Your Fundraising Field Guide: 10 Core Behaviors of Servant-Leaders

7:42PM Jun 5, 2023

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Evan Wildstein

Keywords:

evan

greenleaf

leaders

organizations

servant leadership

today

book

nonprofit

behaviors

work

good

conversation

servant leader

talk

community

person

people

great

leadership

practical

Hey, I'm Jon.

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.

So welcome to the good community, we're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Becky, is this like the most auspicious of occasions right now?

This is the day. The day is here, I don't, I don't know that I could be more excited unless Dolly Parton walked in, like about who our guest is today.

It is so true. I mean, you're gonna get to meet somebody today. That is like, basically Dolly Parton in our life. I'm just somebody that's so incredibly kind. Somebody that sees the little guy fights for the little guy. And today, it is like a huge honor to introduce Evan Wildstein to our community. But if you're in the community, you probably know, Evan, you've probably been seen and supported by Evan. But today we're celebrating with him because he is launching his first book. And it is incredible it is out today. And so it's really a big honor to talk to him about that. But I want to introduce you a little bit to me and give you a little bit of flavor for the for the guy that we know that is just our friend and really supporter of We Are For Good. He is technically the Director of Community philanthropy for every Texan. But he's also this incredible new dad. He is now the author of the nonprofit tears fundraising field guide. And y'all, Becky, and I really honored we get to read this early on in the process, we got to you know, talk to Evan as he was building this. And what I keep telling people is that, you know, the idea of servant leadership is something that Evan like, has been a geek for, from the very beginning, like for the first time we've ever met, yeah, in the most kind way. But Evans starts to unpack this, about the values about the traits that make up a servant leader. And not only does it speak to like the core values and the core things that we want to show up and rally behind, but it gives you like a playbook for how to do our jobs better. And so Evan has used his experience, his passion, his talent, to point to this modern manifesto that we are so delighted to share with you today. But let me tell you, Evan before he wrote this book, before, he said, every Texan he has all this incredible fundraising experience. He's worked with organizations, you know, casually like the Juilliard School, Asia Society, Rice University, and the Houston Grand Opera, all about raising funds and developing innovative programs. Evans, a native of New York, but He currently lives in Houston with his amazing expanded family. And so here's the thing behind the scenes of we're for good is this community. And if you hang around here, you know, our mantra is community is everything. And Evan is the person that we design this community for before we even knew his name. He's the guy who shows up. He's in the back of the meeting room, making friends and being kind to people that maybe are feeling unseen or feeling left out, creating spaces, holding space for people in our community, supporting people, and living out with this very book about servant leadership is all about in real time. And so he is a founding member of the weir for books. He is a founding member of office hours, which is this great, you know, community gathering part of our community. And so I can just talk about heaven all day. But we need to get Evan in this house and say, Evan, welcome to the podcast, my friend, you've listened to podcast for a while. So glad to have you in the chair interviewing today.

Well, We Are For Good, it's the place to be Julie, and Abby, and Andie.

we knew a song would be coming out of there. Hello, my friend.

So Evan, I mean, I've hope it's coming through today. I mean, we're such fans of you. We're so excited for you for your book coming out. But give a little bit context for people just getting to know you tell us a little bit about your story that led you to this nonprofit to your journey man.

I am a failed rock musician or a recovering rock musician. It's the thing I thought I would be. I thought it'd be a haggard, tired 40 Something musician and realized fairly young in my early 20s That that thanks to conversation with my parents that that probably wasn't going to pan out. So I should have some sort of a back up plan and I was on the path at that point to either be a musician or an education major. I stand at a towering five foot three on a good day. So the idea of standing in front of the tall students is a little bit terrifying for me, but I finished college. I landed a very lucky job at Juilliard coordinating a musical outreach program in the five boroughs in New York City. And I have not looked back I've spent the last 20 years of my career, but half of that time in public programs and strategy half of that time in philanthropy and fundraising have landed at some really wacky in a good way. Organizations and environments doing interesting things meeting good people always kind of wanted to write a book did not think it would be a leadership centered, practical tiny little pocket Field Guide. But that's probably the right thing. And I could go on for the rest of the show. But I think that is all I want to say about little old me for now.

