How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Danielle Gines [00:00:00]:
If, for example, you have a nonprofit and I have a nonprofit and we serve similar people. If you close your doors, that's still going to, there's still a need for you because we were still serving more, but now I'm going to have to do more with the budget that I have.

Kenny Lange [00:00:21]:
Welcome to the how leaders think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Danielle Gines. She is the founder, CEO and curriculum specialist of DG Consultancy. It's an LLC, in case you were wondering. She is no stranger to the learning and development space. Her professional career includes teaching, training and revising. I really feel like there was an opportunity for a third t there. So work on that, Danielle.

Kenny Lange [00:00:52]:
And revising learning content for over 15 years, combining her background in both the education and nonprofit sectors, she realized that curriculum is the key to unlocking a lot of common challenges nonprofits are having with their programming and training. Welcome to the show, Danielle.

Danielle Gines [00:01:09]:
Thank you, Kenny. It's such an honor to be here today.

Kenny Lange [00:01:13]:
It's certainly going to be a fun conversation. Whether or not it's productive is anyone's guess. So if you've just hit play on this episode, just start praying now, Danielle, tell me what is on your mind?

Danielle Gines [00:01:26]:
A lot of things, Kenny, but in all seriousness, I know we get to banter a lot. A couple things have come up this summer because we're post pandemic. I sit in the learning and development space, but I'm having a lot of crossover with different areas. Fundraising, because I predominantly work with nonprofits and consultants who serve non profits. And it's about sustainability. There's, I recently was, I was talking to a couple of friends who are still in the sector. They're in house and they were like, we don't want to go to this specific luncheon. There was a hosting institution over in Dallas and they're like, they're just going to tell us there's no money.

Danielle Gines [00:02:05]:
And there is money in the sector, but how that money is acquired from individual donors and also from funding institutions, that practice is changing substantially. And yet there's this conflict that's happening where some smaller nonprofits are still closing their doors and yet there are still million dollar grants out there or even several thousand dollar grants out there. So this week so far has been like, okay, how do we build sustainable, like, truly sustainable practices that really aren't happening? We talk about strategic partnerships. What does that really mean? We talk about collaborating. What does that really mean. We talk about breaking silos and burnout and turnover, but how are we really chipping away at this mountain, especially people who support nonprofit, so that it is across the board a holistic way of lifting up these organizations internally, so then their impact is continue to be strengthened. That's something I've been chewing on this.

Kenny Lange [00:03:06]:
Week, which I think, and maybe it'll be relevant until the end of time, because I know that there are new challenges post pandemic and how money is distributed, what is available, what isn't available, how much funds and scholarships and grants and all sorts of things are doing their distribution. But when we talk about how can we make an organization holistically healthy? Given your career in learning education, which tends to be whether it's state or federal funded, some are private institutions or just run essentially like a nonprofit, they share a lot of similarities. What are things that you see as these might be some of the key levers that, that we need to pull on and in order to build a holistically healthy organization. And what have you seen as the prevailing wisdom around that that is still allowing these organizations to shut their doors?

Danielle Gines [00:04:03]:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is allowing for internal growth or individual growth as well, the professional development within the sector. It's go to this conference or attend this summit, but there really isn't too much of an opportunity to tailor individual growth and say, what is it that you want to learn? Is it how to do your job more effectively? Or is it what's going to keep you here so that we grow and keep maintaining talent is going to be really key. And part of that is asking, what do our people need to grow?

Kenny Lange [00:04:43]:
What I hear you saying is maybe a lot of these institutions and organizations have, lack of a better term, just outsourced the leadership development, the professional development that should be more carefully or conscientiously curated for the individuals in the organization, or maybe is something that they could deliver themselves, but maybe don't feel like they have the skill set or aptitude to transfer knowledge. Maybe they have a lot of wisdom and knowledge. They're not quite sure how to transfer it to the next generation or that next level of leadership. And instead, if they can feel good about an activity. We paid for you to go to a conference. And nothing against conferences. Conferences can be great. One day, three day, all sorts of conferences are out there that make sessions and tools and speakers and curriculum available to develop.

