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Rusty Stahl - What is one thing I can do right now to help protect the nonprofit sector?

Episode 9 • 7th September 2026 • Glad You Asked • Martha Schumacher

What weight do our words hold? I'm Martha Schumacher, and I'm glad you asked.

Welcome to another episode. Thanks so much for joining me today. I can't wait to introduce my really interesting guests, but first, as always, let's get into some active listening techniques that can help you form stronger connections with those around you. Because while my incredible guests form the structure, which brings the substance that lifts up each episode of Glad You Ask, the questions are the foundation.

Without the right questions, we might stray from our intentions and come out of the conversation without the meaningful results we strive to bring to you. I would happily engage with any of these remarkable people on any number of topics, and I do this with many, yet this show is meant to examine the power of asking the right questions and how that can create deeper connections, understanding, and insights. So today let's look at the individual building blocks of questions.

That's words. We don't always have the time to think of the perfect wording in our day to day life. However, when we're preparing for a specific conversation, a tough talk with a loved one, a proposal for a business venture with a colleague, or an ask for a potential donor, we often do have the time to think about our words. On a broad level, it's important to meet people where they are. This is the chameleon concept I mentioned on an earlier show.

Where you adjust your style to meet the person where they are. Though I would caution that you do want to make sure you are respectful versus completely losing the essence of who you are and your own authenticity. Will you be engaging with the person who you know is more formal? If so, feel free to use more formal language. Is your setting less formal? If so, formal language can sound out of place or even condescending.

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Lingo or the special vocabulary of a particular field of interest is also an important part of these conversations. We in the nonprofit world often throw around acronyms, though someone like a new consultant joining a team for a specific task outside of the sector may not know what these acronyms mean, and using them in meetings may alienate them. For example, just recently,

A graphic designer friend of mine was helping a new client build their brand from the ground up. This client saw brand, quote unquote, as a bad word, as do many folks in the sector, like we discussed in Michelle Florey's friends episode a couple months back. My friend could sense that each time they used that word, tension grew. So they simply avoided that term altogether, instead, using terms like design identity.

It was a small but intentional adjustment that helped their relationship grow without unnecessary tension, and with so many adjectives in the English language, it's not that difficult to crack open a thesaurus and pivot in order to vibe with someone. Using our active listening skills to really pay attention to the way someone speaks, to the level of formality, to how much lingo they're comfortable with, and which words they want to avoid altogether.

Can really help us meet people where they are and create the ideal environment for a conversation by choosing the right words. Each of the questions we ask on this show is a string of carefully selected words that my guest, our listeners like you, and I construct in order to lay a foundation for this conversation. After all, these discussions represent the exploration framework for every episode of Glad You Asked.

Today's questions are no different. Our guest, Rusty Stahl, leads with a weighty question on so many of our minds lately when he asks, What is one thing I can do right now to help protect the nonprofit sector? Notice the question asks, What is one thing? While we'll cover many answers to this question, I encourage you to come back around to the idea of one thing, because trying to do it all can be overwhelming.

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leading to anxiety, to burnout, and to inaction. This goes right to our next question. I ask, what self-care steps are you taking right now so that you can live to fight the good fight another day? We'll learn some tips for self-care and more importantly, that we don't always have the answer to this question, reinforcing that asking it often is so crucial to our well-being.

And finally, our listener question today is from the show's good friend, Derek Mulhern, Executive Director of the Cultivating Change Foundation. Derek asks, how are you keeping staff and keeping them inspired? Because once we have our oxygen mask on, we need to look around at those closest to us and help them thrive too. So without further ado, here's our conversation about taking action.

An in-depth discussion about the ongoing attack on the nonprofit sector and how important it is to keep going. By the way, it's all about being kangaroos versus turtles. Trust me, it will make sense to you once you hear us out. Self-care, and of course, words on this episode of Glad You Asked.

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Welcome to Glad You Asked, a show about how active listening can help you build stronger connections with folks in your life personally and professionally. I'm Martha Schumacher, and I've spent my career asking leaders, funders, donors, and community members thoughtful questions to help find the real reasons behind why they do what they do. And when you pursue these deeper connections, you ultimately arrive at the heart of what really matters, establishing trust.