Little you is such a phenomenal human being. I mean, when I just think of the rabid fans in our community, you are near the top, raising your hand all the time, and the thing that I love, besides your levity that you bring to every situation. But the other thing I just value so much about you, my friend is how much I learned from you. And you have such wisdom bombs that you give, but what you've done to really elevate my understanding of a leader and I thought I knew what a servant leader was until I read this book is just off the chain. So we're excited to talk about that today. And I would just want to start by talking about today's leader because today's leader is not the same. As the nonprofit leader three or four years ago, we are sitting in this crazy evolution of the world of tech of community of social interaction of sensational headlines. And I want you to talk about the modern servant leader like what are some key traits and qualities that are going to distinguish the exceptional leaders from just the average ones in today's world?

You both have heard me go down this route. But I think that there are parallels between leadership and management or leaders and bosses or managers, I very rarely conflate those two, I think not all leaders manage people, not all managers, as the three of us well know our leaders. And this idea of leadership for me, which I've come to over the past several decades, this idea of influence where leaders influence people, versus managers and bosses who are primed to improve upon processes and organizations, both of those things are very important. But I got rabidly interested in the idea of leadership as an influential practice. Probably about 10 years ago, when I first stumbled into servant leadership, I'll talk about that a little bit. But what I've come to understand in my feeling is that leadership, when we think about how leaders influence leadership is for anyone and what I think I mean by that is that real, authentic leadership can be and probably should be found in every corner of an organization, not just the corner office or the I don't know what the equivalent to a corner offices on Zoom these days, but it's a moment we're living in that I think sort of gone are the days of the big boss, you know, that quintessential bravado driven, overly charismatic person who when you look at the hierarchical structure of an organization that traditionally they're, they're triangles at the top and I feel we're seeing this moment where the behind the scenes person think of Simon cynics leaders eat last mentality were the people who, and I'm not the quietest person in the room, usually, it's, I'll get into why some of these, some of these servant leader behaviors, because I do believe their behaviors are hadn't been a little bit foreign to me, and I've had to work at them. But, you know, over the past 20 years, and I, I'd love to know people listening what their, their perspective on this might be, when I think about the quintessential leader of now, and again, leader is someone who can influence I think of these people as chief, decent human behavior officers, CDH, vos,

oh my gosh, that's the best acronym ever.

You're welcome, steal it, I'll put it on a t shirt for you later. But there there are four sort of underlying principles that I think is found in this. And it's when I think of servant leadership, as behaviors, these are the things that I find are sort of just woven into the kind of person that I would want to work with, and that I would want to work for. So I think fundamentally CDHP CEOs are passionate, they feel a very personal commitment to growing organizations and their people from the inside out. And oddly, or maybe unfortunately, I think there are a lot of skills that we can uplift and train that I'm not sure that passion is one of those things that we can train up in people. I do think that's the the HBOs as they were just come to the fore with that quality. I think these are either listening is a servant leader behavior. I do think that exceptional leaders listen, and I think they do this because they care. They have this uncanny ability to tune out the noise and lean into active generative, listen, listening to really take in what people say and do things about it. There's, you know, in the book, I talk about that Ted leso thing where he puts the comment box and the people want the showers fixed so he actually fixes the showers. exceptional leaders are consistent or congruent. Doesn't matter if they're dealing with staff or donors or volunteers. You know, if a if an exceptional leader is someone who plans a Thursday 1pm meeting on their calendar, that meeting is sacred, that meaning does not come off because they flex it they don't shorten it. They don't extend it They consistently give to the people that they serve. And people get the same version of them every day. I think we all have great days, we all have terrible days. And we've all worked with people and work for people who you can tell what kind of day you're going to have, because of the day your manager is having. But I think really exceptional leaders are consistent in how they bring themselves to the table. And, Becky, we joked about this before. And it's sort of the thing that, you know, in my character values tests that I've done for myself, you know, humor is my top value. I think exceptional leaders are I believe and feel exceptional leaders are jovial. These people do not take themselves too seriously, then a work is hard enough by itself. And, you know, maybe if we just smile a little bit more, tell a few jokes, the work day, conversations with donors and other organizations would just be a little bit better. So that's what, in no short order, those are the four things that I do believe exceptional leaders bring to the fore.

