Embracing New, Creative + Better Ways of Thinking, Planning + Working - Veronica LaFemina

11:13PM Jan 31, 2022

Speakers:

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Veronica LaFemina

Keywords:

organization

strategy

community

people

nonprofit

ideas

life

strategic plan

create

helping

feel

sector

culture

becky

virtuous

veronica

support

strategic planning process

listening

meeting

Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky.

And this is the we are for good podcast.

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

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So let's get started.

Hey, Becky. Welcome, everybody. We're so glad you're here.

I mean, aren't you so excited to get to dive into strategy, but not just like old school strategy, we're taking it modern.

We are modernizing strategy, everything you thought you knew about your strategic plan. I don't want to say chunk it. But I'm just going to tell you we're about to elevate it to a new level. And I have to share a little bit of the winding story of how we met our incredible expert today. But I love it when community speaks into what we're doing. And in our we're for good community. We had somebody speak up. Hi, Andy from Spring, Texas, we had an executive director that said, hey, I really need some help around strategic planning. You know, of course, we don't want to just go old school with it. We want to talk about what's working in the moment now. And so our really good friend Jess Campbell it out in the boonies says, Oh, if you want a modern strategic plan, you got to talk to Veronica. And so we're so excited today to introduce Veronica luff Amina. She's in Raleigh, North Carolina. And she's the founder and CEO of laugh, Amina and cope company. And she is just one of these incredible thought leaders around modern strategy for mission driven organizations. And so I want to give a little bit of background on her. She loves supporting women owned businesses, and she has this incredible advisory firm that's dedicated to helping nonprofit orgs. And associations do good better, which totally sounds like our people. So she's got about two decades of experience in the nonprofit sector. And the thing we love is that she her experience, and her knowledge is so comprehensive. She's a strategist, she's a facilitator. She's really into shifting organizational culture with flexible strategy and solutions. So don't get overwhelmed by trying to put together a new strategic plan because we're seeing a lot of people right now say, hey, my pre pandemic plan no longer works. And so if you're thinking about how to embrace a new and creative and just a better way of thinking, planning and working today, sure episode for onic. Welcome to the we're for good podcasts. We're so excited. You're here.

Thank you so much for having me. I am thrilled to be here because modern strategy is like this evangelizing area for me and I am so excited to be speaking with you both and with the we are for good community about how we can make it easier to do good, better with good strategy.

Thank you for saying to make it easier because John, you know, I am not, it's not my favorite thing to like, sit in a room for about four hours and strategize. So anyway, we can make this simple, is really appealing to a lot of us. But I want to know about you, Veronica, I want to know where you grew up. I want to know about kind of your heart for service. Tell us about your journey a little bit.

Sure. Um, so I was born in California, but I was born into a military family. So I spent a lot of time moving back and forth between the west coast and the East Coast. And through that had a chance to meet people from so many different walks of life to meet folks who are different from me and the context that I was growing up in. And I was born into a family where I always kind of say, services in our DNA. You know, some of my earliest memories are either doing service projects or participating in family events and opportunities that we're about how can we make our community a better place? How can we support and connect with our neighbors in all kinds of ways to make that possible? So as I kind of went through school and college and came out on the other side, I started my career in Strategic Communications and Public Affairs, which was basically about how do we create a good environment for change to happen? And so I was always kind of angling to say how can I be consulting to and supporting mission driven organizations with that work? What does it look like to apply some of the same resources and strategic support that is very common in the business world to organizations who may not have that same kind of expertise and access to the people or the approaches that are shaping Our society. And so so over the course of my career, I kind of moved from communications into this broader strategy perspective. I've done consulting both out of house and in house and been in executive roles at nonprofit organizations. And one of my driving kind of ethos is and that is, what are we actually doing to make it better? What are we choosing to do instead of just doing what we've always done, instead of continuing on with things that maybe were successful before? But moving forward? How are we making clear choices about how we want to be in the world, how we want to show up for the communities we serve. And that's something I think about a lot in my personal life, too. So not just in the work I do in this sector, but also in the communities, the community work, I got involved with the community groups that I'm giving to, how do I want the world to be better, because I contributed my efforts or expertise. And I think that is a great guiding principle for organizations in our sector as well.