Kenny Lange [00:05:36]:
But what I hear you saying is that it might, those are good, but let's either be strategic about them. Which ones instead of just saying, we sent you to five this year so you're good, or let's figure out how to really harness the wisdom and the organization so that we can continue to not just develop them professionally, but also it's an opportunity to instill the culture of whether it's learning or openness or whatever's important to that organization. Is that what you're observing?

Danielle Gines [00:06:08]:
Absolutely. And like to level on or like tap onto that, as they say. I know.

Kenny Lange [00:06:14]:
Which is we'll circle back.

Danielle Gines [00:06:18]:
But also relying on who within the sector, because, yes, you can go to the foundation center and get some kind of training there as well, but also still leaning into yourself as an expert. There's a nonprofit that has amazing in Dallas readers to leaders. They have amazing retention of employees. There's something, yes, their mission's amazing. They do incredible programming. But there's also some secret sauce in there about how they're able to retain talent in how they train people. And so imagine having that highlighted to other nonprofits. Say, hey, these are the top five things that we do at our organization to show that we value everyone.

Danielle Gines [00:07:03]:
And then if you're a smaller nonprofit or even a medium sized size or a larger size nonprofit, to say, what are our practices and how are we encouraging learning within? But then also how are we learning from each other? Because it is very much, it is a small sector, but it's still seen as very competitive and siloed. So coming back to that, how can we partner in a more efficient way? That's non threatening. I'm not going to take your donors, but if, for example, you have a nonprofit and I have a nonprofit and we serve similar people, if you close your doors, that's still going to, there's still a need for you because we were still serving more, but now I'm going to have to do more with the budget that I have. So we're able to lean on each other a bit more strategically as well and learn from each other and set up in a way that's, hey, did you go to that conference? Maybe we could do like a lunch and learn for both of our organizations, something like that, to bring it, implement it, bring it in and rely on each other and be accountable to each other from what we learn, too.

Kenny Lange [00:08:10]:
It's sort of a we're better together mentality. And in the, it's not exclusive to for profit, but really in the marketing world, there is a methodology or approach that's gaining a lot of traction. I happen to be a guest on podcast by the same name called near Bound. And that's just because of my background in agency world and near bounds, really about finding those people that serve the same audience as you, but they maybe take a slightly different approach now, it may be a totally different aspect of what they need. I think unless you are just massive as an organization, there's no way you can meet every possible need of a people, of a specific people group. I don't care how specific you get. There's going to be these trailing symptoms and needs and circumstances that, as Andy Stanley said, it's like you can choose to partner or pioneer. You're probably better off partnering.

Danielle Gines [00:09:10]:
Oh, yes.

Kenny Lange [00:09:11]:
And getting the benefit of someone else's expertise on a really specific service to be offered. So I love that. But I've nothing heard as many people talk about either looking for it or advocating for it in the service side of things, as opposed to say, we're going to do a collaborative marketing effort on this sort of thing. Because to your point, if one of us goes out of business, close our doors, that same group of people still has the same need, except now they have fewer places to go to where they're now. There's really probably not enough resources to serve the entire population. This is one reason why I am such an advocate for those internal systems and frameworks. Like, what I do with organizations when I implement, like system and soul is I tell them, look, you are not doing these people you claim to be so passionate about a service. If you close your doors, if you don't manage your resources well, and if you don't scale, I don't think any of you got into this sector to make the smallest impact possible.

Kenny Lange [00:10:15]:
Did you? And while I love the saying nonprofit is a tax status, not a gross strategy.

Danielle Gines [00:10:21]:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. My friends get shocked because, and I'm not walking down the political route, but the presidential debate, that entity is technically a 501 C three. And so when people are like, oh, nonprofit, they do think, sweet, we sell rainbows and unicorns. And no, it's a tax status. And there's some really wealthy 501 C three s out there. Not to say that the entity that sponsors the debate is the same as the Ronald McDonald house, but it's a reframing of the mindset and it's internal and it's external. It's how we market it, it's how we tell ourselves what we are going to do and how we're going to advance with curriculum when it comes to programming, because that's my specific area.

