live, folks. This is the real life. So Heather, you work in a place where this is one of your core values. Speak a little bit about that.

Heather Day:
Yeah, we have, um, we have seven core values here at Barnabas foundation. And, you know, there are things like quality and trust and excellence, but right along in that list is, is joy. Um, and, and literally I’ll read it to you. Our core value is we believe purpose, hard work and fun are not mutually exclusive. Um, the workplace should reflect, or the Christian workplace should reflect the joy of the Lord. Therefore we aspire to provide a life giving. encouraging laughter filled environment where employees working and spend time with one another. I think that this is a unique trait for our organization, but I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility for other organizations as well. I know that Southwest Airlines, for example, has made that a major portion of who they are, that when people enjoy their work, when they’re having a good time, when we don’t get so concerned about keeping everything buttoned up and keeping everything so serious that people want to be there and that they want to, there’s this game on, they want to be part of it and make a difference.

Hugh Ballou:
There’s an intentionality about that, isn’t there?

Heather Day:
There really is. I have at one of the things that I aspire to do is that I, it’s not that we can’t be real, and we can’t share with one another because we do have hard days, and I have hard days personally, but I try to maintain. an optimistic outlook on looking for the possibilities and looking for the, looking for the strengths of my team, making sure, again, part of that joy is making sure that they feel safe, that I’m not constantly tearing down, these are all the ways you messed up. Although there is accountability, but it’s more about these are what you are uniquely created to be able to do, and how can I help you get those barriers out of the way so you can become the best version of yourself, and so that I can help you accomplish all that you were designed to do. And so that we can, as a team, do all that we were designed to do as a group. when there is constant conflict and bickering and negativity, that tends to get in the way. Not only in the mental block, but also just the time and the dollars that are spent of people not wanting to be there, calling in sick, of like talking behind the scenes. There’s all kinds of things that break down when something is full of tension and full of stress versus just joy. It makes business sense to make people want to be there and be happy in their jobs.

Hugh Ballou:
That is huge. And there’s some leaders that thrive on the last minute, the energy, the stress, so they create it for everybody. And that’s not really very helpful, is it?

Heather Day:
No, no, it’s not. Yeah, when people are unsure of what kind of atmosphere they’re going to walk into, what’s the boss going to be like today, it really creates this distrust in the atmosphere that you don’t want that. So, and it doesn’t necessarily look like joy and fun in the workplace is unique to the leader. It doesn’t have to be silly games, it doesn’t have to be, you know, Pollyanna, everything is great all the time, but it’s just this atmosphere of, we have each other’s back, we’re looking for the positive options, we’re looking for solutions versus problems, and we’re looking to make sure that every person is thriving in their workplace. That’s, to me, what joy looks like.

Hugh Ballou:
Outstanding. You, in your notes for the show, you put, you hire good people and you train them to do their job. There’s two parts. And there’s also a third part, the retention part, you know, investing in employees. So talk a little bit about that and how it’s related to the joy of the Phil culture.

Heather Day:
Yeah, again, we spend so much time in recruitment and hiring and onboarding that when you get to the point of making a hire of someone, you have to trust that you’ve hired a good person. And so that means giving them the benefit of the doubt. And my job as their leader is to figure out what are the things that are keeping them from doing the things that they are capable of doing. It’s also to eliminate any miscommunication or any barriers to their success or the organization success. So sometimes that involves tough conversations of saying, hey, you know, we agreed to this standard, and what I see is that that standard is not being met. What’s getting in the way? And that does two things. It makes sure that we’re removing those barriers for them succeeding, but also makes them feel safe in that if we have an issue, I’m going to bring it to light. I’m not carrying, I’m not keeping this ledger of all the things that you’re doing wrong that at an annual review, I’m just going to drop a bomb on you. We will talk about the hard things when they’re there, we’ll practice accountability, but you can know that I’m in your corner and I’m rooting for you because I want you to succeed and I want us to succeed.

Hugh Ballou:
It’s huge, huge. You’ve got some really important things that we really ignore, don’t we? So that we get so busy doing the work. So how is the joy of culture related to the joy of giving. We get hung up on raising money. You help. How many organizations do y’all work with?

Heather Day:
We work with over 200 organizations that we help them with their planned giving services. So we help them to educate their supporters through marketing about planned gifts. We help do gift administration. We help them with planning. We offer them with training, but one of the things that I routinely say to them is people are so afraid to ask for for money as if I’m asking a huge favor of my supporters but but it’s particularly in plan giving. The people who are most likely to give in that way are raving loyal fans of you, and they’re just looking for for ways that they can amplify their giving they’re going to give to you anyway so they want to know how can I do it most tax efficiently and how can you enable me to give more. And one of the fun things about being in planned giving is that often when you introduce a tax-wise giving strategy to your supporters, we’ve seen supporters turn around and thank the fundraiser. Like, thank you for educating me about this. I had no idea that I could give in that way and not only reduce my taxes, but give in a more substantial ways to the cause that matters so much to me.