On each episode of Glad You Asked, we'll explore three questions, one from our guest, one from a listener, and one from me. During a conversation with mission-driven leaders, we'll test how each question, each compelling prompt, makes active listening possible and deepens our relationships. Afterwards, we'll take a look at how effective our questions were in guiding a meaningful conversation and leave you with a call to action.

So you can use these questions in your own work and life. Now let's meet our guest.

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Well, today I'm glad you asked. We have Rusty Stahl, the founder, president, and CEO of Fund the People, and host of the Fund the People podcast. He's also co-founder of the Hudson Valley Nonprofit Hub, a regional network of nonprofit professionals and adjacent colleagues. My favorite thing about his LinkedIn profile is that he identifies as advocate.

for the nonprofit workforce, which is central to the fund the people because it's central to who Rusty really is and what his values represent, right, Rusty, and your principles, et cetera. Rusty, welcome.

Thank you so much, Martha. And I I appreciate appreciate that. I I agree. It is it is core to my professional identity and my values and Fun the Peoples as well. And we we are separate entities, although I I know I'm very associated with FUD the people as the founder, but I do hope that it has its own

own life and identity as well and hopefully these values span both from the people and all the people involved in it including me.

I love that. And that gets a lot to this idea of speaking of kind of bringing it back to this word identity, right? The idea of the identity not just of and and you have in your title, right, the founder, but the identity of the values of the organization that you hope will live on, you know, well beyond right your role within it. So I love everything about that. And again, just so grateful that you've come on the show, especially

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During a time in our country, when things are to probably make the understatement of the year quite challenging and and we're in a place where having an organization and having organizations like yours, having your podcast, et cetera, becomes I think even more crucial. So before we jump into our three questions today, I'm more than happy to hear anything you might have to say on that, although I

I'm sure we could spend as I often say on this pod, boy, we could spend the rest of our, you know, time together today just on on one particular issue and that would probably be it.

I think one point you made to me before we started recording was about words and language and how important it is as a community. We spend a lot of time on word, you know, debating wording, and maybe we shouldn't be. But I think one of the things that I've noticed in the last year and a half about our sector, the nonprofit sector, the philanthropic and nonprofit community, is that

We don't want to say Voldemort. We don't want to say what's actually happening. So there's a lot of euphemism usage that has, you know, blossomed during these challenging times, during the current context, during this moment. you know, you name it, we all use these things, including me. and so one of the things that I think is important is actually naming what's happening.

Or just saying plainly what what it is. And it's the Trump administration, you know, as far as I can tell, intentionally attacking the nonprofit sector over and over and over again with many different tactics and strategies. And you know, even as they take our country to war,

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And invade other countries like Iran and Venezuela and bomb even other countries as well, which they have. As we are at war with other countries, wars of choice and aggression, they are also waging a war with the country that they are supposed to govern, that they were elected to govern, that they are sworn have sworn an oath to protect and defend.

And part of that attack on the the homeland is this what I call the forever war on nonprofits that they've been waging since even before the administration began. So I call I I started calling it the Trump administration's war on charity. other people have called it the war on nonprofits. I, you know, somewhat snarkily call it started calling it the forever war on nonprofits, or

Mm.

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The department of war on nonprofits.

Mm, how topical is that? You know, Department of War is definitely insider lingo, but I think pretty much anyone hearing this, listening to this would get that. But I had not yet heard Forever War, and I think that kind of sums it up. So I really appreciate your comments about language and I I do think we continue to struggle with you know, what

what we should be doing around language and why, but I think in this case it's it's it's absolutely spot on. And speaking of that, I wanna kinda throw it back over to you because I think where you just went, is a great intro, is a very good transition into your question.

Yeah, thanks, Martha. I continue to be nervous coming on two podcasts as a guest. I've I have done a few as a guest, and I think I find it harder than actually hosting one. But so I I'll do my best. So the question I'm bringing to this conversation, and and thank you for for creating this exciting new podcast. I'm now I'm now a listener and have really enjoyed

I hear you on that. You be you

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a bunch of the episodes so far. So I encourage folks to to listen to other episodes and subscribe. but the question I'm bringing to glad you asked today is what are things you can do or we can do right now to help protect the nonprofit sector?