Danielle Gines [00:11:09]:
There's a lot of emphasis on. We have to fund for the program, but if you're not looking for gap, then your program isn't going to be as effective like you. Absolutely. You said something, and I should have jotted a note, but it made me think of something, but it'll come to me. Senior moment, I guess.

Kenny Lange [00:11:25]:
I believe it. If it's meant to be, it'll come back to you. Release the butterfly. So I'm glad you brought up the curriculum and programming piece, because I did want to ask you, since that is your area of specialty, is we could talk a lot about development and fundraising and the role that plays in the sustainability and scale of an nonprofit organization. But talk a bit about what you're seeing from a program and services side, because that's what so many of the. Of these grants and the money that's available. They want to know. It's going to the program because the program is the delivery mechanism.

Kenny Lange [00:12:05]:
That's the mission. That's the cause. Now, I could chase a tangent later about the fact that there's such an issue where we, for some reason, think that nonprofits should do the most good with the least amount of infrastructure. Yeah, I'm just gonna. There's a great book and film, and I think the TED talk has the same name called uncharitable.

Danielle Gines [00:12:24]:
Oh, yes.

Kenny Lange [00:12:26]:
Which the guys, Dan is going to be speaking in Dallas at the North Texas Nonprofit Institute summit. Of course, if you're listening to this in the year 2035, then it's long since passed. But I'm making some bold proclamations of how long my podcast is going to be around, and I'm going to speak it into existence. I am all things that aren't as though they were. So we can chase that rabbit trail in a minute. But how people can become very passionate. They see the need and they feel like, oh, it's. I need to do something about it.

Kenny Lange [00:12:59]:
But maybe the programming piece, like how they deliver the care or whatever it is, not performing as well. What are some things you're seeing and those that are struggling, and then what does it look like when programs are really successful? Successful?

Danielle Gines [00:13:15]:
That's a great question. I do want to, like pre. I do want to say something before. Not everyone needs to start a nonprofit. I think we should also, like, tap that in, because there's sometimes we are in our circle of influence and our own experiences in our regions and say, wow, there's this need right now in my specific neighborhood for after school care. Right. For example, the first thing that we should look at is what is already in existence, what program is in existence, what responses are, and resources are already being utilized, and then go from there, because maybe there's a gap in their delivery that you can help with versus you establishing a whole new nonprofit, getting a board, coming up with the right documents, filing, and then starting to fundraise or write a grant. I will say that ahead of time before I go.

Kenny Lange [00:14:11]:
I think that's worth rewinding and listening to several times over. I think that there are a lot of problems that would be solved if we would just first look around at what someone else is doing and then add our effort to that. I think we, we end up as a. As just humanity. We end up splitting and dividing resources between so many opportunities and good, good ideas that we can't go as far in solving an issue in society because we've got a thousand entities vying for the same pot of money and resources and talent and everything else, when we could make a much bigger dent if we would consolidate down into ten and really tackle the mess out of this thing. So I appreciate you saying that, and I think that's important for people to really consider before they launch out and just say, oh, well, I'm going to do it. What's different? Our logo is cooler. But go ahead and talk about what are the difference in structures? Or what are those telltale signs of underperforming, poor performing programming versus really successful.

Danielle Gines [00:15:19]:
It's definitely going to come down to how many hats you're wearing. Because I'll have a small to medium nonprofit, and they won't have programming staff, or they won't have someone that's focused on the curriculum or the program design. And so they're like, I just implement, and there's no time or moments of reflection. And this isn't a criticism. Like, they're under the crunch, because what you mentioned earlier is, let's do more for less. That's not a badge of honor. I mean, I come from. I made this terrible, it's not obscene joke once.

