Dr. Lisa Delpy Neirotti: Secrets to Building a Sustainable Sports Nonprofit

Welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavloski.

Hello and welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast. I'm your host, Alan Pavloski. Today's Distinguished guest is Dr. Lisa Delpi Naradi, who is the director of the Ms. In sports management program and an associate professor of sports management at the George Washington University School School of Business. She has been a professor of sport, event and Tourism management at the George Washington University for more than 30 years. She's a seasoned veteran. Dr. Delpi Naradi helped develop the Sports Philanthropy Certificate program, which serves to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations using sport for social good. In the context of Legacy All Stars, our show, the Sports Philanthropy Certificate Program, is the area of emphasis for this episode. I interview many people on this show that make an impact in one or two causes, but it is rare that I get an opportunity to feature someone who makes an exponential impact. And Dr. Delpi Naradi is one of those people. I am thrilled to welcome her to the show. Lisa, welcome to the Legacy All Stars show. It's great to see you. It has been way too long.

Yes. Well, wonderful to be here and excited for this podcast.

Yeah. Thank you very much. Let's start with your journey. What inspired you to create the Sports Philanthropy Certificate Program at gwu?

Well, early on in my career, I fell in love with the Olympic values I actually incorporated. I was an elementary school teacher at the beginning of my career. I incorporated the Olympic values when I was teaching physical education and encouraged other faculty in the school to also incorporate Olympic education. So. So it's the fair play and I saw the values. I was a competitive swimmer. I was in sports all my life. I understood the values that come with sport. But then fast forward, I did a lot of work with youth sports nonprofits. And then I turned in, I'm a professor of sports business, so I also understand the business of sport. And for me, every nonprofit is a business. And so with all my connections in the youth sports market, and as the youth sports market was growing and growing, lots more nonprofits, but 15 years ago, it exponentially started growing. Everybody saw some money in the youth sports market, both for profit and nonprofit. But I was getting all these calls, how do I set up a board? How do I set up a, you know, a nonprofit? How do I fundraise, you know, what's corporate sponsorship? So I couldn't keep up with all the one offs. And I said, you know, everybody needs more education in this space. So let's start a certificate to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these nonprofits and also to build a network. One of my most important concepts of this is that when you're a nonprofit, you start a nonprofit, you're often on your own and you learn more when you're together with other people. You're sharing the same challenges and you often are doing the same thing, but in different cities and small towns and different causes. So let's work together to solve bigger issues through this certificate. That's what we plan, that's what we do.

That's fantastic. What makes the program unique in the world of sports and social change?

Well, I think what we do is there's plenty of other nonprofit education programs, but we really focus on those that are supporting sports. And so it goes from sports teams and leagues that do a lot of community relations work. And then we also have these youth based sport programs, such as after school non profits, that use sport to help kids with education, to get them into a program and they play sport, but they also do their homework and tutoring and learn good leadership skills. And then we also have corporations that are sponsoring sports, but they want to do what we call it is purpose led sponsorship. So we have some corporations and then, you know, we have other nonprofits that may be entering into the sports world and want to know more about it.

Yeah, that's great. You've empowered so many positive, purpose driven people. How do you cultivate that kind of intentional leadership in your students?

Well, you know, there's a trend recently and it's a great trend over again, last 10 years of people wanting to give back. Right. Wanting to do something good in the world. And so I think when we start talking about this opportunity to use sport to do good and they have all had a positive experience in the sport themselves. It just the combination of sport and doing something good for the world really resonates with so many people. And so.

You know, people have ideas, but we need to get those ideas into a true business format where they can sustain and make a bigger impact. So people come with that passion. Once they learn about it and know more, they become even more passionate about it. And so our focus is helping them become sustainable and make a bigger impact.

Yeah, I mean, from my exposure to the program and my involvement in the program myself, I found that there were a lot of, you know, athletes and athlete related charities that wanted to get some real deep knowledge of how to properly execute their strategies. Is that something that was by design in attracting those kinds of people? To the program.