Well, you know, you found kindred spirits and us because you know, you've picked out one of our most tried things that we just have rolled our eyes. For years, being inside a nonprofit is just, this is how we've always done it, you know, and I love that the pandemic made a reality that it does not work, you know, for years, it wasn't as obvious that didn't work. But now those that didn't, weren't flexible, weren't nimble, that didn't reinterpret what the strategy looks like in light of the moment, or those that have fallen like way behind. And so thanks for you know, carrying this torch before it was complicated. Because I think you got a bench of experience to speak of. So would you kind of let's let's do some tone setting of this conversation, you know, what's an appropriate way? What's a better way to address the idea of strategy for an organization? So if someone's on a leadership team, how do they enter the room and say, Hey, let's look at this differently than how we've done it. What are some advice to get this conversation started?

Sure. So. So first, I think it's helpful. You know, a lot of us have probably seen what I'm going to use my air quotes here as a standard strategic plan over the past 20 years and nonprofit, we have probably been through those six month processes with I kid you not, I think I saw a framework that had 150 steps, I'll take Gosh, in a six month time period, to articulate what we expect to happen over the next three to five years. And we've probably seen that it includes lots and lots of things we're going to try to do, because we're attempting to incorporate maybe pet projects, maybe the big ideas of everyone who's involved on the board or the leadership team. And what we end up with is like a 20 to 40 page document that probably most human beings are not going to read. Yep. And that's a big problem. Because strategy is only successful when the human beings who have to execute it, know what they're supposed to do, and know what it means for the future of the organization. So a couple of things I think are helpful to consider when you're beginning, a new a new process or a new time for re articulating your strategy are, what would it look like if we gave ourselves permission to focus on what we do? Absolutely best. So instead of feeling like we've got to do everything for everyone, what would that look like? What would our role he in our community or in the issue we serve? So we talk a lot about mission and vision and values, almost to the point where folks can rattle them off, but they may have lost their meaning, right with what we're trying to accomplish. But we don't as often talk about what's our role as an organization? Are we an advocate? Are we a direct service provider? Are we a convener? Are we a partner? And if we know that role, and can define it, that goes a long way to helping us understand. Okay, so then what are the ways we will fulfill that role? There may be fantastic program ideas, but maybe they're not a fit, because that's not who we are. And there might be a different organization over here, who would be the perfect organization to implement that kind of program. So I think, you know, permission to focus and knowing our role are huge. And then the other thing that I like to challenge people with is how could you get your strategy onto one page, so it doesn't mean let's cram everything in. Let's make sure everything's represented. Right. And ultimately, you know, strategy is a series of choices about what we will and won't do. That's it at the heart. It says here's how we believe we can be successful in our mission. In the specific goals we're trying to achieve, and we often have to say, here's what we're not going to do anymore. And that part's hard, because we want to do everything is part of the hearts and minds of this sector. But by articulating it in one page, articulating those choices, we are then giving the teams that need to execute or activate those choices was enough vision and direction for where we're headed, and enough guardrails to make great decisions that will be in line with our strategy. Because we can't always predict the global pandemic, or that an event space will no longer be available, or that one of our key board members has to step down. And if they've been the linchpin in one of our initiatives, that isn't always something we can predict. So we have to give our folks enough tools to make the choices that will make our strategy come to life.

Holy smokes.

Yeah, I think this is such a brilliant approach for for multiple reasons. Because for one, just in any kind of goal setting in life, I know for me personally, when it's too much like you can't do it all like you've got to, like narrow and work through one thing at a time, I feel like you can start spinning plates, once you master different aspects, you know, and once you can kind of that's how you build on but you can't rebuild it all at the same time. So this is a really powerful thing. And I think it also speaks to just the relationships that you can have with other organizations, it's a really evolved way to show up today to build partnerships to build corporate partnerships, and, you know, organizational partnerships. And so I think it kind of really meets the moment in a really unique way, everything that you're saying. And I love that everybody could know what's on that sheet of paper, you know, the whole organization? How would the organization just come alive? You know, if everyone's that honed in on, this is our strategy, like we're excited about it, we know what it is, and we know how we connect to it as an individual.

And John, I am feeling like you and I are Wilson from home improvement, like with just our eyes peeking over the edge embarrassed because we have created plans for clients and and even in our past lives, you know that were 2030 pages? And you're absolutely right. It's just not palatable, you cannot absorb it. And I think about just as a gift officer, you go out into the community. And when somebody says to you, what are your priorities? I mean, it is as small as having those on a post it you know, it's like here are the five or six priorities of our organization. And if the strategic plan is one sheet, you could rattle those off so quickly. And I have a little side question about that building of strategy and the way we're looking at it differently. How do you bring in socialized community as a part of building strategy? Because I think one of the problems in nonprofit is that we leave it up to our leaders to create all the strategy when sometimes, I mean, we believe the answers are right there in the people that are frontline actually doing the hard work. So how do we kind of socialize that so the strategic plan becomes the voices of the entire team, which we know will make the plan stronger because they see themselves in the plan.