Danielle Gines [00:15:55]:
Cause I come from education and nonprofit, and I was like, I guess I don't like money, huh? Like, why is that even a thing? Like, why did that come out of my mouth? Because there's something about these two, especially these two sectors, where it's about impact and quote, unquote, loving the job. No, we are still people. And so when I see a nonprofit that has that crunch and they want to outsource and say, we need some curriculum support, we've got a grant, it's wonderful. But I do have concerns for sustainability, because I'm not always going to be there. And so the programming, we talk about it. We have moments. What's the next step? What can you do? How can we build in a system that is more evergreen that you can check back to or you can update, but that program is not going to be able to scale as much because it doesn't have the internal labor force, but also system in place. And you also have to trust the system we get.

Danielle Gines [00:16:54]:
So, okay, I do this, and I have this, like, litany of responsibilities and my roles, but you do have to also start to say, I have to let go. This organization's wonderful. It may be my work, but it's not. It shouldn't be. I know. Here we go. It shouldn't be your life.

Kenny Lange [00:17:10]:
Yeah. Which having that healthy boundary, I think is critical. And in some cases, just the rest and the time away can also. It can do your mind good because it is taxing. And depending on who you're. What people, group or problem you're trying to solve, you can really suffer from compassion fatigue and be on a crash course for burnout. And then what good are you doing? Anybody?

Danielle Gines [00:17:35]:
Exactly.

Kenny Lange [00:17:35]:
I try to encourage the leaders and people I work with to think of themselves like a professional athlete. Like they have the moments when they need to perform at a high level, but they're also as intentional about structuring and rest and recovery and what fuels their bodies for the game and things like that. When you make a living with your mind, or maybe it is really physically taxing because of the work that you're doing in the community, take it. You can take what you do seriously without taking yourself as seriously. And I think that's when people tend to tilt towards that burnout moment, is they think if it's meant to be, it's up to me. And while you are, can be a part of the solution, the fate of the world and this people group do not rest on your shoulders.

Danielle Gines [00:18:21]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Kenny Lange [00:18:23]:
So when someone's thinking about, hey, okay, so we want to help this group of people. We think training either of the people. Maybe you're training adults on like job, workforce type skills. I know a lot of nonprofits do that, which is excellent. Or literacy programs, or you need to train volunteers because the people group has. Have some higher level needs. For example, the. I'm on the board of this nonprofit, Hope Haven of East Texas, and their primary function is as a group home for girl teen girls in foster care, which is often an overlooked group in the foster care system.

Kenny Lange [00:19:02]:
And we can't just have whoever walk off the street and be like, hey, I'm here to serve. Great. You ready to go through a couple dozen hours worth of training?

Danielle Gines [00:19:12]:
Yep.

Kenny Lange [00:19:12]:
Because you can't. You can't be a bull in a china shop. Right. Some of these things really do require more precision than that. So as people are thinking through, okay, am I training my audience? Am I training my staff, my volunteers? What are some of the right questions to ask and problems to solve for early on that would set them up for programming and training or curriculum success?

Danielle Gines [00:19:38]:
Yes. So actually, I would borrow something from the curriculum process. We do a needs analysis to find out where this skill gaps are, the knowledge gaps are. And I feel like these three questions you could use for anything. It's a great way to shine a light on where the breakdown is. So the first one is what's happening? What's currently happening? So you look at behaviors and you may say, okay, like, we've got these volunteers and they're not reporting their hours. So what's happening is we're not able to log that. We're not able to use that for grant information or annual fund information or, excuse me, annual report and volunteer hours.

Danielle Gines [00:20:18]:
Also, even though we volunteer, it still has monetary value. So that's what's happening. And then the second question, what do you want to happen? We want them to be able to complete their hours in a timely manner as soon as they finish their shift. And then the third question is, okay, what's standing in the way of that? So what don't they know? Is it accessible? Is there a binder they're supposed to fill out? Is the binder always moving around? Is it digital? Is it something that they. For example, I work, I volunteer with, march to the polls, and like a lot of volunteers, there's a certain age demographic. And so you need to make sure that, is it too high of a technology learning curve? Are they going to be able to, do they even have a Google Drive? Can they get that form? I'm not throwing shade. I don't want the boomers to come for me.