First of all, terrific question. One of the things we do because you have listened, and by the way, thank you for that. I very, very regularly get the question, or even maybe more the feeling is a way to put it, where someone will come to me. It can be a family member, a friend, it might be someone in our sector, it might be someone in one of the other sectors who just feel really helpless and say, I feel like there's nothing I can really do that's gonna make a true.

Mm.

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difference. How about we start there? Like, do you get I've got to believe that people come to you regularly with that sentiment, right?

Well, I think it's been a major pivot for Fund the People. Our mission is to maximize investment in America's nonprofit workforce. And we've been doing that since we launched in twenty fourteen. And you know, so we started by trying to influence funders, philanthropic foundations in particular, to be more intentional and strategic and responsive.

In how they invest in the leaders and staff people, the workers of their grantee organizations and other nonprofits in the fields or geographic communities that they support, that they fund in. So that was where we began. And then we saw that, you know, some of the best funders said, well, if not if my grantees are telling me.

they really want our foundation to invest in their staff, then I would do that. But if Fund the People tells me to do it, but my grantees aren't telling me to do it, I'd be more wary. am I doing this something that that my grantees don't actually want or need me to do.

during a strategy refresh in: 2024

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are are a huge influence on nonprofit wages and benefits and other working conditions in nonprofits that receive government funding, or even just as kind of the go, you know, the North Star that other funders set their funding based on, for example, indirect cost rates or things like that. They look to the government as a kind of template and then copy it for better or worse.

So we began to

in the last couple of years,: 2023

you know, economic and growth in for communities and quality of life for the constituents of lawmakers. but then we, you know

have all experienced this you know, forever war on nonprofits. And like I said earlier, it started before the administration. It def it it it began during the campaign when then candidate Donald Trump posted things on his social media post saying that nonprofits were thugs and

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Sleaze bags, I think, and something else. And Vice President Vance, then Senator Vance, put out a bill in the Senate that would have taken, I think, 50% of university endowments taken that government taking an endowment from a private

nonprofit institution if those universities didn't clear out the student protest encampments on the quad.

So those were things that happened before the administration. So people forget, people have focused on the specific funding cuts. X nonprofit lost X number of dollars from X federal agency, and that's the problem. No, this is a much bigger set of attacks that have been launched at philanthropy and nonprofits. So, yes, it is something that we have shifted to try to address.

Yes.

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in particular since HR ninety four ninety five, which we called the nonprofit killer bill, which was the first thing that the president's allies introduced in the in the Congress after the election. So yeah, I I I think about it all the time and what can we do? You know, and people want to know and and and I say, you know, part of it is just saying it. So the first thing I'd say

about this question of what can we do right now is to really start understanding what has been happening to our sector, what our own government is doing in full, not just these specific things that may impact an individual organization. Because part of the advice that people have that or nonprofits have gotten over the last 18 months from podcasts and lawyers and webinars and

articles and blogs. It's been very focused on hardening your shell in case your nonprofit gets investigated or cyber attacked or something. You know, make sure that you have your, you know, cyber security strong. Make sure you have your by you're following your bylaws so that if you're making if you're not quite following your bylaws, someone can't like

you know, somehow shut you down because of some minor, you know, infraction of of your bylaws. Get your finances in order. All these things. Those are very individual organizational protections and almost like just harden your shell, hunker down, be quiet. Turtle, be a be a turtle with a strong shell. And I think what we need to do is say, no, we are kangaroos.

Turtle.

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We're gonna jump around and say, hey, stop doing this to us. Like this is dangerous. warning sign, hello, hello, America, stop, stop this from happening. I don't know, I just came up with the kangaroo thing, but you know, something w we need to use our First Amendment rights in order to keep our First Amendment rights. If we stop using our First Amendment rights, which too many of us have, then we by default are losing.

I like it. I love kangaroos.

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those rights. We diminish them by not using them. We strengthen them by using them.