I mean, this is why I love this conversation, because you hang around this community all the time. And we just know, it's not always about, like, the tactics, it's about, like, what's the undercurrent. So that's what's the principles, I mean, think of like Maya Angelou like her famous quote of like, you don't forget how people make you feel, it's less of like these things. And, and this kind of grounding is how you build a healthy culture, as you have leaders that are like, surrounded and embedded with that kind of depth in them, you know, and it's not about the ping pong table, this book comes back to that, because to me, that's evergreen, and that is something that we can all connect to at a value level that gets you excited day after day. It's evergreen.

Yeah, and the thing I would add on top of that is, you know, nowhere in these traits, or, and we'll get into this a little bit, but the servant leader behaviors are qualities, nowhere in there is anything tethered specifically to an authoritative position. I, throughout the 20 years of my career, whether I've been dealing with a foundation CEO, program officer or corporate funding partner or donor themselves, you know, who's high on my list of holiday cards to send to it's always the executive assistant, or the person who's helping to influence the things. I need to have it I didn't create that relate, I'm sure I stole that from someone. But, you know, if if a corporate donor or foundation partner makes a really big commitment, I call the EAA. And I say, these conversations never would have happened, if not for you, thank you for influencing these these great things that we do. So yeah, go thanking EA today.

This is why we're kindred spirits. I mean, that's the underpinnings of what we talk about with an Impact Uprising is that it starts at the base, you know, like, having an actual movement starts with everybody being included, and everybody having a place you know, so I love that you're lifting that. That's such a practical piece of wisdom. And so your new book, it's officially out. And what I love about the way that it's organized is you've organized around these 10 core behaviors, you're already leading us into the conversation around some of these behaviors that would be common for servant leadership. And I love this definition of servant leadership. But talk to us about just you know, what inspires you to create this and you can start to lean into some of these behaviors that you want to lift out that you talk about.

I don't think talking about this topic without giving a little bit of credence to the person or the people who helped create this movement, and I'll call it a movement. It would be imprudent to do so though. The thing that always surprises me when I pontificate I'll use a little academic word there on servant leadership is how few people are familiar with the name, Robert Greenleaf, give a little context and Robert Greenleaf Robert K. Greenleaf, I shouldn't know what the K stands for. And I apologize.

We'll call it Ken. I'm really used to making up people's middle name. So let's go. Robert Ken Greenleaf, let's hear about him.

Robert Ken Greenleaf. So Bob Greenleaf, for the bulk of his career in 1920s. The 1960s was something of an in house management consultant at AT and T very different company. Not your cell phone, not today cell phone provider. But he he was someone who gardened that's the phrase that I like to use. They, they from what I understand, kept trying to promote him to executive leadership roles. And he kept saying, my space is here. My one of the core behaviors of servant leadership as growing other people and building community. That's where he felt his speed was best. And he worked his whole career at at&t doing that he retired in the 60s and started the organization then was called the Center for Applied Ethics. And now it's the Greenleaf center for servant leadership. But he went on to coach and counsel nonprofit organizations for profit organizations, but in in that timespan, he read Hermann Hesse's book, Journey to the east. I read this in grad school. Not the easiest thing to read, but he what he walked away from it was this idea that in the book, there is this group of people on a metaphorical journey to a metaphorical destination in the East. They don't quite get into who they are, why they're going, but along the way with them, there's a servant named Leo, and Leo disappears in the book and of course everything falls part because Leo is gone, and Greenleaf came to this notion that leadership can truly be found in those who serve. This is not a new concept. Servant leadership is often tethered to Christianity. The ironic thing there is Bob Greenleaf was a Quaker. And so a lot of the ideals of Quakerism silent reflection, if you're familiar with Quaker meetinghouse practices was there and I think, you know, other than the moment we're living in now, Bob Greenleaf came to this, this, this awakening in the 1960s, and 70s. And I'm not really sure there's another moment in time where that could have happened, there was this big shift, civil rights movement, everything that was happening in the country, especially here, in the in the States at that point where there was an uplifting of this idea that the that great man or great woman leader would no longer suffice. And we haven't fully gotten away from that. But this idea that leaders can be better by serving the whole of the greater good. And so, you know, I would say that leadership as a whole is for anyone, but my favorite thing is that servant leadership is for everyone. And there's a distinction there where it really anyone can be a leader, because anyone can influence but servant leaders, those who lean into these behaviors and believe fully in the philosophy, they focus on everyone, because it's that tide, that raises everything up.