Kenny Lange [00:21:12]:
They're big numbers I was gonna make. When you said, is it too high? I thought maybe it was on the top shelf, and then that was maybe a.

Danielle Gines [00:21:20]:
For all of you who don't know this, I am 5ft tall. That's why Kenny is referencing my height.

Kenny Lange [00:21:25]:
I'm gonna get the emails on that one.

Danielle Gines [00:21:28]:
That's right. The boomers will come for me, the shorties will come for you, and then that's it. We'll have to, I don't know, change our identity and become new people.

Kenny Lange [00:21:36]:
I've been working on that.

Danielle Gines [00:21:38]:
Dear diary.

Kenny Lange [00:21:39]:
So I love that process, which makes it seem, not, to quote a former employee of mine, it ain't rocket surgery, is what's going on. What do I wish they were doing? Okay. What would be getting in the way of that? And obviously, you can just ask some people, and because people generally don't have a problem complaining, but find that out. Now, when it comes to we've gone through that process, we feel like we've got the right answers. But I don't think that there's just one best way to deliver that training and that information, to have that transfer of knowledge and to bring them along. How do you go about advising these nonprofits on, hey, great, we've got the answers. We know what we need to talk about. But now we need to select the right medium and cadence to deliver this so that there is user adoption and behavior change.

Kenny Lange [00:22:35]:
How do you go about that process?

Danielle Gines [00:22:37]:
Yeah, so I usually there's two buildings that something always falls in. It can be a library or a school. There may be a need for some overlap. And so a lot of it is, do they know where to go to get the information? And if that's the case, then maybe there needs to be some kind of knowledge dashboard or even an actual. Here is a physical manual that you can look at that you can consult, a flip book, something like that, depending on the needs of your people. And then is it a school? Like, they don't know how. Right. So it's the skill.

Kenny Lange [00:23:11]:
Okay. And is that where if something is maybe a bit more complex than they need, that school type environment?

Danielle Gines [00:23:20]:
Right. They need practice, basically.

Kenny Lange [00:23:23]:
Okay. Do you have or use a matrix of some sort to help rate or grade the complexity or help those things fall? I'm imagining, like, the old coin sorter. You could just, like, throw all your coins in and it put the quarters and the dimes and all that stuff. Do you have something that helps simplify that to where the. These leaders are not having to. Just my best guess. Hey, we'll just throw it over here. They'll know where to look.

Kenny Lange [00:23:49]:
And what they really needed was hands on. And the other direction is terrible, too, because I've gotten feedback on that, like, sweet lord, we're not children. Just give us the information. We'll absorb it and move forward. So how do you help people make that decision? Or is there an existing standard or process that most people use?

Danielle Gines [00:24:12]:
Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of it will come from the results of the third question. What's standing in the way of that? And so if a lot of it's like action focused words like there was, for example, a nonprofit I worked with, and they were, their main mission was collaborating across similar focused nonprofit. So it was a disaster response, and their kind of mission was to build in coordination and build in collaboration and things like that. And so one of the things was they're not able to fill out the same kind of standard form. So it gets confusing on who's delivering what service during a disaster. So the response gets a little. The disaster response process gets a little waylaid.

Danielle Gines [00:24:57]:
It was, okay, they need to be able to use this dashboard, looking at what are they already doing while they're filling something out. But they're not all filling out the same form. We want them to fill out the same form in the same kind of dashboard. Okay, they're familiar with it first. That's where the library and school might overlap. It's. They do need to become familiar with this particular dashboard. How is it different? Anything that's going to be, whether it's technology or a process, you're definitely going to have to come into the school a little bit, especially if it's complex, the less familiar they are.

