122. Rethinking Rural Giving

My guest on today's episode is, gosh, at least a three-peat guest. I sit down with my business bestie Patrick Kirby again, and, uh, we continue to discuss how to rethink this concept of rural giving. And we actually are sharing two very distinctive events and/or experiences, I guess, that we collaborated on specifically to help rural nonprofits. So nonprofits in small towns. So for those of you, again, if you're listening to this, you are a small town person more than likely. And the nonprofits in our communities look like core services, right? Service providers like the ambulance and the fire department, but then also a lot of our social and quality of life organizations like the clubs, the committees, the groups that create a place that we wanna call home. Those are often carried out by nonprofits. And so I have never been more convinced of the fact that an investment in the capacity building of those organizations, the people in those organizations, is, uh, one of the quickest ways to make small towns better places to live. I've never been more convinced of it. And you're gonna hear a lot of passion for this topic between Patrick and I, but he's a genius, honestly. He's so freaking smart. Like, okay, so when it comes to fundraising, he's a fundraising guy. Like, that's what he does. But his process alone has transformed the Main Street that I live in, and it's inspired us. It's like lit a fire under us, and it's all a very human-centric, very doable process. So there's nobody that I'd rather have this conversation with. There's nobody that I'd rather dream out loud about like this collaborative effort. Like, you know, basically how do we help the people with the resources of time, talent, and treasure, which tends to be companies. Okay? And individuals too, right? How do we help them steward those things well? It's an awesome conversation. If you loved it, please let me know. I would love to hear your feedback from this. And of course, if you have any extra questions about the bus tour, which is one of the two events we talk about a bit more, we're all ears. You know, send me a message, send me a note, let me know what you think. But first of all, enjoy this podcast chat. In the meantime, just keep doing what you can with what you've got. You've got a lot. To work with, so don't sell yourself short. Okay, till next time.

Well, hey everybody, welcome to the official Do Good Better podcast. I'm your host Patrick Kirby, and of course we talk with people who are gonna help our small and medium-sized nonprofits do good better. I got a twofer conversation today with, you know, my favorite human of all time, Rebecca Undum of Growing Small Towns. Welcome to the official Do Good Better podcast. Welcome back.

I was gonna say welcome back.

Like a multiple time guest.

Am I a three-peat?

You might be a three-peat.

Do I get a jacket?

You, nope, not until 5. You have a little ways to go. You get a patch.

Five Timers Club.

You get a patch that can go on your jacket.

An emblem.

An emblem. I don't know how to sew it. It might be an iron-on one.

Or to say it or to spell it. Just kidding.

I don't even know what. First of all, I'm very glad that you're here today. We've had a very busy couple of weeks, you and I. Mm-hmm. And they are all nonprofit related. And for everybody listening out there who either has a small or a medium-sized nonprofit who is specifically maybe even in rural areas. This has been one of the best weeks to explore ways to help facilitate the discussion on how to do better than I think I've had in the last number of years. Like in events of sequential order, and you have been involved in every piece of this. And so it's really nice to have you to talk through not only a rural bus trip that we sort of took through the southeastern part of North Dakota. And I know from those of you who are not in North, like, That's fine. That doesn't make any sense. It will.

And it doesn't sound all that intriguing or exciting, but it also was— it is, promise.

And then we had a, a movie screening that we were involved with as well. And it all ties together to the theme, generally speaking, of if you can dream it, you can do it. And there are people who are willing to help you if you are a nonprofit, but you got to figure out who to ask and then get who to get on Your bus, right?

Yeah. Oh, what a great metaphor there, Patrick.

Since we're talking about a bus trip. So for those of you who have not gone back into the archives, I would love for you to give a 5,000-foot view on who you are, what you do, and why we're talking today.