And so I love this question, Becky. And it's very timely, because it's been on my mind a lot lately to like, it feels complicated to involve our community. But why? Because those are the people we should be connecting with and listening to on a regular basis. So you know, different approaches will work for organizations of different sizes. Thing One is listening to our community should be an everyday effort. Preach, it's not something that's part of a strategic planning process that we do once every three years, where we bring a group in and what's on their mind at that moment then shapes our future vision for the foreseeable future. They need like we need the people we serve to be involved in the process. And I would say we need our partners involved in the process too. But the listening doesn't just start and stop with that planning process that we're going through. We all know that some of the best ideas, some of the most impactful campaigns and programs and efforts come through the ideas of our community. And so if we can release ourselves from the need to be the creators of the ideas, and instead to be the magnifiers of ideas that people who help put that megaphone in front of our community members, we are fulfilling our purpose in a new way. So some of the best practices or long standing approaches to strategy inherently involve privilege, right is our board members who were talking to it's our biggest funders, and as the leadership of the organization, and those voices are important, but they are not more important. Then our frontline staff who are most connected to our community members, to our fundraisers in the field, who are hearing directly from folks who want to support the organization, but need some more information about what we're doing and how we're serving people to get that done. And they're certainly not more important than the community members we're looking to serve. I think that for staff, right for leadership, if you're an ad, an easy way to do this is to make it a regular part of your staff meetings. So once a month, or however often you're meeting with your team members, make Community Voices part of what people are hearing, and not just a beautiful mission success stories, those are amazing. And we need them right for storytelling and impact. But what are we hearing? What do people really need? And especially if we tend to focus on a specific area? How can we understand our community as whole people and not just the disease or the issue or their condition, right, that we work on? Because when we see them as whole people we can see and hear their solutions for what would make their lives better today?

Oh, my God, you keep pulling back the onion. And it's like, we're more and more in lockstep with everything that you're just saying. I mean, I think that this has been just such a good playbook of like, where to get started, and how to gather and galvanize feedback and just build it in to how we show up on the regular. We all know, it's hard to transition from we've got a strategy to really activate what is, you know, some ways to really engage teams through this and keep people excited, even when there's so many things happening, you know, we're so burnt out as a, you know, organization, what are some ways to keep it alive?

So I there's like a very funny debate, right, among many people who work in this space between strategic planning and business planning and operational planning, and are they different things? Are they the same thing? I am very much on the school that if a strategy can't be activated, it is just nice words, I'm saying. And as you know, as a writer, I love nice words on paper, but that's not achieving what we want it to. So so a couple of things. One is, if you are in a room building the strategy, it's important to look around and say whose voice is missing? So teammates from other parts of the organization? Is this even a community need? Like, are we just building something that we think is a nice idea, but doesn't have a true purpose for the people we serve, or for the people who are hoping to support the people we serve through funding or through other efforts. The other thing that I think is really critical is that once we have articulated with those few core, you know, priorities or focus areas are the decision makers in different parts of the organization need to sit down together to talk about how are we going to do this. And that sounds simple, but it doesn't happen. So often, right? Fundraising goes off and builds its own strategy programs goes and builds its own strategy, marketing and communications goes and does its own thing. And then what happens is, our resources are all tied up, and making incremental progress on those individual efforts instead of an integrated and collective effort on progress for the organization as a whole. And so, you know, some of the work I do with organizations is facilitating these conversations, and asking questions like, can you really do that? Do you actually have the resources to launch these 10 new things this year. And when we get into those real conversations, it helps clarify that some of our dreams or some of the things we laid out, maybe we're not yet in the position to successfully execute that. And I do like to use the term strategy activation, because there will be opportunities that come up that we didn't plan for. And when we have enough direction, and enough guidelines for the decisions we're going to make and what our main focuses, we empower our staff at every level of the organization to seize those opportunities and make choices in line with it. And so the other thing I like to do with that is say, you know, this plan were being written by one of our frontline staff members, in partnership with a person that they interact with in our community on a regular basis. What would it look like? What would it need, so that people aren't scratching their heads and wondering what that means for their jobs every day? Because in that case, what happens right is people just keep doing what they were doing before. You can't just say we're going to change without spending the time helping people move through the process of change. And so to do that, they don't just need awareness of what the change is, we have to cultivate that desire to participate in the change. Give them the knowledge and ability to actually carry out that change and then reinforce it. Right? That's the other thing that makes it actionable is clearly understanding what does success look like? And how are we going to measure that? And how often? What's the what's the cadence that we are being accountable to ourselves in our community for reaching these results? And what happens when we don't make it? You know, how can we incentivize our team members to be thoughtful and honest about the progress we've made, and not feel like, Oh, if I show up in this meeting, and I didn't make the results, that makes me look bad, or my program look bad? When we get real results, then we can have more of a conversation about what needs to change? How do we need to adapt? How can we improve, instead of it feeling punitive that we're being measured against a standard that may no longer fit?