You know, we say all the time that anybody can be a philanthropist. But I think what you're saying, like I want to young Gen Zer to hear I want someone who's been in the same role for a long time, who doesn't think that they're worthy, or have value or have the expertise to rise up that anyone can be this leader. And I just, I want to compliment you, because you're about to, like, unpack these 10 core behaviors. And it's not enough to just have an academic or a heady conversation about this, because we want people to relate to it. We want it to be authentic, we want them to see themselves in it. And you have broken down these 10 core behaviors and principles. But the stories of people working in nonprofit who are living this out who have lived these behaviors, who have walked through them, or fallen through them is really, really inspiring. So please just start at the top of the list and tell us how you constructed this because it's so beautifully done.

Sure, I really can't take too much credit for that I am a fairly traditional person. So you mentioned academia and scholarship. The the underlying thesis both metaphorically and otherwise, is that this book, the version that people can go on Amazon or wherever and buy today is a Vamped version of my culminating work as a grad student, I went back to school to study leadership formally. And this notion of servant leadership and philanthropy specifically from the lens of a fundraiser was wildly interesting to me. And there's a gentleman named Larry Spears if there's other than Bob Greenleaf, if there's another name that people should go look up because he is Larry Spears is an amazing living human being he ran the Bob Greenleaf center for servant leadership for a couple of decades. He became somewhat of a mentor to me in grad school, he's probably North America's leading expert on servant leadership and back in the 90s. He thumbed through every essay, Bob Greenleaf wrote all the books, all the speeches he did, and he distilled down this list of 10, core servant leader behaviors that I took and ran with I didn't come up with this on my own, I think plenty of people write books and just put their own spin on things. But these, these 10 traits, and I'll get into them briefly, we could focus on a couple of them more deeply if you want. He found that these are the things that Greenleaf wrote about the most consistently that they were the most profoundly impactful for organizations. And I'll go through that list really quickly. You know, the exceptional leader, as he would say, are the the servant leader, or I consider myself a servant leader in training, I'm not sure I'll ever fully get there. But by trying to practice these traits, they are people who do the following, subscribe to the following and try to try to be better at them. They practice listening, empathy, healing, awareness, foresight, persuasion, conceptualization, stewardship, of the fundraisers, listening will love that growing other people and building community, it's fundamentally non radical, I think because you I was talking with our friend Alex lappa, recently about this. And I said, like, certain servant is all family, the difficult thing with it. And the difficulty I had in putting pen to paper and making this book version is that when people focus on it, when they write about it, when they give speeches on it, when they thought lead on it on LinkedIn, it's always really kept at this very high level. And people talk about these behaviors, you know, if you want to improve the whole of organizational life, be your better listener, and then you sit back and you say, Sure, how can I be a better listener? What are some practical tactical things I can do to be a better listener today? And that's what I focused in on I took the experiences that I've had, as a fundraiser as a program person to someone who has been a nonprofiter for 20 years, and I took these 10 traits, and I put three, like today, actionable practices to them, that you mentioned, you know, sort of people in the cadence of their career like a young Gen Z, I think this book is great for someone who's emerging in the field just kind of getting out to, or someone who's maybe 20-30 years into it, who wants to shift their thinking a little bit and re invigorate what they're what they're bringing to the fore.

What are the three I guess that surprised you? The most, you know, as you kind of went through this, that you think could be revolutionary, if people understand how to put that into practice?