Hugh Ballou:
We position that wrongly. There’s really the other side of giving is joy. I mean, we think we’re bothering people. Speak a little more about that, would you?

Heather Day:
Yeah, we tend to go into there like almost sheepishly and ask oh you know I hate to bother you, but could you please give in this way, and we come into it that way like we’re we’re a bother and and in reality. There are people, lots of people who are out there and think, I have the resources that I’ve been given and I’ve been given these to make a difference in the world. And that’s what they’re looking around for. How can I use what I have to make a profound difference to the people in the community and the world around me? So when you educate them and you cast a vision and you talk about your mission, and you invite them to be part of that, they can feel that fulfillment of being part of something bigger than themselves. I mean think about as like as a mom, I love Christmas and it’s nice when I get gifts, but I get giddy about handing those gifts over to my children and that I had the ability to put that kind of happiness in their hand and to fill that need. And that’s amped up so many times more when I think about I’m able to give to a problem that I see in the world and to put tangible help behind it. That’s extremely gratifying and creates joy for our supporters.

Hugh Ballou:
You mentioned marketing, so there’s a couple of terms you’ve used that are foreign to a lot of nonprofit leaders. Marketing and planned giving. Talk about donor-advised fund, I’m sure that’s foreign to some too. Speak to any of those, would you? Marketing. We think it’s a bad word, but we really, that’s an important function, isn’t it?

Heather Day:
The marketing? Yeah, absolutely. We talk about marketing, particularly in the world of development and fundraising and plan giving as the elevator music that’s just constantly going in the background. That doesn’t replace the need for conversations and making the ask and all of those sorts of things, but your marketing really should be the music that’s playing in the background, that’s setting an atmosphere, that’s educating, that’s enlightening people about the different ways that they can give. So things like there are gifts that can help your supporters to give in substantial ways that because we just don’t talk about this in everyday conversations, they just don’t know about. So the more that you could educate your supporters through ongoing mailings and social media and digital ads, anything that you can do to continue to educate them, it puts them in a space to be ready for a conversation and an ask.

Hugh Ballou:
Absolutely. And a little on marketing, people confuse PR, public relations, marketing, and sales, three distinctly different functions. Now, what you’re doing with me today, I would call public relations. Because, you know, marketing, you’re telling people about the value of what you do. You’re creating awareness for the product. Marketing, you’re honing in, aren’t you, on the specifics of what you offer?

Heather Day:
Exactly, marketing is just to me, it’s just trying to take a message and figure out how can I deliver this message to the people that need to hear it? In what ways do I need to communicate it? What channels do I need to communicate it to? It’s really figuring out like if I’m going to, if I wanna reach Joe in Montana, how do I need to say it? Where do I need to say it? How often do I need to say it before Joe in Montana hears that message and responds?

Hugh Ballou:
And the first call you have with Joe doesn’t need to be an ask, does it?

Heather Day:
No. Um, you know, it’s, it’s again, creating that awareness. And when people are, uh, are, um, at the point of making a plan gift, which I think it would be helpful to find. We, we, we talk about plan gifts as anything that requires advanced planning or the assistance of a professional to complete. So that might be an estate gift, like a gift in a will, but it could also include gifts of real estate, gifts of business, gifts of stock, those things that you just can’t pull out your wallet and just hand over. It requires advanced planning or the gifts or the expertise of a professional in order to complete. But while they are not instantaneous gifts, they’re transformational for organizations. Research shows over and over again that when you’re asking for those kinds of gifts, giving increases across the board.

Hugh Ballou:
Those are, you might call legacy gifts, right?

Heather Day:
Correct. Correct. Yeah. They tend to be those who have been on this earth a little bit longer. They have more resources to give, but they’re not only thinking about how can I give now, but how can I give in a way that will last beyond me? How can I build my legacy? And when people are ready to make that kind of legacy, that’s not a simple knee-jerk reaction. It’s because they really love your organization and they want to do something that’s bigger than themselves.

Hugh Ballou:
And when they do it, they feel great about it. There’s another piece of joy there.

Heather Day:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Hugh Ballou:
So there’s another related element here and that’s communications. when somebody makes a gift, it’s important to stay in touch with them because if they know that you’ve been good stewards to the gift and you’ve created a lot of value, they’re likely to continue giving, correct?

Heather Day:
Right, right. And it’s a natural, it’s natural if we have, they’ve given in a transformational way and they’ve given In a way that that we’ve needed so it’s sure we should follow the same thing we would do even a personal life as somebody gave us an incredible gift. Our 1st response should be gratitude and thanking them and making sure we are acknowledging their gift in a timely way and making sure that they understand that we see what you did and we recognize it and it is so transformational what you did. But then to continue to educate and continue to ask again, because again, this is not a one-time opportunity. It’s an opportunity to continue to steward that relationship with them and talk about them, talk about how else they can be involved in your important work that you’re doing.