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I feel like we got a twofer here having Veronica on because we definitely wanted to dive into the strategic planning conversation. But what you're giving us is also the most brilliant culture strategy of how to build culture we are so into this is one of our 2022 major trends that we see happening is that vibrant cultures are going to elicit this kind of success, innovation, growth inclusivity you know, bringing voices to the table really shaping vision and getting rid of the stuff that takes up all of our time. That doesn't bring us joy that doesn't bring in the funding. And so I really love that you're looking at this through the lens of how to create really vibrant cultures while still focusing in on your lens. And we are such practical people. We're for good. And we love activation. And I wonder if you could even walk our listeners through a strategic planning process like soup to nuts of how you would implement some of these ideas right now how would you take it from ideation to execution.

So the first thing to recognize is that there are tons of great frameworks and jumping up points out there. So you don't have to invent any of this from scratch. What you do need is to be honest about a process and tools that will work for your organization. And they're going to be different for everybody. If you are an organization that really has invested in technology and how you report across the organization, you might need a tool and a process that enables you to leverage that technology for input from staff across the organization, for input from your community, and that you would also use for measurement purposes, right? In most cases, that's not the position of orgs in our sector, right. So don't feel intimidated by the fact that your plan may really live in, you know, an online document or an online spreadsheet. It's about what will work for your organization. So I am a big fan of saying that ideation really needs to come well before the strategic planning process, you should have a running list of ideas that are coming up based on what you're hearing from the community based on what the community is telling you, they need that you're populating and adding to on a regular basis so that when you get into a timeframe that feels right to set your strategy, which should be you know, before your budgeting process, so that it can drive how your buddy that you don't rely on the momentary miracle that someone is going to be brilliant in a brainstorming session on the day you're sitting down to do this, create a discipline around collecting those ideas in advance. And that could be comments or getting on social media, it could be things people are emailing or calling you about, it could be an awesome idea that came up in a team meeting one day, but create a way to collect and review those on a regular basis. Then when we get into the strategy, articulation, this is an important partnership between you as an executive director or you in leadership, and your board. And your board may need some education on wanting to take a new approach, and what that's gonna look like this year. And so when you get into that process, as you're thinking about and articulating what the strategy will look like, it's very important to review your mission and vision, right? Are they still true? Is that still how your organization is showing up in the world, it's very important to revisit your values, I think this is really critical going into the next couple of years. And to your point, Becky, about vibrant cultures, you know, a lot of organizations established values and put them up on their website, but it's not true for how they are working. And and I think people are sometimes like, you know, well, that's fluffy stuff. But it's not, because your values dictate how you're going to show up. And what your expectations are of the people in your organization and how they serve your community,

I think to how you go from 10 things down to three, like it's like, you got to have some kind of basis. Right and right, I think that helps us at least as we try to narrow thing,

which is hard, though, when you have so many dreams, and you want to chase all the shiny things. But yeah, I mean, those things are gonna hold us back. And for us, even our little team of three, I mean, we're, we feel like we're going down a million rabbit trails, and nothing gets done well.

And so and so that's exactly right, you know, what you're doing by laying these things out is again, giving yourself a way to return to what are the decisions we're going to make to stay in line with, with a strategy were articulating. So doing that true review of your mission, vision and values, I highly encourage doing a role or identity exercise. So write down all the things you could be all the ways you could show up an advocate, a facilitator, a communicator, a direct service provider, and really narrow it down. Because like many of us, right, in our day to day lives, I'm a mom, I am, you know, someone who works works for a living, I am involved in my community, I support family members in other ways, like I have a lot of roles, but it's hard to be good at all of them at the same time. And so I've got to define the space, where I'm going to show up and fulfill my role fully. So when those are articulated, then laying out what are our top three focus areas, maybe you can stretch to four. But what I would encourage is, this is not something that you just want to put generic pillar words up there and say, Oh, we do advocacy we do, like, put a verb in there, make it active so that it's helping to push you toward those. And I would always encourage that at least one of those focus areas is around your culture and operations. And so that I would include to could incorporate your fundraising efforts. And I say that because again, we have all these big program dreams. But if we're not making steps towards the technology advancements, and the culture change that we need to do within our organization, then we're decreasing our chance of success. And so as that's articulated, and And realistically, practically speaking, it's usually by a core team, right? It's usually by some combination of cross functional staff members on the board. But throughout the process, we have an opportunity to then check in with our community or check back against what we've heard and say does is this consistent? Are we meeting the needs that people have already told us? They have? And so at the end of that process, we can then say, okay, if here are our focus areas, What does success look like? What will the people who've identified these needs be able to say is true about what we've done? And can we achieve that with the resources we have with what we're planning for our fundraising strategy, let's be real with ourselves about what sustainable impact looks like. Rather than expecting every year, we're going to have a moonshot that somehow, you know, turns into a great big endeavor. And so that is like such a high level. And my, you know, my detailed self is like, and here are the next steps. But in all that does simplify things like and again, I always try to return leaders to, you have to make time to listen, you have to make time to think, if you are spending all of your time doing, then you could be doing something over here, while your community is shouting to you from the other side of this football field, saying, Hey, we're down here. And this is how we need your help. And so by making time for those things, and then by articulating a strategy that can be understood by anyone in your organization. And that will tell people not just what we're going to do, but how we're going to do it. It gives your team, your volunteers, any other, you know, folks who are coming around you to support you and your community, they flexibility and the empowerment to make good choices in a moment when a new opportunity presents itself. And it gives him a way for dealing with the 87 brilliant ideas that are going to come up in the next month and a half, right? Because you've created a system for how you are collecting those ideas and listening to them and reviewing them over time. I just have

to say it point out how you have shifted my mind and 30 minutes on this. I did not ever think of it as a listening exercise I didn't ever think about when you create pause to think that is actually improving your mental health because you're not just going going and plodding through I feel like the grind and the hustle culture of nonprofit can be so damaging to us. And are you creating pause, to listen to analyze, I think these are just interesting and brilliant ideas that change the way that you show up in this discussion and the way that you go through this process. So thank you so much gotten so much out of this. And I can tell you that this is applicable for for profit and nonprofit because I know we are all thinking of it through the lens of we're for good the three of us. So this has been really, really helpful, Veronica,

I'm so glad.

What I love is this paradigm shift. And this speaks to what you just said, Becky, that it's like we all picture our strategic plan, one that we've seen like an a binder on the shelf that's collecting just a layer of dust and no one on the team really knows what that is to this dynamic breathing living vision aligned thing that awakens people you know, and gets people excited. And as in specially in the time that we find ourselves in, we need that we need to understand how we plug into something bigger. And this just speaks to all that you know, so I love the framework that you've laid out today. Okay, Veronica, you've liked dedicated your life to this sector and that you love this sector. And we just believe in the power of philanthropy. I know you do, too. Is there a story that's maybe stuck with you, in your journey, it can be personal, it can be one of the clients that you've worked with. But just really where you see the beauty of philanthropy,

it's so hard to choose just one. But one that comes to mind for me because of where I am in my life right now is my grandfather passed away at the end of last year, and we were close. And he was a big part of my love for this sector and for making the world a better place. But as we were going through old memories, and kind of exploring a lot of what he had done that over the course of his life, he was a successful businessman. He started in the mailroom of a major company when he was 16. He went to go fight in World War Two and then came back to kind of rise up through the ranks. But he was always very involved in the community. And he was the kind of fundraiser I think many of us wish we had in volunteers like he was very committed and competitive to making sure the causes he cared about got their fair share of donations. And as we were going through those old memories, I came across this article in the Los Angeles Times from the 1980s that was about his retirement party, and which he turned into a fundraiser by the way for one of those organizations. And reading that article just reminded me like our work is so joyful, to be able to raise money to dedicate our talents and our expertise to making our world better to making our communities better to helping our neighbors have the life that we would wish for everybody right to to be safe to be cared for to have space and time, not just for survival, but for, for joy and community and connection. And it was, I mean, it just was an article that brought like the fun back into our work for me. I don't know about you guys, but for me, like the past couple of years have been really hard. You know, whether we're talking about the Coronavirus pandemic, whether we're talking about, you know, racial justice, and I think how much hunger so much of us have to, to make that more of a reality in our world. We deal with a lot of serious and very important and very tough things in our sector. But also, what a joy to be able to dedicate your working hours to being part of making our individual communities and our global communities a better place. And so that has really been like a vibe I'm bringing into 2022 is how to make this work as joyful as possible, so that it can impact as many people as possible.

Philanthropy has been in your DNA from the time I wrote. And I really like that challenge. Because you're right, we're tired. We're kind of browbeaten a little bit. But I do think that gentle reminders of why we chase purpose. And again, back to the pause, if you're grinding out so so quickly, you don't take a pause to look around. And when you look around, not only does it recharge you, but you can look and see Oh, my team member is killing it over here. And I need to give him a shout out. And I need to celebrate that. And we need to pause. And those are the moments we were just talking to Isla Malik, who talked to us about culture matters. And she says even the beauty of having rituals is something that fosters deeper culture, more vibrant environments. And so I think that these things are all interconnected. And I love the way that you've just beautifully outlined them. Because the strategic plan is not just a strategic plan. And that is what I'm taking away from this conversation. So we end all of our conversations with a one good thing. I'm sure you know this, and we're wondering, what is your one good thing that you would like to leave with the community today,

because of what we've been talking about today, and how we've been talking about it, the one good thing I want to leave everyone with is listening is life changing. It changes the lives of the people we serve, it changes our lives as leaders and people in the sector. And it changes our communities for the better. A lot of us have lost our ability to listen, I've lost that skill set of what it meant to really sit down and listen to a friend, sit down and listen to the people we serve. Sit down and take in the world around us in a new way. And so just as you were saying, Becky, like that pas is how we create room to grow, how we create space and time and energy to advance what we care about our causes. It's not a competition, it's not a race, but we will end up running in the wrong direction if we don't listen. And so that's my little challenge to everybody is like this week, spend a little time listening to the people in your life to your co workers to your community, and see what kind of juice and energy to yourself write to what really matters to you. And then, you know, take a moment with that, actually reflect on it, and and see what kind of juice and energy that gives you as you go into next week, the next month, and all the good work you're going to do going forward.

I mean, this has been incredible. I feel like we have taken a lot of notes personally, that we're gonna be plowing through. But I think just what a gift this is, for whatever seat of the house, you are trying to advance your organization. Would you tell people next? Just how can we connect with you? Where are you online? Tell us about some of the services that you offer? And how people can just connect with you.

Sure. So I would love for folks to come and connect with me and our website, which is laugh amina.co. I do blog there weekly. So some of the topics we've talked about today and some other things to help you get that connection between your mental health and your organization health together are there as well. And absolutely, I love to connect with folks in the sector. So look, look me up on LinkedIn as well. As far as services and ways that I support nonprofit organizations. I do a lot of facilitation work. So design and activation sessions. So if you're thinking about how are we going to get this team together to design this new program or service or to consider whether or not it even needs to be a program or service that some thing that I help folks with quite a bit. And then I also have a strategic adviser subscription service. For me, it is very important to shift the way that strategy consulting is done for nonprofits, to go from being a project basis where we present you with a beautiful plan and say good luck, have fun implementing that. And instead, take an approach where we're coming alongside leaders and executive teams to help them make strategy part of their work on an everyday basis, on an ongoing basis. So that service enables me to partner with leaders to help them really understand their strengths, understand the culture of their organization, and where they need it to shift so that they can advance and activate the strategy that they are looking to achieve for the organization.

Well, Veronica, I'm sold and fully sold on this. I love your approach. And you have just addressed the elephant in the room with John and I, which is we hate when we just have someone deliver a plan to us and say good luck. But when we cobuild that feels a lot better. So really appreciate this really evolved thought leadership discussion on strategic planning and just wish you the best in your company. And please hang out with us because we have so much to learn from you clearly.

This has been fantastic guys, and thank you for all the great work you're doing to our community really needs the work that you're doing it we are for good. And I just I'm thrilled to be here and in community with you.

We're honored. Thanks for joining us. Today's episode was brought to you by our good friends at Odyssey row. Without zero your nonprofit can do more with a login box. Greet prospects and rabid fans of your mission with authenticity simply make it easier for your team to manage data. There's so much adopt zero login experience can do. Is it auth zero.org For more info.

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thanks friends