Well, there's three that I would pull out specifically for this conversation. And I'll go a little bit out of order. And I'll start with the notion of healing. And that one's really, I think, personal to this conversation. In the book, you will recognize and name of a great human being named Becky Endicott, whose story anyone who listens to this show We Are For Good and the podcast has been around the community will be familiar with Becky's experience. I think it was you were studying for your CFRE you had a moment maybe series of moments, it was difficult, you you needed to step back, you needed to find breaks for yourself. I think one of the running jokes in fundraising is that fundraisers often apologize for things that they did not do wrong, you know, you've got the donor who had a salty experience with a former gift officer, and then you're, you know, that person is now in your portfolio. And they come to the conversation and want to treat you, you know, Billy the way that they treated Barbara before. And so I think there's a couple of ways. And I won't give them all away. But I think from the notion of, of healing. It's an important one, we don't always have to make up for the mistakes of others. But sometimes we do things wrong. I think one time a donor had asked me and I use this example in the book, but a donor had asked for like a receipt for their taxes and I sent the wrong thing. And so I steal this from this hosteling, tamale, West, Stuffy, who wrote no hard feelings, great organization is but they talk about admitting the mistakes apologizing and really focusing on how you can improve it. In the future, we made a couple quick updates in our CRM. So if other people asked for that same kind of information in the future, that will give it to them the right way. The big thing when we think about healing, this is this is a stat that goes beyond nonprofits alone. But in the States, there's something like $65 billion of PTO vacation time that just wash away people

Ah that kills me.

And it's, it's glaringly obvious. Now, in the moments since 2020, we've had just a lot of things happen to us since 2020. But if we go back to 2019, there's a couple things that I think folks might find interesting. We've all heard the phrase, great resignation. And we've used that as a 2020. And later idea, Anthony Klotz, the professor here in Texas, who came up with that idea was talking about that years before, thinking 2019, he started writing papers on this, the World Health Organization headed, occupational added burnout to their list of occupational phenomenon. So these are not new. I mean, we feel it more because in the moment, everyone went online in 2020, we are talking more openly about the pace, and how much we need to heal how much time we need to make for ourselves. But it's just the moment since 2020, that have really forced us into reckoning with that. And we'll see if we get there. And so I think healing, as a core behavior of servant leadership, fundamentally important, we need to do that for ourselves. We need to do that with and for people. Empathy is another one of these traits. And we are all familiar with our friend Rob Volpe, who's wonderful, I read his book, I studied some of his, his writings and his articles at a couple of conversations with Rob, he talks about affective and cognitive empathy and the ways that we can fix it. But in the, in the annals of servant leadership, the way we think about empathy is not necessarily this. I feel the way you feel because I've experienced it. But sometimes it's just putting yourself with another person. There's this perspective of there I am also, as opposed to what's important to me. What, what I think you might feel, and there's a way we can do that we can. There's one of the stories I tell in the book is a nonprofit leader in Texas who a donor told them, I appreciate that you're here, you're not going to get a big mega gift from me. And the CEO was just interested in going to meetings with this person, learning what they're passionate about, would go to city council meetings with this person to advocate on their behalf for things that they were passionate about. And a seven figure gift came later because they were empathetic in physically being there with a person as opposed to the I understand how you feel. Maybe you do maybe you don't but the practice of actually being there with someone is so important. The third one I really want to center on, because as we as I'm looking at my coffee cup that people listening can't tell. It's the community is everything. mantra of We Are For Good I think this being a notion in servant leadership, it's it's really one of the reasons I took so hard and so deeply, to this community to the both of you to Julie, Abby and Andie, and the way that you all. And I know you're interviewing me, let me flip the script a little bit. And say that the way that you all embody this organic, relentless building of community is the kind of thing that all of us in the nonprofit sector, especially fundraisers can practice, that can be internally, you can bring your teams to feel more like a community by involving them in how your fundraising is doing. One of the simple things that I do at work, when gifts come in, I send an email to everyone in the organization, I call it a gift blog. It's $100 gift. It's $1,000 gift, everybody knows what gifts are coming in. I don't necessarily want all those people logging into the CRM to play around it had that happened before and things get messed up, but they feel brought into the conversation. Because you build community by being very practical and very tactical. Gosh, that was a lot.