Right? So I am a nonprofit leader. I founded a nonprofit in 2019 called Growing Small Towns. So after many years in organizational development, my whole thought process was, okay, I think everybody needs the kind of stuff that I get to talk about with these companies that hire me. Everybody in small towns in particular. If most people get that kind of development through their employers, and most of our small town people are employed by mom-and-pop shop operations, which is really pretty typical, like, where are they getting access to that? So I felt this need of like the idea of growing small towns. It isn't like, okay, we're gonna use all these awesome attraction methods and get our small towns you know, bigger. But I do think when we invest in the people that already live there, there's like an attraction mechanism built into that. There's this like magnetic pull of a community where people are healthy and whole and like functioning well and they're hell-bent on their own growth. So that was kind of the big idea that I had, I guess, when I started Growing Small Towns. And so we focus on basically 3 main areas of capacity building. So helping small business owners start or scale. Connecting more people to the transformative power of art and culture. Cuz I just think those are the kinds of things like you sit in a theater, let's say, and you're watching Hamilton in Omaha. I did that once with my daughter. Just, that's a pretty, pretty on point example, but just what it can do to you, like that feeling of just kind of an opening. I think there's so much power in that, both for business people and non-business people. And then the third is just general personal development. That, you know, if we can improve the personal skill sets of people that live in small towns, there's actually no downside.

So one of the things I love most about this is that you have a nonprofit dedicated to this, right? But also the work that you and I do sort of meld so well together in that idea. And you mentioned it, which is communities that function well, right? Usually have nonprofits that function well, right?

Yep. Yeah. So where you and I, it's, and it's been so fun for, again, like we've been friends for over a decade. You've been in your work. I've been in my work. There's so much similarity between our, it's basically just a lens, right? Through which we view these things, but it's all about the people involved, the nonprofits. And for me, it was businesses. And now it's for me and people that are in small towns and communities. And it really is true. Like in my community, for example. Nonprofits. Again, we think about nonprofits in small towns. It's funny, what, as we've talked about this more, people will say, well, are there really that many nonprofits in my small town? And you want to be like, yeah, if it's a cool thing that you get to do, more than likely that's put on by a nonprofit. But then in our community, a lot of our core services are carried out by nonprofits, our ambulance, our fire departments, both of those services are completely run by nonprofit organizations. And so if we don't help them get better, And getting better looks like a lot of things. I realize that's pretty ambiguous, but we're talking about the fact that none of us get better in a vacuum. You know, none of us get better if we don't somehow let outside ideas or experiences in to help us think differently about the problems that we continue to have. So, like, it's recruitment and retention of humans. It's successfully carrying out a strategic plan. It's fundraising. It's like all of those things. They're people skills, right? And not people skills like interpersonal skills, but human skills that if we can help them get better, then they win. And then now I see so clearly how my small community wins too.

So a number of years ago, 3 years ago, you planned a rural bus tour, right? And again, for those of you who don't live in rural communities, when I'm saying rural, I mean it is 30 minutes in between towns, rural, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So your concept, I want you to explain the concept originally because the flip this year was dramatically different. And from an impact standpoint was, I'm still thinking about it weeks after we've done it, right? It is just so cool. So, but you need to kind of explain like, why on earth would you get on a bus And why on earth would you get a rural bus tour? This makes no sense.

Honestly, it makes no sense. Right. So originally it was to introduce Growing Small Towns, me as the founder, and the building that we renovated to people from Fargo. So again, for some context for everybody listening to this, we are about 2 hours from Fargo. That's rural speak if there ever was one, right? 100, we're 110 miles from Fargo. My entire professional career prior to moving back to Oaks, which is my hometown, was all in Fargo.. And I just see such a need. Like there's so many programs and services that are offered, even like the SBA, let's just say the Small Business Administration, right? They have all these programs and services. They're supposed to do quote unquote outreach, right? To my community. But we hadn't really seen their faces, right? So I thought, okay, how do I introduce them to the concept of Growing Small Towns, me, and let them actually come and tour the building? And I thought, well, what better way than to make them, you know, like voluntary hostages, right? Like they're gonna get on this bus with us. They're gonna spend an entire day with me. I get to craft that entire experience. So originally in 2021, the purpose of the bus trip was to really spark the conversation about urban and rural collaboration, which I kind of even hate the labels of urban and rural, but just the fact that like you're in Fargo, you have talent, but so do we. And there's amazing cool things happening out here if you just get outta the big city. I gave them a lot of crap on that bus trip. You were on it. You're a 3-peat bus rider. And it just, it was a way really for me to continue to just frame out why I think this matters. And the people on the bus almost unequivocally became champions of ours after that experience, right? Well, and I joke, you spend like 8 hours with me on a bus, you're either gonna love me or you're not. For the most part, they've all come back. We've lost a few along the way, but But so that's what we did, right?