Ug agreed. All of the above. I also want to say I think this whole thing about turtling, I'm also I'm as obsessed with turtles as I am with kangaroots. But anyway, both are great animals. But the turtling, I mean, in all seriousness, the turtling piece resonates particularly with me because one of the ways that I've been talking with folks about what's been happening over the last couple of y years is it feels in many ways to me like

Both are great animals.

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what a lot of NGOs are doing is treating it like the next pandemic. You know, is shoring up these, to your point, kind of looking at it like what what do we need to make sure we do from a, you know, systemic resource standpoint that is not really where our heads should be at. Of course, there are things we need to make sure we're doing at a baseline. Clearly, I I think it's safe for me to say, right, Rusty, neither you nor I are

advocating for for not, you know, paying attention to those types of things at a baseline. But to your point about First Amendment, none of that's gonna matter if we're not speaking up. It's just it it's none of the rest of it will have any meaning because it'll be gone.

Right.

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Right. That's right. And also, who cares if they attack you or not? They're attacking the entire sector. one attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center or Open Society Foundation, which they've done both of, it's just a like a sample in a buffet. The point is they're attacking the whole sector. Yes, you have to defend your own organization. That's your mandate as a board and and executive director and staff.

But our new job is to protect our sector. Our new job is to protect the communities that our sector serves and supports. And so we have to think a little bigger than just the s narrow self-interest of our institutions. We have to actually be sector protectors, all of us. And the more of us do it,

The safer it is, right? It's a collective action thing. The fewer of us, the more turtles there are, right? The more silence there is, the more space there is for them to just go rolling right over our little shells. And some shells get crushed along the way. But the more kangaroos we are, the harder it is for them to to roll through us because we're jumping around, we're active, we're

We're not l you know, we're not letting them, you know, the darkness and silence we're not creating that space for authoritarianism to blossom. We need to use our voices to keep democracy loud and present.

Be a kangaroo. That's what we're saying, folks. Be a kangaroo. I think the one thing I just want to add is that we absolutely will put in the show notes specific legislation, et cetera, around ways for people to be involved. I also want to just kind of give a shout out as well to the National Council for Nonprofits because they've been really active on a number of issues that are really critical.

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Right.

our sector. And so we'll also throw that link into the show notes. and then I think just my last thought on this is it's really hard, right, when you're a nonprofiteer on the front lines every day and you're just trying to get your job done. So we get it that asking you to add one more thing, you know, kind of to your list is rough. Yet if we don't go there and if we don't collectively do this together and if we don't have more

kangaroos, your job, you know, may be gone. I I say that with all due respect. So I think with all of that, any one any other thoughts on that? And then we definitely need to move into our second question.

Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, we can go. So, you know, one thought is, and I love to share this with you to put in the show notes for this conversation. You know, our our podcast, Fund the People Podcast, has a ongoing series in it called Defend Nonprofits, Defend Democracy series. And so we try to cover what's happening and and keep people abreast as as best we can. so we have a playlist of the

Yep. Yep.

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14 or 15 episodes in that series that's been going since 2025. The other thing I just add is for funders listening, yes, this is kind of like the pandemic, but worse in a lot of ways in terms of the burnout, in terms of the destabilization of organizations and their staffs.

And there's no PPP loans coming this time. There's no series of congressional relief packages signed by President Trump and President Biden you know, to to help employers keep payroll going, to help this the country recover or even just sustain the economy during the crisis, because this crisis is actually imposed on us by our government. And so

Yes, funders don't have the money to fill the gaps for all the federal money that has gone away. But funders can do things differently for their grantees and they can support this workforce if they redeploy their dollars that they're giving and hopefully spend more dollars in the field.

Instead of restricted project support, instead of general operating support, funders can give staff operating support.

to their grantees to help with payroll, to help with benefits, to help stabilize this workforce so that you know more tens of thousands of more nonprofit workers don't get laid off for no fault of their own. So if people want to hear more about the idea of staff operating support, which is a a concept that Fund the People produced earlier this year, I'll I'll send you a link to our article about that from the Nonprofit Quarterly.