Hugh Ballou:
The other element, talk about marketing, you define plan giving, donor advised fund you’ve mentioned. So tell us, that sounds strange. If you don’t have a lot of money, you don’t have one, but tell us they are there and that’s another place where a professional needs to help.

Heather Day:
Right. So this is all, you know, yeah, it is a growing, it’s a very growing in popularity because it’s something that a lot of people, including myself, I didn’t know about before I came to Barnabas Foundation, what a donor advised fund is. But essentially, it’s like a charitable giving account that you can give cash and other non-cash assets into a single giving account. You’ve made the gift, so it’s in that fund. And then from there, you can recommend grants out to your favorite charities at a time that works for you. You receive an immediate tax deduction at the time that you put it into the account, but you can disperse it out over time is one of the benefits of it. So let’s say you’re making a large gift of real estate or stock at the end of the year. You can get your immediate tax deduction, but then spread your giving out over the following year. Another benefit of using a donor advice fund is that it allows you, if you are so inclined, you can give anonymously because you get into that account and then can recommend the grants out anonymously. The other thing that’s really beneficial about a donor advice fund is that it allows you to give all your giving to one place, all of your receipts, All of that is stored in one location. So if I give to 10 different organizations, I can put all of my funds. Again, I’ll go back to the real estate example. If I give a home into my donor advice fund, I can then use that gift to recommend grants to all of my favorite charities and in the amount that I want to give and at the time I want to give it.

Hugh Ballou:
Wow, wow. That’s something. So you mentioned the company, Barnabas Foundation. So I’m gonna pull up the website for it. Tell us a little bit about the Barnabas Foundation. Now people that are listening to this can’t see it. So describe it for the podcast as well as the people watching the video.

Heather Day:
Barnabasfoundation.org. So we help generous Christians give to their favorite ministries in ways that honor God and provide for their families. So that can be include gifts of that reduce their taxes, such as stock, business, real estate, commodities, but it also can include gifts at a will. And that’s how we help individuals to give to their favorite charities. Besides individuals, we also work with organizations to help them in four different ways. We can help them market to their supporters, we can help administer complex gifts, we can help with planning, and we can also help with training to make sure that you are educated and empowered to be able to promote those gifts and receive those gifts. Um, so it’s really, uh, I, I love the ministry of work before, um, it is, um, it’s a way that we, I, you know, I’ve always felt passionate about being involved in, um, charity, charitable work. And this enables me to use my gifts and marketing to, to help, um, over 200 Christian organizations. So, um, so it’s really, um, yeah, I can’t say enough good about it. I love it.

Hugh Ballou:
Well, I’ve never heard of it. I’ve been in the non-profit world for 35 years doing work with non-profits and churches. I’ve served churches for 40. So there’s just a lot of options. So anybody that wants to make a gift, this makes it easier. So what’s the value on the charity side? They don’t need to do the work. What’s the value on our side?

Heather Day:
So the value is that, you know, if you were to build out an entire plan giving office for your organization, you’re talking about multiple salaries, you’re talking about deep expertise. You’re talking about complicated systems. And when we’re working with or working with charities, we basically become their plan giving office. So we’re providing you customizable marketing materials that you can use that’s included in your membership. We also can help you administrate complex gifts. So, for example, if a smaller, like a. a smaller organization, if they have a supporter that wants to give business interests or they want to give cryptocurrency, we will accept that gift and then liquidate it and send it to your organization so that you don’t have to go through all the complications of accepting that gift. So it really becomes, we work closely with organizations that we can partner with and be aligned with. Our expertise is in plan giving, so we want to use those gifts to free you up to do the things that you’re uniquely called to do. We wanna get all of that, let you free you up to do what you’re best at.

Hugh Ballou:
That’s so critical. We’re not many people as experts in this topic. So, Heather Day, you’ve written a book. Let’s not forget to show the book.

Heather Day:
Yeah, so I wrote a book. It came out in January called Money and Spirit. Surrendering our finances to the work of the Holy Spirit. And the premise of the book is that we, we tend to get so tied up in, we keep falling into the same traps of overspending or not saving we and we keep trying to figure out all these tactics of how we can turn that around. But the reality is that our financial decisions and how we view and manage our money reflects underlying cause. So the book is really about like, if you are looking for money to give you joy, or if you’re looking for money to give you peace, or if you’re looking for money to give you self-control, you’re gonna come up short. What makes all the difference is when we’re transformed from the inside and recognize that our money is just a tool, an expression, but what we really need to find is the true source of joy, the true source of peace, the true source of comfort and patience and self-control. And once our heart is transformed, our behaviors, including our financial behaviors, will reflect that change.

Hugh Ballou:
That is a perfect closing thought for this wonderful interview. Heather Day, thank you for sharing your wisdom with my guests today on The Nonprofit Exchange.

Heather Day:
Thank you, Hugh.

Hugh Ballou:
Thank you for watching The Nonprofit Exchange.