Cool enough to hang out.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's their loss. But so yeah, we chose specific parties along the way to stop and see, and then we did like a big lunch. So the lunch thing was, you know, we had local stakeholders, like regional stakeholders and then the bus people. And we just facilitated kind of a cool conversation between like, if you can't say it out loud, you won't address it. Right. And I think some of it is just there. The people on the bus had no idea. Some of the things that were happening. Plus, like, you know, we just— everything they ate was sourced from our region, like stuff like that, right? It was just a really special and experiential way for them to see what we're all about.

The idea that you curated this specifically for them to experience in the rural way of life kind of thing was incredibly unique. And you as a nonprofit might be listening to this like, well, I don't know how the hell this applies to me. Wait, it applies. It can very well, right? Absolutely. If you're a nonprofit, you're always trying to gain access or communication with business leaders, business owners, and you're trying to rise above the fray. It's a very difficult thing to do cuz you're in competition with every other nonprofit, every other person who's trying to gain business with that particular business. And this was a timeout in the middle of the week that everyone took a full day, full day to concentrate on. Business and then a handful of other businesses that they were going to meet. They would never, ever bump into normally at a downtown coffee shop in Fargo or whatever big city that you— you're not going to do that. And this was such a wonderful time and space given to these businesses who got to explain what they do, explain what rural towns meant to them, rural communities meant to them, what they meant to the communities themselves. And so this year, it was such an interesting twist that you and I said, okay, well, what if we do this but specifically for the nonprofits? Because we see the value in very special curated time for nonprofits to explain what they do, explain their impact. And the minute that you as a nonprofit leader get to do that, people's eyes open up. They ask like, whoa, how can I help? Or I didn't know that was a thing.

Right.

This is very interesting. And so it seemed like this was going to be a fantastic idea, but Outside of that being good on paper, why the nonprofit route? Even because you're a nonprofit, you're a nonprofit inviting other nonprofits to be benefited by the list of people that we curated for this bus ride. That doesn't make any sense.

Right. Okay. So I'm gonna come back to that real quick, cuz then last year, the thing that we did that was different last year, it's pretty similar concept, but we actually had the bus riders solve a key problem. Yep. For a local business that we stopped at. Again, just from, I was just the facilitator on this bus, watching this group of like 40 people actively put their entire breadth and depth of experience professionally and personally into this one guy's problem. Like, so we had toured this guy's manufacturing plant, right? Which was also very cool. So we just got to honor the, honor this guy, which was so fun. So I got to see that like live in action, just the value of having people put their brains on stuff. So then once that had happened and you and I really started talking about nonprofits and we started talking about, you know, what a difference my community would, what it would feel like if we just helped more of the nonprofits rise. So that was then the pivot to like, okay, what if we did that exact thing, but we gave all of that time and space just to nonprofits? And that's really the reason it's like, again, like there's so many trends, even since COVID we've talked about this a lot and just politically, culturally. Socially, a lot of the big funding sources aren't coming my way into rural communities at all. And so not only is there a ton of competition to begin with, but in small towns, if we don't get outside of our community, we're not exposing ourselves to any new way of thinking about any of this stuff. So we're actually just by how small we are, we're getting further and further behind, right? Like if nonprofits in general and small communities are being left behind anyway, If we aren't actively seeking new ways of approaching things, especially with your work in fundraising, we are literally getting just eaten dust of all of our urban counterparts.

The irony of this too is that a dollar in a rural small nonprofit goes so much further than— Totally. Large entities in the inner city or the urban areas. And that's the incredible part. So it's not like you're, $1,000 or $10,000 doesn't make an impact anywhere. But when you are reliant on, you know, grants that have dried up or you're desperate to try to make a payroll for a childcare in the middle of nowhere, and if that childcare that's running as a nonprofit goes under, nobody else can go to work, right? Yeah, it's critical infrastructure, right? And so What I loved about it is that you were giving these rural nonprofits that we were putting everybody's big sexy brain on a problem specific to them. It did two things. One, I think it made everybody realize who was on this trip. Because again, to set up even more, you just ask people to show up in a parking lot and get on a chartered bus, no questions asked.

Right. They don't give an agenda.

There's no agenda. There's no— details, right? They don't know where we're going. They just know they're going to be back by a certain time.

Yeah, right.

And they know they have to be fun. That's it.

Yeah, like, yeah, yeah. And we've gotten a little more clear, you know, as the years have gone on or whatever. But yeah, it really is a stupendous, like, astounding thing that these groups of people do. And then they show up, they show up, and they have a wonderful time.