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All of those resources we will absolutely put in the show notes. Really appreciate that. We're back again to the more you know, right? The more you actually understand what's going on, the better you can respond in kind. So the other thing about what you just said is another great transition. This whole idea about investing into the workforce. My question for today is what self-care steps are you taking right now so that you can live to fight.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

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the good fight, this good fight we're talking about another day. And I'd like to hear a little bit about what you're doing. I'd also like to hear though from you, Rusty, as a leader, as a supervisor, as a manager, you know, just all the various roles you play in terms of supporting others, what, you know, self care steps you take to be able to, you know, again, do that and and and you yourself live to fight the good fight another day.

You know, I think it's a very good question. I think one of the provocative things I've tried to get out there is that, you know, the funding community every year or so at some point they're like, my God, burnout's a problem in nonprofits. What are we gonna do? We don't know what to do. We don't know if we care. And I keep saying burnout is not the problem. Burnout is a symptom of the problem. So

Don't try to don't try to help people with burnout. Try to help people change the working conditions that cause burnout or contribute to burnout. How to do that?

Change your own funding practices so that nonprofit job quality goes up, nonprofit well-being goes up, economic, mental, physical, and productivity goes up, program outputs and outcomes go up. So, really starting from a place of how do nonprofit budgets shape nonprofit well-being or burnout? And

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It's not the only thing, right? There are toxic workplaces that are very well funded, but the jobs are just really hard. I'm not saying it's all money at all, but but money also creates incentives and opportunities.

To either not address a toxic workplace or address a toxic workplace. So that's part of my thing. In terms of myself, I think I'm not a great manager. I think I have a lot of work to do in that regard. Really, I I I'm not the best guest in terms of how to best support your team. I'm just being honest. I try. you know, I've done things like have open space Zooms where

The team can get together and just talk as people about what they're going through. We haven't done enough of them, but people appreciate them especially at sort of peak crisis moments, when people feel most isolated, frustrated, and it gives a space with your work colleagues to just talk about what you're feeling and going through without being judged or without it being part of a bigger meeting where you know it's just squished in or it doesn't feel appropriate.

so I think that that's been helpful. I I have had people on the show on our podcast to talk about this stuff, both to learn from them and to offer the field some some helpful resources and I found that very helpful. Like I I didn't come up with that idea of the sort of open open space conversations. someone who came on our show, I believe, came up with that idea. But yeah, I'm not doing great on self-care right now, I'll be honest. This week has been hard.

Okay.

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I'm underslept. I'm frazzled by the challenges of of parenting, of organizationing, of adulting. and so I don't know. Like I I'm curious what you do. I I heard you talk with Vu Le on this show about taking walks and eating chocolate. I like both of those things.

Adultine?

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I love all this. I mean, one of the things, Rusty, that I hope you realize is as you're sharing all this with folks, you're being very vulnerable. You're saying, this is hard. You're not saying, I've got it all figured out, or or just saying, I'm fine. I'm good. You know, like it's like you're being really open about that the this is all very difficult work and that this week in particular, it's, you know, it's kind of getting to you. And I and

I think that as a leader is we just need to do a lot more of that, right? Instead of kind of the whole idea that anyone who's leading or managing or in any way, you know, may has staff reporting to, you know, whatever the case may be, or maybe they're a volunteer, you know, board chair. I think this whole concept that still to this day, so often what's rewarded is, you know, not showing the vulnerability, but acting like, you know, you've got everything figured out and

Mm-hmm.

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you know, you're good because that's just not real. So I really appreciate that. I love the idea of the kind of open space. And I and I like that your staff can do that and that that came from someone, you know, came from another person's idea and that you said, okay, great, let's try it. Because that's another thing, right? Is throwing all those spaghetti against the wall, right? Having the strands and then d seeing what what does work and going with it. So

Mm-hmm.

I think yeah, and and what I would say in answer to your question for me is that it is a lot of the stuff we talked about on on Vu's show, but I it's very week to week. What one other thing I'll just add for you, but also for listeners, is one of the things that has been super helpful for me on on the self-care front has been to change at least one meeting a week, if not more, to a phone call so that I can walk and talk. And

Mm.

You'd be surprised, Rusty, how many people love that? Because that means that it's not just me, it's that that person then can also change, you know, they don't have to be on Zoom. So, with that, we are going to get now to our last question for the day, our third question, which comes from Derek Mulhern. He is executive director of the Cultivating Change Foundation. And Derek is asking, How

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Mm.

