Have you ever said the words, “I can’t find board members”?

Yup. I know you have. I always respond as if someone has told me they lost their keys. “OK, so where did you see them last?”

The hunt for great board members is often a big pain point. It’s not just that folks don’t recognize the joy and privilege of service but that even those who do may not arrive ready to serve. What do candidates need to understand about the commitment to serve?

You’re about to meet two people who are evangelists for excellent governance and for communicating the opportunity and privilege that comes with board service.

Robert Acton is the Principal and Founder of Cause Strategy Partners, BoardLead, and BoardLearn. Lalita Badinehal is a Corporate Citizenship, Inclusion, Diversity, and Employee Experience Executive at Credit Suisse. Our conversation today revolves around the elements in building strong boards.

BoardLead is a matchmaker. When an organization submits an application, BoardLead looks to place talented professionals with carefully vetted nonprofits by looking for community impact, strong leadership, and a commitment to deliver around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

BoardLearn is an educational platform to prepare their candidates for effective board service and to drive impact. Their approach to training new board members comes from a place of abundance, not scarcity, and includes a mix of cheerleading and scaring.

Credit Suisse partnered with BoardLead to recruit, place, train and support high impact board service. Listen to how they work together and how they measure success.

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About Rob Acton

Robert Acton, J.D., is Principal and Founder of Cause Strategy Partners, BoardLead and BoardLearn. Cause Strategy Partners (www.causestrategypartners.com) is a consulting social enterprise that provides strategic counsel and high-impact programming to Fortune 500 companies, global professional services firms, private foundations and nonprofit organizations with a specialized focus on building both board and executive leadership. Cause Strategy Partners’ signature program, BoardLead (www.boardlead.com), has placed, trained and supported 670 professionals for high-impact board service at 350 nonprofits in 19 cities across the country. BoardLearn (www.boardlearn.com) is BoardLead’s innovative good governance e-learning platform. With more than two decades of experience founding, leading and scaling social good organizations as both a nonprofit chief executive and board leader, Rob previously led Taproot Foundation in both New York City and Chicago, as well as Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) in Chicago. In 2009 and under Acton’s leadership, CGLA received the prestigious Alford-Axelson Award for Nonprofit Managerial Excellence. Rob is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Nonprofit New York, a membership organization serving 1,500 nonprofits in the New York City region. During his eight-year tenure, Rob has chaired the Presidential Search Committee, Governance Committee, Strategic Planning Committee and Development Committee. Rob also serves on the Board of Directors of Broadway Inspirational Voices and on the Advisory Boards of CGLA and Parkes Philanthropy. Previously, Rob was a founding Board member of Illinois Legal Aid Online, served on the Advisory Board of the Axelson Center for Nonprofit Management, and served on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Spring Arbor University. In 2010, Rob was appointed as a State Commissioner by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and confirmed by the Illinois Senate to serve on a statewide commission investigating past police abuse in the City of Chicago. Rob is a member of the Bar of the State of New York. He attended Michigan public schools, Spring Arbor University & Brooklyn Law School. Rob’s Causes: second chances for ex-offenders, the performing arts, and nonprofit capacity building. Rob tweets @RobertActon.

About Lalita Badinehal

Lalita is a Corporate Responsibility, Diversity, Inclusion and Employee Experience Executive with more than 15 years’ experience as a business partner building culture, leading initiatives and growing employee engagement across the financial services sector. She develops people-centric and purpose-driven programming using a risk management and impact measurement lens and influences a 14-member Board. Lalita is currently Vice President at Credit Suisse where she has held a variety of leadership roles including overseeing Community Engagement and Grantmaking as part of the Americas Corporate Citizenship group. She partners closely with HR, and the firm’s diversity networks to bring them access to wellbeing resources with a focus on mindfulness. During her tenure, Lalita has increased employee engagement to over 50% from 39% by designing the Americas strategy across 30 cities and 10,000 employees. Lalita pioneered Credit Suisse’s signature Board Connect program to build leadership skills and increase retention. Previously, Lalita was Manager of Institutional Relations in the Business Development group of a capital provider investing in entrepreneurs tackling poverty, Acumen. She started her career in financial services with six years in research, risk management and corporate and investment banking for Goldman, Sachs & Co, Credit Suisse First Boston, Commerzbank and Reuters Loan Pricing Corporation. Recognized as an industry thought leader, Lalita has spoken at CECP, Charities at Work, CVNY, Points of Light, Philanthropy New York, and at the United Nations. She serves as Co-chair of Service for Impact, which has focused most recently on proving the business case for corporate volunteerism. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College. She is training to be a Certified Professional Coach through iPEC.