But the other thing that I love most about this year is the realization that they could give something other than money, right? And that was, I think, one of my biggest takeaways because then we again, we went down to Nome, which is this—

Nome, North Dakota.

North Dakota. It is population 10, right?

At best. Yeah.

Like, yes.

Nope. There was no post office, no gas station, no bar.

No bar.

Now they have a bar because they put a bar in. But yeah, right.

It's usually in North Dakota you have the one-to-one bar church ratio.

Yeah, they don't even have a church.

Yeah, so it's 10 people. We quadrupled the number of people in the town by showing up. And it was an abandoned schoolhouse that these two brilliant young women who have two separate businesses came together and refurbished, and now it's a gigantic stay and learn from farm to knitting.

Like, it's, it's from barn to yarn. That's their thing, right? So they have, they have a flock of animals and then they shear them, and the actual fiber mill where they process the raw to the end product is right on site, and then the other business partner takes the end product and then makes artwork out of it. Like, it's just the— that even saying— every single time I talk about these women in this business, I'm like, none of it makes any freaking sense at all. Like, it's crazy.

An hour away from, uh, Walmart. And so we stopped there, and then they've got a nonprofit education wing about how, you know, sustainability and organic, you know, sort of living. That's the nonprofit part. They hop on the bus, they have a problem, we break out into groups, we solve it, we give them 60, 70 ideas that they get to take home with them. And then we go to Oaks and you've got 5 local and regional nonprofits that we divvy up and then put our same brains on there. And then we head back. And again, I wanna reiterate that the realization that I think a lot of these individuals who, again, blind trust to hop on a bus and they go, Yeah. Is there was something else that you could ask of your donors than cash. And in fact, a lot of those things are way more valuable. And the thing that excites me about talking about this is that if you're a nonprofit listening and you're kind of coming up with ideas like, oh, we can't fix our budget, we don't understand how to do X, Y, and Z, we don't know how to— this is the perfect engagement in order to get you to where you want to go.

Right. Period. Right.

So we did all this, your takeaway initially, and I, I think we'll do it in two parts. One, what was your initial takeaway at Nome? And then what was your initial takeaway after we, if you were kind of facilitating these 5 nonprofit work sessions and almost hot seats, uh, right. Like masterminding hot seats. Yep. Because you as a fantastic facilitator and as a person who does this a lot, you almost get to look in on how this is going rather than almost leading it. Because everybody was leading them themselves.

Right.

Your reaction to the reaction of the nonprofits would be really interesting.

Yeah. So they're, again, these 5 nonprofits are local to me.

Yeah.

And I think my favorite part was just getting to remind them how freaking important they actually are to us. You know, like, granted, we had the ambulance service there. Nobody can argue that the ambulance service is super important, right? But we also had our golf course there and it tends to get into this like weird, and you, we've talked about Hunger Games, right? Like it's like kill or be killed. Like, right. And you just wanna say like, no, what you do for this community. And again, now I'm, I do economic development in Oaks currently. And so every conversation that I'm having with somebody looking to move to my community, whether or not we have a golf course, the fact that we've got one, it matters. Right? And so they're struggling with years of just kind of bored stagnation and a lot of stuff that a lot of people are struggling with. So there was something for me that was really cool about just giving them this opportunity. And then also like giving the bus riders an opportunity to contribute in a way that was uniquely theirs. Like this wasn't something where the company said, we're gonna go out and we're gonna do a service project. And I'm not, by the way, digging on service projects, but I am asking anybody listening to this, if you are part of a group that has to do service projects, like, do you want it to matter? Do you want it to impact who you're actually trying to help? Do you want it to be meaningful? This was super meaningful. And then the thing that's been really, really cool is I got to follow up with each of them and give them— so we gathered all the ideas, right? We had somebody taking all notes for everybody. And give that all back to them. And then to say, pick an idea. And we're certain that somebody like people from this bus would love to help you figure out next steps to execute that thing. It's just like, they feel so honored and so cared for. And again, like, this is mostly about mindset. Like they don't think they matter. So often they don't think they matter. And so often in small communities, oh, they undervalue themselves.

They, they do.

They, they, they do. And they don't think they should be paid. No. Everybody, it's literally, it's like, if you're not a volunteer, then you're not charitable enough. And it's like, um, no, no, that's not the case at all. We want our nonprofits to actually be well-paid because I want them to be as committed as a for-profit leader would be to the success of the organization that they're working for.