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Mm-hmm.

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Are you keeping staff and keeping them inspired? And so I think, you know, one of the things that you just outlined again is this kind of open space Zoom call. I'm wondering if there are other ways, little big in between, that you are, you know, keeping staff and keeping them inspired. So thoughts on that, Rusty?

So I just want to give a shout out to some of our guests who've helped me on our podcast and and like gave me some of those ideas that I've tried to use. So one is Mako Marquette Whitlock, who his website is Mindful Techie with an IEEE. He works a lot with social change nonprofits activists. He has a book called How to Thrive When Work Doesn't Love You Back, a practical guide for taking care of yourself while changing the world.

So I found him very helpful and and in our conversation on the podcast, he talked about this idea of mourning social change, the the ideas and institutions, and and hopefulness and and visions when they don't work. For me as an AmeriCorps alum.

Yeah.

It's not just an eight federal agency and a stipend. It's also the concept of the government actually encouraging young people and senior citizens and others to serve, to get involved in public service. So that was a very helpful conversation to think about: like, how do we mourn actively?

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to help us not shove it all down and and just take action and keep going without processing some of or making space for ourselves and our group our teams. So I think that's one of the ways we help keep staff is by addressing the humanity, the experience that people are going through, the emotional lives at work as well as at home when it's appropriate, supporting people through those things.

It goes a long, long way to build loyalty to an organization. Like, okay, we can't pay you what we'd like to pay you, but we can actively listen to you. We can help you take paid time off, encourage you to save for retirement. There's all kinds of things that managers and organizational leaders can can do. We also had on Beth Cantor, another great blogger in our side.

Sector.

She's amazing. I love Beth.

Yeah, and she has a book that came out a while ago, but it's called The Happy Healthy Nonprofit. The Happy Healthy Nonprofit. And it has all kinds of great concepts and tools in it to help nonprofit managers and leaders support their staff and build a healthy, happy workplace and workforce. So those are a couple folks that I've turned to. but again I think we have to we have to fundamentally it my my main message here

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About how we recruit and retain people in individual nonprofits or in our sector more broadly, is we have to flip the funding formula and the fundraising formula. Stop calling yourself and your employees overhead. Stop calling yourself and your employees indirect costs.

Those things are lies. They are myths. They are bullshit. They are wrong. They are harmful to our budgets. They are harmful to our salaries. They are harmful to our our fundraising and our grant making. They're harmful to our recruitment and retention. So funders need to change that. And nonprofits that raise money need to change that. Push back. Push back. Do not let do not use that term overhead.

Amen.

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or direct indirect. No person is illegal and no person is indirect to the work that their organization does, whether they're a janitor, an executive director, a middle manager. I don't care if you don't work a second on a program, you are not an indirect cost.

Amen, amen, amen.

So that's how I'd say like hold up.

Drop the mic. Drop the mic, Rusty. Drop that mic. Wow.

I th the mic's attached to my headphones, so

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I don't we y'all, y'all won't probably have seen that, but he he just did his very best, even with his headphone, to drop that mic down. Yes. So again, I'll say one more time. I think this is at least the second, if not third time I've said today, all of the above. And, you know, back in the day, right, when Dan Pilata got the whole kind of got, you know, the ball rolling on overhead myth. And that that's kind of calmed down, although I feel like it's hopefully kind of coming back.

But it is incredible how it just does seem to keep rearing its ugly head every generation, if not, you know, multiple times within each generation. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. It never went away, even though we all know it's it's utter nonsense and harmful. It just doesn't go away, so

Right. Right. So and then coming back to, and I appreciate you bringing it back to active listening. Well done, Rusty. I feel like this piece about humanity, right? About putting humanity first. When our sector is at its very best and when it rocks way more than the other two sectors could ever hope to.

is when we put humanity first. And with that, of course, comes active listening and looking at each person's situation to your to your examples about, you know, whatever that individual is going through, whatever it is they need, actually listening, actually hearing, and then doing whatever you can about it. You can't always often you can't do all the things you'd love to do about it.