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Consider two different dinner parties.

At the first you’ve got like-minded folks who know each other well. It’s comfortable. Affirming.

The second is more diverse. Age, race, politics, class, life experience, you name it. The conversation is messy, the voices raised. You don’t agree with everything but it does leave you thinking. You drive home and realize you had to confront an implicit bias.

And you know what? That second one was a great dinner party.

This is what I think of when I think of the power of diversity. Our world, my journey through it is enriched by the diversity of folks around me.

My guest today, Neha Sampat, is CEO and founder of GenLead|BelongLab where she focuses on building belonging and true inclusion.

What is belonging? Here’s a clue – it’s not just fitting in. Belonging requires being seen, understood and valued without needing to change yourself.

To foster belonging we cannot make assumptions. We need to ask the right questions and make the right efforts to build a bridge between leadership and everyone in the organization. That’s how organizations gain visibility into otherwise hidden barriers to belonging such as Imposter Syndrome and internalized bias and the daily microaggressions that the most underrepresented may experience.

Neha suggests we start by shifting our perspective from believing we are do-gooders to accepting that even good people have biases.

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About Neha Sampat

Neha Sampat, Esq. is CEO and founder of GenLead|BelongLab, where she focuses on building belonging and true inclusion. Through consulting, training, speaking, and writing, she helps organizations create peak‐performance, inclusive teams by addressing hidden barriers to belonging, such as Imposter Syndrome and internalized bias, unconscious bias, generational diversity, distrust in teams, and wellness challenges. She is a nationally sought-after expert on disrupting Imposter Syndrome and internalized bias and runs the top-rated “Owning Your Value” online course to develop inclusive leadership.

In her work, Neha leverages her experience working as an attorney at both large and boutique law firms as well as her tenure as dean of students and leadership professor. Neha’s insights have been featured in Time Magazine, ABA Journal, Attorney at Work, ABA Law Practice Today, Thrive Global, News India Times, the Heels of Justice podcast, the Resilient Lawyer podcast, the GenWhy Lawyer podcast, the Leaders Love Company podcast, Talent Think Tank, and other professional publications. Neha holds BAs in Sociology and Political Science from University of Illinois at Urbana‐ Champaign, obtained her JD from UC Berkeley School of Law, received her Certificate in Graduate Applied Psychology from Golden Gate University, and is certified in Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI). Neha works across industry, from Pixar to Perkins Coie LLP, and UC Berkeley to City of San Leandro. You can read more of Neha’s insights at blog.genlead.co, follow her on TW/IG/FB at @belonglab, and reach her directly at neha@genlead.co

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Welcome to part II of my two part conversation with Jim Collins. In this second part, we discuss how to navigate uncertainty, disruption and chaos. Pretty timely, no?

We continue to explore the question of why some organizations thrive in uncertainty and chaos and others do not, using the research and principles in the book Great by Choice.

Jim and I talk about The Terra Nova Expedition, a story of two teams of polar explorers who in 1910-1913 went to Antarctica to reach the South Pole. Both were under the same harsh conditions. One team never made it back. Why? Collins contends that the successful team employed key leadership behaviors and approaches, and they map perfectly to what a modern day organization needs to do to survive and thrive. Lots to learn here.

If you are hungry to change the world it just might be you need a healthy dose of fanatical discipline, empirical creativity and productive paranoia. “What’s all that about?” you ask. Jim will tell you all about that and why you need to create a “do NOT do” list.

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About Jim Collins

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick, and a Socratic advisor to leaders in the business and social sectors. He has authored or coauthored six books that have together sold 10+ million copies worldwide, including Good to Great, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Built to Last, How the Mighty Fall, Great by Choice, and his most recent work Turning the Flywheel published in February 2019.
Driven by a relentless curiosity, Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. In 1995, he founded a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. In 2017, Forbes selected Jim as one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds. Jim, an avid rock climber for more than forty years, has completed single-day ascents of El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite Valley.

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There are those who believe that the donor-centric fundraising model may be perpetuating the very inequity we seek to address in the nonprofit sector.

One such person is Vu Le, writer, speaker, and former Executive Director of Rainier Valley Corps, a nonprofit in Seattle that promotes social justice. He believes there’s a better way – community-centric fundraising.

Vu is joined on today’s podcast by Michelle Shireen Muri, strategic advisor and consulting coach who co-chairs The Council for Community-Centric Fundraising, a movement founded on the belief that fundraising should be first and foremost grounded in race, equity and social justice.

This podcast will challenge you to examine and think deeply about your relationship with donors and will define and elaborate on the principles of community-centric fundraising.