So one of the things I'll give the golf courses as an example. Well, there's two big examples. So one was the golf course where they were talking about how much it costs to sponsor a hole, right? So have like, if you're a golfer, you go and like, hey, here's hole number 3, brought to you by whatever. And there's a plaque on there, right? The undervaluing of everything because it was— they hadn't changed the price of anything, anything in 20 years. They hadn't taken into account inflation in 20 years, right? You've got inflation that's doubled in the last 2 months, let alone the last 20.

100%. Well, and it, it really ends up showing, okay. So I sit there and I'm like, oh my gosh, we can do better. But how do I articulate that to them? It's hard for me to do that again. At some point I just become like a talking head in the community. Right?

You're, you're in it.

I'm in it. And they don't see it this way. It was like you had all these other people that have some experience with golf, maybe no experience with golf. It doesn't matter. They just go, oh, well, what about this? And what about that? And they suddenly go, oh, and the two people that happen to be there for the golf course actually do get it, right? But they're potentially fighting the resistance, right, of people that are like, this golf course is for us. Well, no, it's a community benefit. It's a public good, right? And so how do we help them run it to the public's benefit instead of just, you know, without alienating the core old guys? Like, it's a real thing.

But then everybody who was working on that particular that question, right? So it's broken up into groups. Not only did the golf course feel valued and like, wow, they're taking care of us, or people actually care, everybody there was like, oh, my brain or my thought process or my perspective and my unique way that I've walked through the world is as valuable as whatever check that I'm going to write. I think that was revolutionary to nearly everybody on the bus ride itself.

Agreed.

And especially when it comes to like the arts and culture piece. And the other one that I wanted to talk about really quickly was the Opera House.

Opera House. Yeah.

There is in Ellendale. Ellendale.

Yep. Ellendale, North Dakota.

Ellendale, North Dakota. Ellendale, North Dakota. How many people do you think live in Ellendale, North Dakota?

Oh, I want to—

it's under 500 people.

No, it's more than a— it's— yeah, probably. Let's give them 1,200. Let's give them 1,200. I don't know if it's quite that big.

Opera House, when it was built and to this day, has space for every human being who lives in Ellendale.

Correct.

It is the largest opera house, I think, within— what?

So what did he say? Canada to Mexico and coast to coast? No, no, Mississippi to Minneapolis to Seattle. Minneapolis to Seattle.

And then largest opera house.

Yeah.

In like 3/4 of the country. It is an insane fact. And they're restoring it and nobody knows about it.

Yeah.

So If you think you're a small nonprofit and you think nobody knows about what you do, think about the fact that there is an opera house in Ellendale, North Dakota that has the capacity to fill 1,200 people and they're trying to refurbish it into this wonderfully historic restored place for art and culture in the middle of flyover North Dakota. And to have them tell the story as passionately as they did and to have people who, every single person at that table had no idea that place existed. I, who have been to Allendale a number of times, did not know this place existed. And it was a joy to watch people learn about it and then become almost enthusiastic, passionate human beings because the individuals who are running it, who were frustrated that they couldn't raise enough money as quickly as they needed to, right?

Or just get access to the experts that they needed, or the capital, or the—

yes, the collateral. And it was just—

it's an access problem. It is.

And to watch that actually happen in real time was one of the more magical moments on that entire trip.

Well, and then let's just remind ourselves, there was a woman on our bus that sings opera locally here. That was, again, like, I didn't go, well, Gina needs to be on the bus because Gina sings opera. I didn't know that Gina sang opera or had any connections into that kind of a— at all until she was on the bus. And I think that is what, again, what this is about for me. And what I'm like now so freaking passionate about, I can't stop thinking about it, is just general stewardship. Like you've been given something, whether it's financial resources, skills, talents, and abilities, or time, right? That's what we get to steward forward: time, talent, and treasure. We spend so much time talking about treasure, but does that investment— again, in Money Matters, like, again, I'm not saying that it doesn't, But what if we can couple those financial commitments with some of that talent and time? What would happen? Right. And that's, again, it's like, I go way back to why I started Growing Small Towns. I was having all these conversations in C-suites and I was like, this has gotta somehow get democratized, like, and brought to just average people doing life like everybody else. Right. And it's been affirming, I guess, for me that Growing Small Towns was meant to exist. And this might be a key piece of it and how do we help our bigger regional employers think differently about that?

Well, and I think, again, it's— if you're a nonprofit leader or you're someone on the board and you're thinking like, well, I don't understand how I can gain access or do things, this is the type of activity, this is the type of mindset in which if you can just get yourself into— and again, it doesn't have to be a bus trip. If you can tell your story to as many people as possible, you are going to get linked in with the ideas and perspectives of other individuals who may not even remotely think like you or your board or whatever. And they're going to give you such amazing ideas, or they're going to give you inspiration. And it stems from the question of like, well, how, you know, this is our thing, how can you help? Or what are we doing right? Or what are we doing that could improve, right? Some of these simple questions that you, your nonprofit, can ask can enlighten you to an incredible amount of detail that might help you fundraise. And it didn't cost them a penny. And you earned everything in institutional knowledge that you never had before.

Right.

It was just really remarkable.

It was. And I think I also wanna just say that one of the best parts about this was that we focused on giving being personal. Right. And so like everybody on the bus didn't get to come on and say, I'm a banker.

Nope.

Or I'm a this, or I'm a that. We actually said like, you're not gonna introduce yourselves leading with what your job is. And that was new for everybody on that bus because again, we're all probably pretty used to going to networking things where you like lead with your business card, right? And you lead with your title or you lead with your employer, you lead, you know, whatever. And to me, I guess it's just such a cool reminder that like, again, I get really idealistic about stuff, but it's like, God, if we all could just get over the red tape and the bureaucracy and kind of the bullshit that surrounds so much of this, and more of us just went, I care about this, this, and this, and I wanna give the best of myself to those things. I think there is absolutely enough to go around from a time, talent, and treasure standpoint that everybody would be— we'd all be thriving. I actually think that that's true. I realize that's a lofty, big projection, but it's like, well, what if we can do that in small ways? And so that's where we're gonna start.

It's almost like you are— have your own podcast. And that you know how to lead into one segment into another. Because that is the second thing I want to talk to you about, because you were a part of a movie. I can't say premiere because it wasn't the premiere, but it was definitely an exclusive show.

It was a screening. Exclusive screening. Yeah.

Of the movie Uncharitable. So Dan Pallotta is coming out with a movie. You know, at the time of recording, it's coming out in less than a month. Dan Pallotta, if you don't know, if you're not listening to this, you haven't seen his TED Talk on the way that we think about charity is dead wrong. You need to immediately go after this podcast, by the way. Yeah, finish listening to us and then, you know, click on, you know, subscribe and give 5 stars. After that, immediately go to YouTube and go just find Dan Pallotta's TED Talk. And, um, his TED Talk was based on the book he wrote called Uncharitable. And we hosted a sort of a wonderful screening plus a panel discussion on that. And it matched so perfectly with this idea that we can have the luxury that other businesses do of dreaming bigger and executing some of these big audacious goals that we have. And we can also require that, you know, we earn enough to be able to live, or we can think about overhead as not a line item to cut, but actually a part of the programming that the people need to do. So we hosted the screening, we had a couple hundred people who showed up, and then you were a part of the panel discussion afterwards.

Right.

And it lines up so well with the bus trip because it was that perspective building that I think everybody who came out and watched the film, which is, by the way, fantastic. But everybody who watched the film was like, okay, now how do we do these things? How do we execute these things? And we had a community foundation director, we had a local rural board member on there. We had you as an executive director of a small nonprofit that were— they were all part of this panel. I'd love to kind of give your 2-minute high-level thoughts on not only the film, but the way that it was presented to individuals who had never seen this before. I mean, this is a month and a half in advance of anything screened nationally. But what was your take as somebody who watched it and then somebody who was answering questions from the audience of how they were intrigued that this film hit?