Yes. I'm glad you brought that up because I said sports teams and leagues. I should have also called out. We have a number of athlete foundations that are in our program, and we invite the athlete as well as somebody else who works in their organization, whether it's their mothers or family members or a staff person, to join them. So they both get that. That knowledge. And there's been a lot written about how athletes start these foundations, and they may not have the proper structure or they may not be doing the best they could at these nonprofits. So I really put an emphasis on let's help these athletes make a bigger impact and be within the rules of the law. So making sure their nonprofits are formally organized and 501s or however they want to structure. But you don't have to be a 501. There's other ways to structure it, and we offer that to them. We also encourage them not even to start a foundation, but just to work with other nonprofits that are doing great work. We have also family foundations that are in our program and they want to know more about the grant making and how best to do that. So when you bring all those people into one room, you have some teams and leagues and players and family foundations and youth sports, because a lot of the athletes are interested in funding and being associated with youth sports organizations. So I'm really like a networker. I love to pull people together and. And see mutual benefit and how we can work together to make a bigger impact.

Yeah. I mean, you do a really good job. And this is off topic, but you do a really good job of communicating with the alumni on a regular basis. And I know that there are a lot of people that benefit from that connectivity.

You've really made a deep commitment to that. Is that part of your intentionality of what you've done as well?

Yes. Starting off, I promise the students we are going to stay in touch. We're there for the long run. I do this for my undergrad and master's students too. Over 34 years. You can imagine the network. Many of them.

Are working in this space. I try to just make the connections as much as I can, wherever it seems like a good fit. And both people will. It's a win win situation. But it is.

If somebody knows about a nonprofit that's reputable, that's doing good work, and you pair them with a company or a foundation that's looking to support something like that, again, it's a win win. And that's what we're Looking for?

Yeah, Empowering them with knowledge really helps both sides. Dovetailing right into my next question. We've seen graduates from the program rise into leadership position positions across the sports philanthropy landscape. Can you share one or two standout stories that show the program's ripple effect?

Yes. You know, we had one. We. Part of the program is the students do a capstone project and some take it to another level. So this is a non degree certificate, so it's not like you're getting A's or B's and it's not three credit hours, but it's. We give you the opportunity, we pair you with a mentor and we work with you to achieve an objective or solve a problem that you're working on. One of our students did the social impact of the super bowl in Minneapolis. Again, it's a dissertation. It took a lot of work, a lot of data. There was three of us faculty members that were supporting the student, but it was really student driven. We just reviewed it and she is now vice president of Impact for the Timberwolves. So I'm so proud of her success and there's so many others like that that have come through. I want to also make a point that we have young people coming in that may not have a great amount of experience or we have Attorneys with 30 years of experience being an attorney, but they want to career shift. And so not only attorneys, but other people who want to do, you know, change careers, look at this area and.

They just watching their progress, get their first job, their second job and keep moving up. Over the 14 years that we've been doing, this has just been amazing. And it's one of my, you know, what satisfies me most in the program.

Yeah, you've definitely always been purpose driven as long as I've known you. So having that kind of mentality is really, it's meaningful to have that kind of impact personally. And I know you're humble about it, but you've made a lot of people, given a lot of people opportunities to execute their goals.

One thing I did want to say about the communications, if you don't stay in touch with people, it's hard to know what they're doing. Right.

That's right.

So we try to stay in touch with as many people and encourage them to keep in touch with us. So it's a two way street. And I always say when somebody comes into this program, you get out of it what you put into it. Like anything in life, like anything. We are there to help you if you, you know, show an effort.

Yeah. When you think about the alumni network, along those same lines, what kind of community have you built and how are they collaborating to create exponential. Good.

Yeah.

I mean, some of them have started businesses, nonprofits. Together they formed to start nonprofits. Others have, as I said before, they've. One has sponsored another one.

A couple have looked at measurement and evaluation. So one of the students was really strong in measurement evaluation, and then now they're doing the measurement and evaluation for another. Similarly, one was really strong in grant making, so they ended up doing some writing grants for somebody else in the cohort. So you kind of have your own skill sets, and then if you are able to help somebody else in those skill sets. But that's part of the program as well. With your capstone. I gave you one example of what Jennifer did with her capstone. But I push people that if you are already good in fundraising, but you're. You may not be so good in board governance or have any other skill sets about writing strategic plans. So I kind of push you to do something else than what you're really already good at. In fact, in this cohort now, I have somebody who's on the programming side, and she's just been running programs. Running programs. But she never really knows how the money comes in. So we're working on her because she wants to take a leadership role. She wants to move up and money. It's important. Leaders are always the ones who have to find the money and keep the program going. So we're building her skill set in that area.