Danielle Gines [00:25:34]:
So if you're thinking about the matrix, the less familiar someone is, then I'll give you an example. If you've always used Microsoft and you're moving to Google Drive, there's some similarities. There's some similarities. So there's a higher familiarity because some knowledge can be transferred. If there's no knowledge that can be transferred, then they are going to have to spend some time in the school learning a skill or practicing it. Now, you still want to be able to give them the option to opt out, whether it's using a learning management system, and they can. That's what's great about using these LMS is once they are able to show that they can practice and start to acquire that system skill, then they don't have them do ten more hours of training. Be like, all right, you've got this now let's see you out in the wild and do it.

Danielle Gines [00:26:28]:
But if there's a higher level of transference, of knowledge and familiarity, then you're looking more at, okay, we just need to show you where something is, and we just need to be able to maybe do, like, video libraries versus doing, let me call you in and we're going to sit you down and we're going to talk about it. Things like that.

Kenny Lange [00:26:49]:
Gotcha. And would any of that change? If you're talking about training paid staff versus volunteers versus maybe serving the people group that you're trying to make an impact on, how do those different audiences change how a leader should be thinking about the program design or training?

Danielle Gines [00:27:12]:
Yeah. So it's all about how often are they going to interact with the specific skill? Or there was a nonprofit and they specialized in domestic violence and working with survivors and the volunteers. And so that was absolutely no question, had to be delivered in person. There was federal regulations and state regulations connected to it. In those instances, the level of training for the volunteer was, I wouldn't say, like, exactly the same as staff, because staff received a bit more training, obviously more regulated training when required training, but it was at a higher level than maybe. If you were saying, I'm a volunteer for the food bank this weekend, again, it depends on who are you serving and then how deep does it need to go from there? Something like that.

Kenny Lange [00:28:05]:
Gotcha. If we're connecting this with what we started the conversation with, about how do we make nonprofits holistically healthy? So from fundraising to operations to, obviously, your specialty and program design and implementation, how do you fit programs into the organization being healthy? Because some people may say that's just the thing we do. That doesn't have anything to do with how well our finances are run, and are we having effective leadership meetings, and is our board full of jack wagons? Whatever it may be, how does programming fit in, and how can it be a force for good towards the goal of being holistically healthy?

Danielle Gines [00:28:49]:
Yeah, I think it comes back to a breakdown I often see is, are you measuring correctly? So I was talking to a nonprofit that they had. It was all beautifully written up. They had several programs. But I'm like, how are you measuring impact? Like, how will you know? And a little note is, if we're having a day to day conversation, I can say, oh, we want the students to be able to understand the key components of STEM or steam education. That's because we're having conversation. But when you go to measure, understand is highly subjective, so you shouldn't be using that when it comes to your measurement or your program impact knowledge. And there's so many subjective words used in programming that it's harder to measure them, or we think that they're getting measured only in outputs. We had 1500 new campers come this summer.

Danielle Gines [00:29:45]:
Okay. How do you know that there's a behavior change in that? And so when you know how to measure in a way that's actionable and measurable, easy to measure. I'm not like I understand how. I understand how you understand could be vastly different and to the level. Then you're able to come back into your marketing, into your fundraising, talk to your individual donors, talk to your grantees, or, excuse me, grantors, and say, we know for sure that this is working because we're seeing these kinds of results in our outcomes. So, for example, with used to teach ESL, it wasn't just how many students in the class, but it was how many students, once they left, signed up for college courses and passed the remedial language class, or how many of them got and submitted for a promotion. Those are, like, the bigger core outcomes that show, oh, my gosh, yes. Those are the numbers that we can really tap onto, and that comes back and says, we're able.

Danielle Gines [00:30:49]:
Let's fundraise for what we're actually measuring and proving that our impact works. I don't know about the Jack wagons. You might just have to get new board members.

Kenny Lange [00:30:58]:
We'll do that. We'll have another. A separate. Maybe we'll do a jack wagon panel.