It was a lot. And it was so good.

So deeply good. I mean, because we can flip it back on you like that's the way that you show up. You know, that's why the community works, because people like you show up pouring into other people, you know, and that's the only way these things replicate. So I love that you pulled out those three, that is a perfect teaser for the kind of conversation that this is it's an elevated meeting the moment but it's also like timeless at the same time. Like it's so brilliant.

Yeah, I want to I want to share my funny story about reading this book with the community because I Jon and I got our copies somehow before Evan, which is a felt wrong in many ways. And I'm literally reading this book on a plane as we're heading to the Responsive Nonprofit Summit. And I've read portions of it, but I've not read it, you know, from cover to cover. And I'm sitting next to someone I do not know. And I'm getting through it. And y'all I like start crying in the middle of the book. i It's so good. It's in, by the way, it's 90 pages, like you can sit down and knock this out in a setting with your coffee, which is perfect for everyone who loves coffee so much. But to see the names of so many people within this community to see tools and knowledge sharing, and to see stories that I've heard in other contexts that are put in beautifully threaded beautifully with these values and behaviors. And then I get to the end, and you wrote something about us at the very end in your all my immeasurable gratitude section that was so kind and I'm sitting there and I have these little tears coming down my face. And I fill this little tap on my hand. And this man is like, Do you need a Kleenex? And I was like, No, I'm just moved by this book. And he goes, Are you reading the notebook? The Rom Com? And I said, No, I'm reading the nonprofit tears fundraising field guide. And he looked at me like I was insane. Because if you're not in nonprofit, and you don't know, you don't know. So thank you for moving me. And I'm thinking about this book. And I'm thinking about our listeners, Evan. And I'm just wondering, you know, in your experience, when you look back and you think about all this research that you've done on leadership, what are some of the common challenges that leaders face? And how are they going to overcome them? How would you suggest they overcome them to achieve success?

Can we do another episode? These are seriously important. I think we need to be asking these we the entire we're in the nonprofit space, but I think all businesses, all firms, all organizations, the things that I would say, apply across the board. One of the things is that I think leaders or senior managers, okay. One of the elements of leadership is that leaders create more leaders. I didn't come up with that saying but that the idea that leaders create more leaders, not that leaders create more followers and I think leaders sometimes take too long to create other leaders there is this, you know, harkening back also to the 1970s, there was a guy Lawrence Peter, who came up with this, what was meant to be satirical principle called The Peter Principle, which is kind of what inspires most of Dilbert.

Yeah, I love Peter Principle.