Yeah, and finding collaboration between people that are in the program or have been in the program also builds that network. So that's amazing. How has the program evolved to meet the growing needs of sports and social impact over the years?

You know, we. We try to keep our curriculum fresh, but we also bring in industry insiders. These are presentations of, like, guest speakers. And so if we see a trend or something new that's happening, like Adidas just started a foundation, and one of our alums is now working for that foundation. So she's going to be doing a industry insider presentation. So whenever we see something new or different, so we also host a sport philanthropy summit, and that's like a mini conference. And with the World cup, the FIFA World cup coming to United States, there's been a lot of emphasis in the sport of football and more money flowing in. And so we're looking at the impact that happens around mega events, whether it's the FIFA World cup or the Olympic Games. So that's just an example of staying on top of current events and then looking at how philanthropy, sport philanthropy plays into that.

You know, this was a little off topic and we didn't plan on talking about this, but I feel like it's important to talk about the SYNC conference every year that you're involved with that helps bring people together for networking purposes. Can you share a little bit about the CINC Conference?

Right, so CINC stands for Sports Industry Networking and Career Conference. And it's been going at George Washington University for 23 years now. And what we do is we invite students from across the United States and the world, in fact, and then we bring in about 100 to 150 industry executives, people working in the industry, from sports philanthropy to sports agencies, teams, leagues, media and corporate sponsors. So you have this whole landscape of what the sports industry is about, and you're sharing that with all the young people looking to grow careers in the sports industry. And we allow them to do one on one interviews, and we have roundtable lunches and we have a reception on top of the keynote speakers and the panels and all the educational activities. And that Sport Philanthropy Summit that I mentioned, we have now Parallel partnered with Sync and we do it the day before Sync and we bring it. We had over 100 people at the Sport Philanthropy Summit this year, which was amazing. And we had a great lineup of speakers.

That's great. So, looking ahead, what's your vision for the next five to 10 years of the program and how is its role shaping the future of sports philanthropy?

You know, As I said 15 years ago, when we started this, the people working were not truly educated in the field. And it still happens. People fall into it. They like sports and want to do something in sports, so they start a program. And our goal is to continue to educate and professionalize the field of sport for good. Some people call it sport philanthropy, others call it sport for good. So we really want to make sure that people working in the industry and who are out there attracting money are really putting that money to best use and being efficient with that money. So we can serve more youth, we can serve more, more kids or the people, the population that they're serving. And whether it's youth in underdeveloped areas or it's disabled youth or anything, whatever.

Their focus is, definitely our podcast is all about legacy. When people reflect on your impact through this program, what do you hope your legacy will be?

That I made each person better. I think that's we all try to be better. And if I play just a little bit of part in making you a better person. Whether it's a better business person or a better person, just in general. I think that's what I want my legacy to be.

Yeah. I mean, the sports industry has a lot of great people in it, but not all of them are heart centered. I know you are, so I really applaud you for all those efforts. If our audience wants to learn more about your initiatives, where can they reach you and how can they do more to help?

Right. The Sport Philanthropy email is sports with an S and then P H I L at gwu edu. So that's sportsphilwu. Edu. And my personal email I'll give you is delpy D E L P ywu edu. So reach out. Love to speak with you about your interest in this area and how we can have you join us and make a bigger impact.

Yeah, that's great. I want to personally thank Dr. Lisa Delpi Naradi for spending some time with us. Her work is inspirational. I've personally seen it and the effects. I know she's really humble about it, but the impact she's made over the years has been really amazing. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you want to learn more about how I help others leave a legacy, visit legacy all starspodcast.com and get in touch with me. Until next time, spend some time each day working on your legacy. And again, I'm Alan Pavloski signing off for Legacy All Stars.