Danielle Gines [00:31:02]:
Yeah, I'd listen to that. That's a great. It's a good point, though.

Kenny Lange [00:31:06]:
I might listen to that, too. I think I need somebody else to host that particular conversation. But I love anytime we can start talking about data, because I love looking at KPI's key performance indicators. It's part of my process, as a matter of fact, that the one of my clients, when we went through the process and she showed her board, that was one. And just building a scoreboard full of KPI's to measure weekly, monthly, and annually, it's just one small component of what we do. But she emailed me back. She's. The board loved the roadmap, and they really loved the scoreboard.

Kenny Lange [00:31:43]:
And trust and mine and my team's leadership went way up after the fact. And it's to what you're saying of the numbers don't lie. We're here to drive outcomes. Right? Not make ourselves feel good.

Danielle Gines [00:31:55]:
Right.

Kenny Lange [00:31:56]:
We will feel fulfilled. There was a. That was a tricky sentence.

Danielle Gines [00:32:00]:
I'm just tackling that.

Kenny Lange [00:32:02]:
It's almost like I have a degree in speech communication.

Danielle Gines [00:32:05]:
Almost.

Kenny Lange [00:32:05]:
Thanks, dad. I'm just kidding. He doesn't listen.

Danielle Gines [00:32:08]:
But yet.

Kenny Lange [00:32:09]:
Not yet. I'm gonna get him. I think when I hit top 2%, he might listen, but it's just. You got to hit those numbers.

Danielle Gines [00:32:17]:
Oh, wow.

Kenny Lange [00:32:17]:
Speaking of which. Wow. This turned. This conversation took a sharp.

Danielle Gines [00:32:23]:
So, metrics. Numbers.

Kenny Lange [00:32:25]:
Metrics. And numbers. Thank you, Danielle. Such a helped me.

Danielle Gines [00:32:28]:
So I'm here for.

Kenny Lange [00:32:29]:
I need to record these in the morning. I'm getting loopy in the afternoon. But they, but the idea of numbers and performance, that's one reason why even my, you can call it a tagline or whatever it is. That really what I'm passionate about is turning purpose into performance. You can be full of purpose by all means, you should. That's where you should start. Right, right. It can't just be, I'm gonna get rich off of being a nonprofit.

Kenny Lange [00:32:54]:
Like, hey, you actually could if you run it effectively, there's no reason why you couldn't financially be in a really healthy position. I have nothing against people running effective organizations, being compensated fairly, whatever that means. But if we're not looking at the outcomes we promise that we say that we're about, if they are happening, great. We figured out how to deliver this, like, in the programming that you're talking about now. Let's pour fuel on the fire. So we're scrapping to figure out proof of concept that rarely do people argue with the problem because that's usually fairly visible or understandable, even if it's nuanced. People go, oh, yeah, I could see that would be a problem. Somebody should do something about that.

Kenny Lange [00:33:38]:
Nobody argues about that. But then it comes down to, how are we going to solve it? Which is a lot of what you just talked about and laid out a great process. I think that there's probably an entirely separate conversation, an episode just around some of those KPI's, from programs to anything else. But if anybody has questions, I'm always happy to talk about that and go over that. A lot of my background in digital marketing, because that was just, there's a measurement for everything. Even things that didn't need to be measured got measured, which was stupid. And that actually created its own problem because we had, like, data everywhere and insights are nowhere to be found. It's like we have 37,000 followers.

Kenny Lange [00:34:15]:
Great. How's your revenue doing? It's tanking. Then who gives a crap? But so often, whatever the nonprofit version of that may be, they may even say, we have tons of followers and engagement on our videos and our marketing collateral for our cause. So people feel an affinity for it. Great. What are the outcomes of the participants in the programs that you're running them through? No, and I would say they're not bad. They just don't know. And I think that's an equally negative thing.