We've all worked with, for and around people who suffer from the Peter Principle, these are what Lawrence Peter said was that people rise to their level of incompetence. So not necessarily that they are bad people. They might be great. Let's, let's take it in this world. You've got a major gift officer who is Rockstar, they've got million dollar goals every year, they're bringing in 2 million. And so the standard ideology is, let's make that person a chief development officer. Clearly they do this so clearly, they can do that. And there's that landing strip, it's very long. In an ideal world, you would want that person to shadow a chief development officer to see what the people influential part of the work is. And so People get to that level. And I think those people, those expert widget makers are then in a position where they tend to encourage expertise around the practical work, as opposed to building the talent pipeline in the people that they manage. And so I think leaders take too long to create other leaders, and they don't necessarily have the experience to get there. It's something I think, done very poorly writ large in the nonprofit sector. I would say to that our industry has been, and I think this might be an understatement, but pretty abysmal at making resources available to people to grow their own skills, whether they want to encourage upward and that's making more PTO available for people. I know, that sounds like a silly thing, making professional development available, improving the benefits, and I know some of this is your your staunch CFOs would look and say each of those has a direct cost. But that mantra of you know, what if you what if you train people and do good enough things for them, and they leave and then like, what if you don't really stay those, those people become really difficult, challenging parts of organizations. And part of that, and I hate acknowledging that this is true, but one person has been doing to plus people's jobs for far too long. And that is that is the nature of what we do. And I think we saw that a lot with the jobs that were sort of pulled back and furloughed, once COVID hit many of them did come back. But a lot of organizations are doing the same, if not more, budgets are higher than ever with fewer staff. And part of that internally is being diligent about deprioritizing and tuning out distractions. So your organization can focus on the skills that the people you have, can accomplish, and that you have the space and ability to grow those. So I see those as being some of the challenges, I think, overcoming some of them first, obviously, let me be a little self aggrandizing. But I think you know, subscribe to the tenets of servant leadership. You don't have to buy this book, but lean into these core behaviors, I promise you, if they can make me better. They can make anyone better. It's, in some ways I kind of I feel like I wrote this book for, you know, 21 year old Evan, I feel like I wrote this book for the version of me 20 years ago, because I've not always been a great listener, I've not always been someone who is highly self aware, or been empathetic. I've learned to practices things over time, but lean into the core traits of servant leadership, I think it's one of these things that could truly improve and save our industry. And I think from a census book is intended to be very practical, I think leaders against those who are influential, also needs to be more practical. And in a way that is to say what you mean, when you say it. And the things that I've been thinking about the past couple of years, and I've spoken with a lot of friends who are specifically in what is it ESG, or corporate social responsibility, roles. And we we have seen, and I won't pin any industry down, but we saw a lot of statements about money being made available, you know, our business, our company is going to give away a billion dollars for COVID relief or race equity improvements. And then you there were some reports like 12-18 months later that like the statements were big and bold, and the money hadn't necessarily flowed through. And so I think making sure that you can match up good intent with things that you can follow through with. And that applies to our industry as well. I think that you know, there are certain mega philanthropists out there who are making seven, eight figure gifts to organizations that may not be prepared for them. And so I think in this in this way, about growing community, from the perspective of servant leaders, funders can be better about bringing the nonprofits they intend to serve to the table to say, if we make it half a million million dollar commitment, general operating support, whatever to your organization, are you primed to take this gift and do the right things with it? Or are you just going to kind of put it in a bank account, not hire up, not develop benefits for staff and things? So I think those very practical conversations can be hard if across the board.

Here for all of this, one of the last values that you lift is the commitment to other people's growth. And I think, you know, we're all about growth mindset. But I just think of like, our missions can all be aligned that we're trying to help transform people's lives. It's like, that's our external mission, whatever you're plugging in at, or maybe it's animals lives or whatever it may be. It's like, why are we not doing that internally? Why don't we have that posturing to be like, we can grow and develop people, we can do all the things to surround them in that same kind of restorative fashion that we want to do outside of our walls. So just love where this conversation has taken us. And, Evan, I know you believe in the power of philanthropy. I wonder if you take us to a story a moment in your life that philanthropy has just stuck with you seeing this power.

There's a name I want people to know about, and this is going back over 20 years. Her name is Jerry Barish. I grew up in and around New York and Long Island and Jerry Barish is the think the executive director of an organization called One in nine. I think the stat at the time that one in nine women will be affected by breast cancer. That number I think, is alarmingly worse, you know, but back then When I was still sort of aspiring rock and roll musician, before I formally got into nonprofit life, the band that I was in the bands that I was performing with, we were doing a lot of rock for the Cure rock for the earthquake, you know, raising money through rock concerts, the band that I was, and we decided that we were going to work with this organization 1 in 9 raise money, we're gonna do a rock concert, or we had a goal of raising three or $4,000 This is early 2000. This seems like a lot of money. To me. I think even still, now. It's a lot of money. And we found a good venue in New York. And then we, we talked with them about the venue rental fee, and I promised that there's a semi philanthropic story in here, that's very practical, but we, we, you know, they were gonna charge us like 500 bucks, 1000 bucks to rent the space and we thought, okay, cool. We get the sound engineer, we get all this stuff, but we're still gonna raise money, we're going to do things. So I go back to meeting with Jerry Barish. And I said, so we found this great venue. And she goes interesting. I forget the name of the venue. But she goes, so are they charging you to be there? And I said, Yeah. And she goes, how much? And I told her, she goes, nope. Get in the car. I get in the car with Jerry Barish. We drive to the venue to talk to the venue manager. And she goes, Why are you charging this kid so much money? They're trying to raise money for for social cause, curing breast cancer. Do you know someone breast cancer? And the guy's like, yeah, actually, my mother had breast cancer. So why are you trying to swindle him out of money? And he said, Okay, well, I mean, we'll, we'll give you the venue for free. But, you know, can you just encourage people to buy drinks and things like that? We said, Sure. In the car ride back, she said, Evan, there's always going to be costs to thing, but you need to be relentless about understanding that nonprofits are businesses. And there are two ways you can do this, you can raise more money, and you could spend less money. And I learned in that moment from Jerry, that it's great to raise money, but we really do also need to be very practical, about how we focus on expenses. That's probably not the kind of story that you might get on this. But it is stuck with me in how I think about the prudent things to do in raising funds.