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But there are always there's always at least one thing, if not more, you can do. And even if that one thing is that you're showing them that you care and that you hear them and that you're there for them, that goes a really long way. I feel like that's probably a good thing to end on because we've already we've already taken a lot of your time. I am so grateful, Rusty, to get this time with you. Do you have any final thought for today?

Well, all of the above to what you just said. and I think in talent investing, in in our framework around talent investing, I when I thought about your podcast and its focus on active listening, I realized that

One of the key things I say to people when they ask, well, where do I start with talent investing, either as a funder or a fundraiser, is listening. So funders, you know how I mentioned earlier, a funder said, Well, if my grantees tell me they need this, I'll do it. Funders need to ask those questions and listen. And they can say,

I can't yet respond and fund you the way you want to be, but I want to understand, I want to hear from you what you really need so that I can be an internal champion at the foundation to change our funding approach.

And give them a safe space to be able to give them that answer because f often funders will think they're giving someone a safe space, but they're really not, because that organization is worried they're gonna lose their funding.

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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Exactly. The other active listening is within the nonprofits, if they want to raise money in a way that better supports and invests in their staff, management leaders have to listen to everyone in the organization so that they really know what would make a difference. And it may surprise them. It might not be more money. It might be more agency or participation.

in the organization. It might be something that costs nothing or it might be something that costs a lot. You don't know if you don't create that safe space. It might be a survey or some other anonymized way to gather that input, to listen actively. And then you can go to your funder and say, you keep funding sabbaticals or coaches or you know

mess you know mess well being but actually what our staff needs is you know something completely different and so I think the other side of active listening is active custom responding so rather than funders offering cookie cutter everyone gets a coach everyone gets a sabbatical

Yes. Yes.

listen and then respond and enable nonprofits to shape that money, sh use that money in a way that's customized to their needs. That's what we try to put out there with the staff operating support concept is that it's restricted or dedicated to investments in this in the workers and the po policies and systems that support the workers. But within that it's flexible, responsive, trust-based, so that the organization has the agency and ability

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to use the money in a way that the workforce actually wants and needs.

Again, amen. Don't make assumptions, right? We all we do that often and that's another key piece to active listening. Again, Rusty, thank you so much for your time today. It has been a real pleasure. I'm really glad we asked you on because so much of what you've talked about today, I know is ever present on millions of our fellow nonprofiteers' minds. So again, thank you.

Thanks to you and Patrick, your colleague, for putting the show together and having me on.

Our pleasure. Take care.

You two.

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Rusty's passion for his work is unmatched and frankly very contagious. I really admire his direct approach to addressing issues, and how gracious he is about the team of people working with him to strive toward their ongoing goals. So let's run it back now to our first question, which Rusty brought to the table. What is one thing I can do right now to help protect the nonprofit sector?

As I mentioned in the intro, Rusty laid out so many examples and resources for what we can do to combat the current relentless attack on our sector. Now that we've laid all of that out there, I want to once again focus on the word one. Folks, we can't expect ourselves to do it all, and if we can each focus on one thing at a time, we can make a huge impact. Let's also look at the words right now, which were carefully chosen.

We're not lamenting inaction of the past. We're not worrying about what we'll be doing next month or next year. We're asking about the here and now. This is a much more manageable task to imagine and therefore take action on. What can you do this week to say volunteer your skills with a local nonprofit for an hour or two? It's not a huge commitment, just a couple of hours of your time, which by the way, we know is precious.

But for right now, we're just talking again, we're talking about the here and now. The final word I'd like to point out in this question is protect. We're not salvaging, we're not saving, we're protecting. The nonprofit sector is established and strong. If we stay diligent, we can continue to protect the best things about it. The work doesn't only come from the good folks in the sector itself.

But also everyone in external relations, government relations, and folks doing the policy work day in and day out. As someone who has done extensive work in each of these areas, professionally and on a volunteer leader level, I am so grateful to anyone putting in time into any of these areas, which is absolutely essential. Whether you're involved now or not, I encourage you to ask yourself if you have the energy to get involved in something else that you care about, something new.