Well, I said that this on the panel too. So it was challenging the first time I watched it because you actually let me watch it ahead of time, which I appreciated just getting some sort of scope of like, what is this thing going to really look like? There was definitely moments for me where I was like, oh, this feels not entirely relatable, right? Because one of the things that they highlight a lot of is just like, as nonprofits become more and more successful, and if their CEOs, executive directors, whomever, start to draw salaries that start to feel out of bounds— and that's how I'm going to say it, like, they feel out of bounds, especially if they hit like Well, none of them hit 7 figures. They're multiple 6-figure salaries, right? And then the media grabs hold of them and just viscerates— yeah, just viscerates them in the media. That's something that, again, like being in a town of 1,800 people in a startup nonprofit, it's hard to even imagine that. But where it became really clear for me was like, oh, well, we would never even have the audacity to even say we should draw a salary. It is our absolute badge of honor to say like, we run it with all volunteers. Yeah. And you go, well, is that so great for you? Right? This like Midwest humility thing or modesty thing is really problematic in the nonprofit sector, I think. And I see it and I hear it. And, and again, now that you— and the more you and I talk about this, I'm like, I can't escape it. It's everywhere.

It causes burnout. It causes—

yep, right.

Regret. It causes resentment. It causes fights that are unnecessary, right? Causes the budget to be your enemy rather than your ally. Like, it is a lot of bad can come with that particular mindset, right?

So I think that was like how it all hit me. And also just like what an important reframe for all of us, like to not think of yourself as overhead, but to think of yourself as the key to quality programming. You know, if you're a person. Earning a salary.

Yeah. And the, the panel was interesting too. We had some pre-questions, but there was a lot of questions from the floor of like, like, how do you even rationalize some of this? Or how do you execute some of this? So part of watching the film is that if you're a small nonprofit, you're like, well, this big one's United Way is in there. Right.

YWCA. Yeah.

There's some big names that are in this. How Charity: Water, how do I compete? Or how do I take some of these perspectives that were given in this movie? And as a small rural nonprofit, how do you even begin to execute them? Because you know what, they're right. But how do you do that? How do you put that into a system? How do you begin to use these tactics or use these concepts in a small town?

Yeah. Well, I, again, I think it's really being honest about how committed and dedicated you are to the mission of the organization that you're working for or own or whatever, if you're founder of it. Right. Because it's not, you're gonna limit your ability to help if you limit your ability to earn. I have to just tell you, and I don't know if I've actually ever told you this, but so I was asked to speak at the University of Jamestown. Okay, this, and I mean, you knew that 'cause I speak there. They have like a capstone course, right? They're all seniors. They're graduating in like 2 weeks. And then there's me like, hey, like, this is gonna be so fun. Your lives are starting kind of a thing, right? And, In the front row this spring, a young woman raised her hand and asked me a question about if I find it challenging to deal with the limits on my salary as a nonprofit leader. And I looked at her and I said, what limits are you referring to? And she said, well, aren't you by law limited to how much money you can earn as like the CEO or executive director of a nonprofit? And I said, in absolutely no way legally are you bound by that. And I said, can I ask, you know, how did you come to believe that? Like, where did you hear that? Or she said, well, I interned for a nonprofit. And she said, and one of the things I had to do was like, make sure that we kept within certain guidelines. And so I was like, oh my God. So I looked at her and I said, more than likely that was part of grant administration. Like you had a grant that limited that. But so then I looked at all of them and I said, that alone is infuriating, right? So then I looked at all of them and I said, I want you all to know that a nonprofit designation is a tax status. And all it means is like, by law, you have a charitable function and the federal government determines that. And that's it. It does not mean that you are not allowed to generate a quality living. And I said, so if any of you have counted out going into the nonprofit sector, because you think you can't make a good living, I urge you to think differently. And I was literally sitting in front of a class of graduating college seniors. And I thought, where is all that? None of this talent is going to go to the nonprofit. And that's one of the things they talk a lot about in the movie was just like, well, no wonder we can't get ahead as the nonprofit sector. We turn away talent because they go, why? Well, in that whole illustration, by the way, about the, the guy, like the, was it like two Stanford MBAs or whatever? And the one chooses the private sector, right? And he makes like, like $450,000. Yeah. Something compared to $160,000 or something.

Yeah.

And literally he can take that salary, donate $100,000 to the nonprofit that he chose not to go work for. And like literally is then heralded as a philanthropist and all these stuff. That illustration literally made me want to vomit. Yeah. It was so, I thought, oh my gosh.

People that you can recruit to work, cuz there's so much talent out there. And if you're not in a nonprofit or, or you're a board member and you're like wondering why we can't find a development director.

Why do we keep turning over? Why do these? Yeah, right.

The job market itself right now is so chaotic.

Yep. And we don't even get to tap into the top tier.

They don't even look at you unless they are just like, I've got way too much time and money on my hand, which like, all right, let's be honest, who has that?