Kenny Lange [00:34:40]:
Rant, overdose. But I get lit up when we start talking about that aspect. But if somebody's listening and says, hey, I love what she said about the process. Maybe they are director of programs or a founder or executive director, and they're thinking, okay, I've been trying to solve this, but how do I go about figuring out how to solve this? What would you tell them as a baby step, a first step that they can take in the next 24 hours with little to no money to start making progress towards a more effective way to build their programming?

Danielle Gines [00:35:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I would come back to. I would first pick out one thing because it can feel like a lot. Is it delivery? Right? Like, how are we delivering our services? Or is it even like the rigor? I've a lot of curriculum, especially in small, smaller nonprofits that I've seen. They felt like, we got to get this program off the ground. This is the program design. This is the curriculum.

Danielle Gines [00:35:40]:
And it was created by someone who's very well meaning but may not have the rigor or may not have the measurements built in. So pick, personally, I would pick that. I would start there. I would say, look at your program design, look at your curriculum, and pull out and say, okay, and come back to those three questions. They will illuminate so much. What is happening? What is happening? Let's pick the summer camp because it's listener. It is currently summer for us. You've got 500 kids, and this is a camp that's supposed to build outdoor skills.

Danielle Gines [00:36:15]:
All right. They're supposed to learn outdoor skills. What is actually happening? What are the observations from the counselors? What do the kids do? And 30 days, this is probably a lot, but if I had to pick one thing, I'd pick the curriculum, and I would say, okay, try and get input 30 days after someone leaves a program or leaves a training, because that gives them process time. We're in behavior change, but we also need to give. It's the business of planting seeds, and we need to give those seeds room to grow and germinate and push through the soil on their own. And so after that 30 days, come back and ask those three questions and see, has something changed? What has changed? And you might be surprised, but bringing in, giving that space, because that's another thing I've seen, is we survey right away. We evaluate right away. Well, you want to get feedback on the program or a course or a workshop or training.

Danielle Gines [00:37:14]:
Yes. But for behavior change, you want to give that space to see, is it starting to take root?

Kenny Lange [00:37:21]:
That's really good. Danielle, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your wisdom and even a few jokes with us.

Danielle Gines [00:37:29]:
My pleasure.

Kenny Lange [00:37:29]:
If somebody wanted to know more about you, DG consultancy your work or maybe just has some follow on questions from things you shared today, where would you send them?

Danielle Gines [00:37:39]:
Yeah, so you can come to my website, dgconsultancy us. Yes, I live in the United States, but.com was taken. So before anyone's like, oh, it's an Olympic year. No, it's just us because.com was taken. Yeah, I said it.

Kenny Lange [00:37:53]:
I saw a meme that said, start telling people you're an Olympic hopeful, but you're just not filling out the application.

Danielle Gines [00:38:00]:
That's what happened then. That's what happened.

Kenny Lange [00:38:02]:
Anybody can be a hopeful.

Danielle Gines [00:38:03]:
That's right. And I am hopeful also. LinkedIn and of course you can always send me an email, Danielle, us, and.

Kenny Lange [00:38:12]:
We'Ll have all that linked up in the show notes. So thank you again, Danielle. I hope to have you back again in the future. Maybe we'll have a mini series of rants and jokes and other things, so it'll be a ton of fun.

Danielle Gines [00:38:24]:
Let's do it. Thank you for having me, Kenny. It was really a blast.

Kenny Lange [00:38:28]:
It absolutely. And I don't appreciate your sarcasm, but I do appreciate all of you who chose to listen to this conversation. I really do hope that it was valuable for you as well as entertaining. And if you got anything out of this, I would hope that you would like rate, review, subscribe, whatever the right button is on the platform you're watching or listening to this on. And it's also a great way to pay it forward. Get this in front of other viewers, other leaders such as yourself, because you never know what conversation could unlock the key to their next step towards success and wouldn't given it forward. Paying it forward feel just really good for you. It's like Christmas in July or something like that.

Kenny Lange [00:39:12]:
I don't know. Insert your own example there. But until next time, change the way you think. You'll change the way you lead. We'll see you.