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Even just one hour a week of volunteering with an organization goes a really long way. If you are looking to help, I encourage you to browse through our show notes and find some inspiration in one of Rusty's many resources he's sharing with us. Then see what you can do on a community level to help protect our beloved nonprofit sector. Now, you may ask, with what time, Martha? Avoiding burnout is key to having the energy to fight the good fight.

So don't bite off more than you can chew. I suggest exchanging time instead of trying to make time out of thin air. I know that one of my biggest time wasters has been doom scrolling. Hard hard not to go there right now, which if I'm doing it for 15, 20 minutes here and there throughout the week, it actually adds up to a couple of hours pretty quickly. If we could replace those two hours of Doom Scrolling with two hours of volunteering,

We're suddenly helping instead of feeding our anxieties. I promise you it feels much better. This ties in perfectly with my question. What self-care steps are you taking right now so that you can live to fight the good fight another day? I admire Rusty for being so vulnerable in his response to this question. We're not always good at this, and that's why it's so essential to ask ourselves and those around us this important question.

We've talked about this before on the show with our guests, and they've given some great advice. I'd just like to focus on the importance of asking the question in the first place. Notice that the words right now also appear in this question. Again, we're not lamenting our lack of self care last week or thinking about our busy upcoming schedule. We're thinking about this moment. Perhaps the answer is making a cup of tea or stepping away from the computer screen for five minutes.

Little things add up. Whatever it may be, thinking of the moment, of the day, and finding small ways to implement self-care can have a huge impact on our overall health. For anyone in a leadership or management role, this is one of the most important things to ask staff. A friend of mine was promoted to a management position in the early days of pandemic quarantine. He had, for the first time in his career, a small group of staff to manage.

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In his very first meeting with them, he spent the entire meeting discussing self care and what it looked like now that they were working remotely. Each of his staff members were eager to prove their productivity to their new manager, especially since they weren't present in the office. I think many of us remember the transition and how odd it seemed to be home instead of physically at work, and he kept bringing it back to self care. One by one, he said.

He walked through their home office setups with each of them and took notes. Then his first act as their manager was to secure funding for each of them to purchase a desk and various office equipment. Once that was approved, he got permission for each of them to bring their office chair from headquarters to their home office and even offered to help them carry it.

Once they saw how much he cared about their well being, they were open with their ideas and more productive than ever. And rumor has it, years later they're still all sitting there in those comfy, ergonomic Herman Miller chairs at a sturdy desk to this day. This is just a prime example of how he answered the question How are you keeping staff and keeping them inspired? Now for your action items.

Today, I would like you to think about one healthy change you can make in your work routine. I mentioned changing one weekly meeting from Zoom to phone. You may recall I briefly brought that up with Rusty. So again, changing one weekly meeting from Zoom to phone so that you can then take that walk while you're talking. Or perhaps it's putting a time limit on your most toxic social media app.

Perhaps it's not giving as much of your time, your precious time again, I'll use that word, to an acquaintance whose care isn't reciprocal. Perhaps it's actually turning your computer off at 6 PM, even if your boss unofficially expects you to keep working after hours. Before you know it, you'll have time to do something to help protect the nonprofit sector, or at a minimum, to put on your oxygen mask so you can live to fight the good fight.

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Another day.

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Thanks for listening to Glad You Asked, a Hazen Institute for Leadership Training podcast. If you enjoy the show, come find me on Patreon for more in depth content. You can also follow me on LinkedIn. This show is produced by the amazing Patrick and Benjamin Childers of Odd Conduit Media. Please check the show notes for our guest links, today's questions, and more information. A massive heartfelt shout out to my father.

Hazen Schumacher, who taught me the power of audio storytelling through his weekly radio show, Jazz Revisited, and to Basil and the Supernaturals, featuring Kevin Thompson and Herbie Hunkley for our show's music. If you have a question you'd like me to put out there on our show, send me a message on LinkedIn or send me an email at hello at hazeninc.com. Have you used a question from our show in your life? If so, drop us a line and tell us how it went.

You can also learn more about my work at hazeninc.com. Tune in next time to keep exploring active listening on another episode of Glad You Asked.

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9. Rusty Stahl - What is one thing I can do right now to help protect the nonprofit sector?