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About Vu Le

Vu Le (“voo lay”) is a writer, speaker, vegan, Pisces, and was the Executive Director of Rainier Valley Corps, a nonprofit in Seattle that promotes social justice by developing leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities. Known for his no-BS approach, irreverent sense of humor, and love of unicorns, Vu has been featured in dozens, if not hundreds, of his own blog posts at NonprofitAF.com, formerly nonprofitwithballs.com. Vu does keynotes, panels, and other speaking gigs and can talk about a variety of subjects: funding dynamics, cultural competency, self-care, unicorns, and what Game of Thrones can teach us about the nonprofit field. Has a spouse and 2 kids. Stepped down from Rainier Valley Corps to focus on writing. Stepped down as ED in December because of burnout and desire to spend more time with family and other endeavors. Maintains an active blog at Nonprofit AF.

About Michelle Shireen Muri

Michelle Shireen Muri is a strategic advisor, collaborator, fundraiser and coach at Freedom Conspiracy, Co-Chair of The Council for Community-Centric Fundraising and host of The Ethical Rainmaker, a new podcast, coming soon!

Ignited by a beautiful volunteer experience, Michelle has crafted her career through 15 years of resource generation through social justice movements. Her successes and tenure at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, now the largest immigrant rights org in the nation, gave her a critical lens towards fundraising and a deep love of community solidarity.

She believes there is deep power and personal healing in the work of generating resources from a values-aligned space.

Credentials: Board Member, Sexual Violence Law Center, Fellow, Sergeant Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Washington Equal Justice Community Leadership Academy, Fellow, NYU Wagner School of Public Service Women of Color Lead The Way Fellowship

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My guest today, best selling author Jim Collins, literally wrote the book on how to navigate a path from good to great and I could not be more excited to have him on the podcast!

In fact, I believe that Jim’s monograph, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, should be put in the hands of every new executive director and board chair.

I talk about this short book all the time in the Nonprofit Leadership Lab, my online education and community portal for leaders of smaller nonprofits, and it’s required reading for my class at The Annenberg School at UPenn in Nonprofit Communications Strategy. I make sure all of my clients read it too.

Jim joins me today to explain the principles of greatness and what’s unique about them in social sector organizations. His stance on creating a culture of discipline is truly transformational. Crisis can bring an organization together and create focus on what matters – or it can bring doom and gloom. Which camp does your organization fall into?

What choices would a nonprofit need to make, and what kind of leadership would it demand, to emerge from this crisis stronger?

You won’t want to miss this podcast to ignite your mission flame.

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About Jim Collins

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick, and a Socratic advisor to leaders in the business and social sectors. He has authored or coauthored six books that have together sold 10+ million copies worldwide, including Good to Great, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Built to Last, How the Mighty Fall, Great by Choice, and his most recent work Turning the Flywheel published in February 2019.
Driven by a relentless curiosity, Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. In 1995, he founded a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. In 2017, Forbes selected Jim as one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds. Jim, an avid rock climber for more than forty years, has completed single-day ascents of El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite Valley.

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You know that old saying, “May you live in interesting times”?

Yeah, about that….

The times have been terrifying and surreal. In particular for those of us that fall into the category of “older Americans with underlying conditions.” Yeah, people like me.

But hope is medicine. And I find hope in the work of the nonprofit leaders I am privileged to serve. The juxtaposition of your immense struggles (read: funding, resources) and the exponential need for your work is like nothing I have ever seen.

I could tell stories for days of small and mighty nonprofits that are delivering against all odds – with resilience, creativity, collaboration and sheer grit.

That said, I get it. So many of you are struggling. Facing crises that are existential. Will we make it?

I wanted to know what funders, especially foundations, are thinking at this time. I’m imagining program officers inundated with requests for emergency grants.

And so I spoke with the Executive Director of the Walton Family Foundation, Caryl Stern. In 2018 this foundation awarded nearly $600 million(!) in grants with a focus on the environment, K-12 education and the place the Waltons call home, Northwest Arkansas. The foundation invests around the world, on farms and back yards, and in the kids who are the future.

For all of you nonprofit superheroes with tattered capes, this conversation is for you.

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About Caryl M. Stern

Caryl M. Stern is the executive director of the Walton Family Foundation. Previously, she was president and CEO of UNICEF USA. A dynamic change-maker, Caryl has dedicated her career to helping others through education, compassion, advocacy and rolling up her sleeves. For 12 years, she served as president and CEO of UNICEF USA, an organization that supports UNICEF’s lifesaving work to put children first.

Caryl has traveled to more than 30 countries in support of UNICEF’s work and has spearheaded UNICEF USA’s emergency relief efforts for children affected by disasters, including the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 East Africa drought, the Ebola and Zika epidemics and the ongoing global refugee and migrant crisis.

A sought-after public speaker on the topics of Kids Helping Kids, children and philanthropy, anti-bullying and international development, Caryl was invited to present at the White House’s inaugural summit on The United State of Women and was named one of “25 Women Changing the World in 2017” by People Magazine, “20 Most Influential Moms of 2017” by Family Circle, “25 Moms We Love” by Working Mother Magazine and “Ten Women to Watch” by Jewish Women International.

She serves on the boards of directors of The Container Store and the We Are Family Foundation. In addition, Caryl is a member of the Advisory Board of Chime for Change and a trustee of The World’s Big Sleep Out. Prior to joining UNICEF USA, Caryl was an executive at the Anti-Defamation League, the founding director of it’s A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute, and the Dean of Students at Polytechnic University.

Caryl is an activist, author, executive, public speaker, mother of three and grandmother of two.

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Just for a moment, imagine what it would mean for your organization if you could double your online fundraising next year. I’m thinking it would increase your impact for sure. Sounds pretty great.

So how do you do that?

My guest, Dan Portnoy, says you start with a good story. Dan is the author of The Non-Profit Narrative: How Telling Stories Can Change the World and is the founder of Portnoy Media Group.

In the episode, Dan teaches us how to effectively use the framework of the hero’s journey to achieve phenomenal fundraising results.

If you want to improve your fundraising over the next year, you’ll want to pay attention.

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About Dan Portnoy

Dan is the founder of Portnoy Media Group and the author of The Non-Profit Narrative: How Telling Stories Can Change the World. For over two decades, Dan has worked with the toughest outposts of Fortune 500 companies to get them back on track with big results. He is a sought after to help flesh out ideas, coach teams, and lead senior staff through the digital age. He is a story expert and builds narratives that remove the barriers between traditional cultivation and acquisition.

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There sure are a lot of difficult conversations happening right now. All over the place. We learned all about how to approach them in part 1 of this 2-part episode.

Today, we’ll dig deeper into a critical component of a productive difficult conversation. Receiving feedback.

Receiving feedback can be especially difficult, particularly when you think it’s not deserved. Not needed. Not wanted.

But if you won’t listen, nothing will change. And conversely, if you’re the one giving the feedback, your listener won’t be open to what you’re saying if they’re feeling judged. If you don’t approach it the right way.

Remember, the goal in these conversations isn’t to “be right”. It’s to affect change in some way. To improve something that’s been going on.

My guest, consultant and author Sheila Heen, discusses three triggers that can help us process feedback productively, even when it feels “off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and frankly, you’re not in the mood”.

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About Sheila Heen

Sheila is a Founder of Triad Consulting Group and has been on the Harvard Law School faculty since 1995. Sheila’s corporate clients include Pixar, Hugo Boss, the NBA, the Federal Reserve Bank, Ford, Novartis, AT&T and numerous family businesses. She often works with executive teams, helping them to work through conflict, repair working relationships, and make sound decisions together.

In the public sector she has also provided training for the New England Organ Bank, the Singapore Supreme Court, the Obama White House, and theologians struggling with disagreement over the nature of truth and God. Sheila has spent more than twenty years with the Harvard Negotiation Project, developing negotiation theory and practice. She specializes in particularly difficult negotiations – where emotions run high and relationships become strained.

Sheila is co-author of two New York Times bestsellers: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (Penguin 2nd ed 2010), and the recently released Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It’s Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood) (Penguin 2014).

She has written for the Harvard Business Review, for the New York Times as a guest expert and as a Modern Love writer. Sheila has appeared on shows as diverse as Oprah and the G. Gordon Liddy show, NPR, Fox News, and CNBC’s Power Lunch. She has spoken at the Global Leadership Summit, Nordic Business Forum, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Harvard Negotiation Journal, and Real Simple.

Sheila is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Harvard Law School. She is schooled in negotiation daily by her three children.

In this Podcast:

• I am so skillful in giving feedback, why can’t you hear me?
• Is feedback always judgmental?
• What are the three triggers and why does it matter to recognize them?
• Three different types of feedback with distinct purposes
• What if the person evaluating me doesn’t know me well enough?
• What if as an E.D. I am not crushing my job because I have a weak board chair?Continue Reading

Think about a dreaded moment in which you had to tell someone something they didn’t want to hear or just didn’t want to know… Or that you knew would lead to a confrontation.

This episode is about difficult conversations and how to approach them.

Most of us try to avoid these kinds of difficult conversations. They are just so uncomfortable. But if you handle them the right way, you can actually come out better on the other side.

Sheila Heen, co-author of the best-selling book Difficult Conversations, has been a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School since 1995. She joins the podcast today to discuss how there are actually more than two sides to every story.

How do you build the muscle to make sure difficult conversations go well? What might you not be aware of that could change everything?

This is part 1 of a 2-part podcast.

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About Sheila Heen

Sheila is a Founder of Triad Consulting Group and has been on the Harvard Law School faculty since 1995. Sheila’s corporate clients include Pixar, Hugo Boss, the NBA, the Federal Reserve Bank, Ford, Novartis, AT&T and numerous family businesses. She often works with executive teams, helping them to work through conflict, repair working relationships, and make sound decisions together.

In the public sector she has also provided training for the New England Organ Bank, the Singapore Supreme Court, the Obama White House, and theologians struggling with disagreement over the nature of truth and God. Sheila has spent more than twenty years with the Harvard Negotiation Project, developing negotiation theory and practice. She specializes in particularly difficult negotiations – where emotions run high and relationships become strained.

Sheila is co-author of two New York Times bestsellers: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (Penguin 2nd ed 2010), and the recently released Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It’s Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood) (Penguin 2014).

She has written for the Harvard Business Review, for the New York Times as a guest expert and as a Modern Love writer. Sheila has appeared on shows as diverse as Oprah and the G. Gordon Liddy show, NPR, Fox News, and CNBC’s Power Lunch. She has spoken at the Global Leadership Summit, Nordic Business Forum, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Harvard Negotiation Journal, and Real Simple.

Sheila is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Harvard Law School. She is schooled in negotiation daily by her three children.

In this Podcast:

• Wrestling with the inner voices
• The three conversations or stories
• The meaning of what is not said
• Are you being too defensive?
• Using feedback to grow
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Imagine you were just hired as the CEO of a wonderful nonprofit. A health organization. It’s exciting. You feel a sense of pride and privilege. You gather your belongings and leave your family on the West Coast to start your new job on the East Coast. They will join you soon.

While you know the Coronavirus is becoming a big problem, it doesn’t quite register how it will impact work and home.

You arrive at your new job and 18 hours later find yourself leading the Incident Command Team for a pandemic that is now clearly sweeping the globe. Oh, and borders have closed and COVID-19 has kept the family apart since March 7th.

Ellen LaPointe, CEO of Fenway Health joins the podcast to tell the story of how she took on her new role, met and bonded with her team, and how they came together. How their ingenuity, teamwork and force-of-will helped them to make immediate and dramatic shifts to reduce community spread of COVID-19, all while delivering care to patients in a completely new way.

Ellen also shared a bit about her personal story and how she affected an onboarding 101 plan at both a leadership and staff level.

Listen for tips on leadership during a crisis and beyond.

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About Ellen

Ellen LaPointe is the Chief Executive Officer of Fenway Health in Boston.

Ellen has held numerous leadership roles in the nonprofit and public health sectors, working in social justice, research, LGBTQIA+/HIV activism and advocacy, health policy, law, and equity over the last three decades.

Prior to joining Fenway, she was President and Chief Executive Officer of Northern California Grantmakers in San Francisco, a nonprofit that brings together Bay Area philanthropy to advance the common good. During her tenure over five years, the organization strengthened its leading role within a member-based philanthropic community that gives over $3.5 billion annually. Ellen is also credited with transforming the culture of the organization, including the establishment of a robust equity framework to inform organizational priorities and practices.

Previously, Ellen served as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at HopeLab, an operating foundation that focuses on technology-based approaches to promoting positive health behavior, and she was Executive Director of Project Inform.

She began her career as Coordinator of the Brown University AIDS Program, where she was involved in some of the earliest efforts to ensure access to promising experimental AIDS treatments and life-saving care. Ellen moved to San Francisco to become Director of Clinical Research at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital and later practiced law at a large firm, where she represented pro bono clients in cases involving marriage equality, wrongful eviction, end-of-life liberty, and other matters.

A native of Maine, Ellen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. She currently serves on the boards of the Lambda Literary Foundation and One Justice.

In this Podcast:

• The challenges of converting to telehealth with HIPAA compliance
• How imagination kicks in during a crisis
• Will there be capacity to integrate telehealth going forward? Or will we go back to business as usual?
• How does communication lead to success?
• 5 things you need to do during onboarding
• How does humble confidence play a role in success
• The art and value of self-care
• You might not be able to plan for a specific crisis, but you can still plan
• Reusing structures that were in place during previous crisis
• A priest and a therapist walk into a bar…

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