Right.

And they're not coming to that small, you know, rural nonprofit to go do good. You are constantly going to be trying to fill the gaps with people who might not be as talented as the person that if you paid them to do this, it would be an incredible double boom to the, not only the programs and services, but your community itself.

Right.

And it was just, oh God, I forgot.

That bothered me.

I know.

Oh, that bothered me so much. 'Cause I did, I thought to myself, you know, I started Growing Small Towns as a nonprofit because it is a charitable, like the end users can't possibly pay the value. Right. So there's a gap, there's a gap that's gotta be filled. So my organization 100% should be a nonprofit. And yet I am a private sector-minded human, right? So I never really spent a lot of time thinking about this actually until they said that. And I went, oh my gosh, you know, like, because I want to one day build my position to a place where I can find a successor.

Right.

And I want that successor, like, I started it, so I've given a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to this thing, right? Like, I'm not drawing the salary I should. I want 100% want to build the capacity of my organization to the point where I could look at an amazing candidate. Like, my board gets to go, oh my God, look at this slate of amazing talent, and we're pulling them from the private sector, right? So something I didn't ever really think about just because I like stumbled into nonprofit leadership, right? So I know it's super powerful and it's a conversation that we need to continue to have in a state like North Dakota where we're so rural. We really need to think about what this looks like.

I think in both cases, what was interesting to me is that a bunch of individual for-profit leaders, and when it came to the movie, a lot of nonprofit leaders took time out to sit and think and discuss and talk.

Mm-hmm.

And I think when we are so chaotic in the nonprofit realm that we're always scrambling to make our budgets and do this and wear the 10,000 different hats and you're all over the place, is that Taking a day, taking a handful of hours, working with your board and your leadership to sit down and just vision cast the things you want it to have. And taking some time to do that for yourself and consider like, are we paying our staff enough? Am I, as the executive director, valued enough to take this particular salary? Are we in a position to grow? And then who are our champions and how do we have conversations? If you can just pause And again, end of the year is coming up. You're going to scramble. It's going to be chaotic, but you have to take some of this time. One of the things that I just learned that through this entire process in the last couple of weeks while we were doing this was the amount of creative good that came out of just pausing and reflecting and then asking people for their perspective and thoughts. The amount of good that came out of that, that was not cash related. Will all turn into cash related because they took the time to do it.

Right. The simple question of, well, what do you think? Or how would you solve this? It's fascinating. It's fascinating. And that's been so fun. Everything that we've done in the last, you know, handful of months or whatever, we're building up to this and just the discussions that we've been having. It's like once you see it, you can't unsee it. And there's just, I, all I see is potential. It's untapped potential and a reallocation is due, right?

Yes.

I know, right? Of time, talent, and treasure.

For those of you, um, who are listening and you're like, oh man, I wanna know way more about Rebecca now because she has impressed my ear holes with her, uh, things. This is the type of stuff that she does. It's so if you're a business owner and you just need to get ahold of her, please. But may, might not know how to get ahold of you. How on earth How do they get ahold of you?

They can just go to growingsmalltowns.org and there's like a little contact button. My email is there. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram. And I welcome all of that because again, I'm a startup. I'm a startup nonprofit and trying to figure out the best way to make the impact that I so desperately want to make has been, I mean, it's wild. Oh, it's, yeah, it's wild.

It's bonkers. It's fun. It's fun to watch grow. It's fun to watch these leaps and bounds that you're going to be making. It's just, it's very fun. Again, while you're on the internet, we're gonna put all those links in there. So please click on all of those and then subscribe. And you've got a podcast, like just get all of those things. Yeah. Get it outta the way. Speaking of podcast and you're on the interwebs, if you have not subscribed to this podcast yet, if you have not reviewed this in 5 stars, you should probably do that. I mean, this is the type of like, this is good stuff, you know it is. So go do that and then immediately go back and then pull back all of Rebecca's stuff. A couple of things. Number one, thank you so much for taking the time to sort of reflect on some of these things. It has been, they've been bouncing around in my head. And so taking the time to kind of work through this and actually like say it out loud is super fun. Thank you so much for what you do in this like almost borderline obsessive look at the nonprofit realms the way that I do. I'm so appreciative of another human who is thinking about it in the way that I'm thinking about it and to bounce ideas off of. But most of all, thank you for being a guest here. On the official Do Good Better podcast.