It's totally applicable. And I That's why this question is just, you know, my favorite part of the podcast is because we all come at this intersection of generosity, from random places, we're all inspired in different ways, I think of you being a rock star. And that being almost like an input of how you got into this work, and God bless the servant leadership, of Jerry, bearish for getting in there and being a bulldog, for her mission, using the opportunity to raise awareness and bring somebody else in. I just absolutely love that story. So, you know, we're going to tie up this conversation, sadly, with a one good thing. And I know you've heard this long enough to fear this question as much as we do. So what's your one good thing, my dear friend?

There's a great I mean, there's a lot of great minds if if anyone can go out and buy, you know, buy my book, don't buy my book, but get a copy, Bob Greenleaves the Servant as Leader, that's the essay that he wrote that spun all of this into the four, there's a great line in that essay that says that we should all ask ourselves one fundamental question in saying what I have in mind, will I really improve on the silence? I've kept that line, right, I'll say it again, say it again, in saying what I have in mind, will I really improve on the silence, and I've kept that line in my brain in the years since I read it. Because I'm not always great at being an active listener, I'm not always great at the, you know, speak 25% of the time, let the donor speak 75% of the time, I'm usually very active in conversations, especially during the pandemic, when everything was was on Zoom, I've kept that line in the back of my brain to think, do I need to contribute right now? Do I need to put a message into the Zoom chat while someone else is talking? Will I really improve on the silence by contributing what is in my brain? Not everything in Evan's brain needs to get out in the world? My wife would probably agree with that. But it's an important question. It's such an important question that I think all of us could ensure to ask and that's my one good thing.

Goodness, I'm gonna sit with that one good thing. I want that like tattoo or something, I need at least a coffee mug of that. But here's the thing we want people to find you obviously, we've mentioned you hang out in the we're for good community. But will that point us to the other places you shop online? I think your content you share on LinkedIn is always thought provoking funny, like both sides of the equation, so where's the best place to connect with you and find your new book?

Yeah, LinkedIn is a great place. I am the less handsome Evan Wildstein. But I'm the one with the beard. So if you look up Evan Wildstein

Stop that right now.

I'm the one with the beard. You can find more about the book at the nonprofit tears.com The nonprofit tears.com And anyone and everyone can just email me it's me at Evan Wilds. lean.com

please do yourself a favor. If you do nothing today, go and connect with Evan in please think about buying this book for someone in your shop who you think has the untapped potential to be an incredible future leader for this moment that we're standing in. Give it to a young professional. I think this should be in literally every new employees. Handbook of if you're new to the sector, you should read this book. So Evan, I just want to thank you mostly for your humanity. And just I remember the first time we ever met you on Zoom, and how completely curious you were initially. And then once you figure it out, probably before we figured out what this thing is that we're building because Heck, some days we don't know. But you leaned full tilt into it. And the love that people have for you in there, not just us, is incredibly real, it is wholehearted. And I just want to thank you for living servant leadership out and making us all believers of that mission too. Thank you, my friend.

That means a lot. I appreciate y'all so much. Thank you.

Hey, friends, thanks so much for being here. Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics. Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free. And you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at we are for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community. Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom