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 are 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, what's happening?
I always got a big grin on my face when we're talking innovation and people if you are tired of innovation, don't be because we brought a radical expert in who is going to help you figure out how to break it down how to get out of that busy daily routine, and start thinking strategically about how we can transform our ability to innovate for the future. We have bought brought on an incredible expert, it is our honor to introduce you to Leah Kroll. She is the Senior Director of Strategy and Innovation at Mercatus Center at George Mason University. And she's also the author of this incredible new book, Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results. We're going to be talking about that book today. But let's get to know Leah first in her work over at the Mercatus Center. If you don't know George Mason University, all they know what they're doing on the innovation side. And she has been helping teams get out of that busy daily routine I was talking about and draw out their best creative thinking. She's going to help you all figure out how to design pilots, programs, strategies, and meaningful evaluation approaches. And it's all going to lead to better outcomes, and more compelling stories for your rabid fans. And so we're gonna dive into this passion that she has for helping altruistic organizations achieve their missions, because she's already got the heart for that she is active, a volunteer in her community in Alexandria, Virginia, where she lives with her husband. And we're just ready to soak up your goodness. Today. Leah, teach us all the things welcome into the We Are For Good Podcast. We're so glad you're here.
I love it. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me today, Jon and Becky, I'm really excited.
Thank you. Well, before we ever get into any of our topics, we want to know the humanity of the human that we're talking to. So we would love it, if you would just take us back. Talk about your early beginnings, what sort of led you into this hardwired work?
Sure. So in my early career, I actually worked in industry in the for profit world, I was working on quality systems and engineering. And that was about the first seven or so years of my career. And I liked it. I was learning and growing. But something just felt like it was missing. And I it kind of deep down inside, I was wrestling with this career uncertainty. And so my life ended up taking this really wild detour. My husband, who is far more adventurous than I am, had always had this kind of lifelong dream, he was really interested in joining the Peace Corps. And so he, you know, because I was kind of I wasn't as sold on it. But, you know, I was thinking about it. I knew it was his dream. And since I was kind of wrestling with this career uncertainty, we were both kind of like, well, if there's ever a time, it's now. So we did. So we applied and we interviewed and we ended up going on this two year tour of duty living in Kingston, Jamaica. And it just ended up being a
Jon's dream.
It was a some of our friends like to use this, like, Oh, it sounds like the beach corps for you guys. But it was actually it's tough. You know, there's a lot of poverty. And it ended up just being this amazing kind of profound, life changing experience for me. And so that whole experience of those two years in Jamaica really rocked my world. And it got me interested in you know, how do we solve these things? What are real solutions to poverty. And from that time on, I knew I wanted to work with people doing this important work of philanthropy and social change. And in hindsight, I'm pretty glad that I got to have a foot in both of those worlds. In the world of the private sector, you know, you had all the great management thinkers that I just fell in love with, you know, people like Drucker and Covey, and Deming, and about I also had this experience of the world of philanthropy. And so what I sought out set out to do was just combine the sort of the intersection of those two worlds my career, I wanted to help people I loved this idea of kind of entrepreneurial entrepreneurially problem solving, and building empowered teams, but with the best management frameworks that are out there, but but uniquely tailored for the nonprofit workplace because I don't think we could just kind of pick up things from the for profit world and just plunk them on top of the nonprofit sector. It's their differences and that doesn't always work. So what I've been doing really for me For the last 30 years now is I just became I think, I'll say this humbly. But I think I became good at testing and translating those best practices for people doing the hard work of building civil society. And that's been my passion ever since,
Go ahead and brag about that. That is an extraordinary thing. We thank you for it.
I feel like Leah, you're coming in at the tail end of our season. And really, since the beginning of this year, we've been like talking about locking arms for impact. And I had a little bit of Oklahoma twang in there lockin' arms for impact is the idea of like that there shouldn't be these walls between these different sectors. So I love that you're helping us break them down, bringing the best of those together to really solve things. And just getting more people aware and oriented around design thinking, I think is so powerful, too. So I want to give you space because we want to dream a little bit here. So are people here? What opportunity do you think exists for nonprofits today? As we kind of lean into some of these conversations?
Yeah, I when I think about you know why? Why do nonprofits matter? Why do we care about them? If you think about it, nonprofits provide some of the greatest gifts to the world and take on some of its hardest problems. Nonprofits are building civil society. Our work eases hunger and fights and justice, nonprofits that advance education, break the chains of ignorance and poverty. You know, you have recovery programs, mental health, counseling, medical care, and research all provide healing and arts programs lift the human spirit. And you know, I imagined to the folks listening in to this podcast, I'm betting that a nonprofit has touched your life, or the life of someone you care about in some way. You know, perhaps your passion for social problem has led you to generously donate or volunteer, so many people are counting on our work. But think about what it means if a nonprofit provides mediocre services to an at risk young person. I've seen it, the stakes are high. And so every time I put you asked about opportunities, so every time I provide a webinar, or consult with a nonprofit team, I always make a point to ask them. What gets in the way of workplace innovation. And I don't know Jon, or Becky, how would you answer that? What? What comes to the top of your mind? What gets in the way of workplace innovation? What have you heard or seen?
Old thinking, layers of decision making, you know?
Bad habits, getting stuck in tactics?
Also not giving a voice to people across the team? You know, I think some of the best ideas are buried, maybe they're not in a leadership role. But they see they're on the front lines of maybe seeing where the opportunities are.
Exactly. Yeah. And those are typical of the answers I hear a lot when I ask people at some are executive levels. Some are just early career folks. And their answers kind of have a wide range, but you hit right on the big ones, the ones I hear a lot or, you know, in the nonprofit world, we might have this sort of fog of good intention. So it's not always clear what the right steps are. I love that quote by Stephen Covey. Like we might be climbing up the ladder, but his ladder leaning against the right wall in the first place. So how do we know and being pulled in too many directions? You know, bureaucracy. And I love that you mentioned those things that are inside of us, like fear to speak up holding back, or just staying in our own lane. But you know, if we had the opportunity, then it you know, if we as managers don't pay attention to these obstacles to innovation, which are common, you know, the really good superstars, entrepreneurial staff, they're going to take their time and talents elsewhere. So the opportunity is that we need organizations to empower us to ask courageous questions and innovate and experiment to discover what works best. We have to be comfortable with failure. Yeah. And so when I was tackling the book, I really wanted to know well, what makes some nonprofits inspired, creative and innovative, while others misfire and maybe you're lukewarm. And is there a secret sauce. So I started researching these stories of innovation, success, but also importantly, failure. And I would, you know, look at nonprofit powerhouses like, say, Mayo Clinic, Habitat for Humanity, and many, many, many others, and research and interviews for the book. All in all, it took about two and a half years. So I learned a lot.
I definitely want to double click on some of those stories, because I think even sharing stories of failure is such a brilliant way to socialize, how we can talk about what wasn't working. And I even think lifting that and community is going to give you answers for what could be working or even sourcing other alternatives. But if you're like me, when Leah said fog of intentions, I felt like Homer Simpson like stepping back into the bushes like I felt so exposed. You were in the fog of good intentions. I think that is something that we have to bust through. Because to innovate is really got to be about thinking about things differently. And I think people seem to tune out a little I think innovation has become one of those buzzwords in our sector where everybody's just kind of tired of hearing it they know they need to do it but it could be so amorphous because it means so many things. I want you to like double click on this for us, Leah, because we talk about innovation all the time on the podcast, but we want to double click on this idea of design thinking, talk to us about how we can spark team ideas with some of the design thinking tools that you talked about in the book.
Well, I bet like you, I'm a, I'm a believer in stealing good ideas whenever you see them. Pixar, Pixar is a great example that caught my eye. So the wildly successful company, their movies of 123 Academy awards that are some of the highest grossing animated films of all time, like Toy Story. So what's the secret to their success at Pixar teams are expected to give what's called brutal feedback to each other. And that seems a little shocking, like brutal feedback to my colleagues. But a Pixar executive says they assume early on that all of our movies suck. And the job of the creative process is to get the movie from suck to unsuck. And so
I love Pixar so much.
Right? I mean, that's shocking, a little bit to think of, you know, that kind of language being thrown around in your workplace, or as you're working with your colleagues, you know, brutal feedback. But that same executive then explained that importantly, everyone in the room knows that the questions raised needs to be in the spirit of making the creative product as good as it can possibly be. So it's not about dunking on each other, right, it's about collaboratively figuring it out together. And without that manager setting, the tone is a safe space, that kind of tough love, brutal, you know, feedback process would never get off the ground. So I wanted to know, well, how did you do this. And as you unpack it, you know, you learned that they use a creative process called design thinking. And design thinking has been out there for decades. It's used a lot by marketing and design firms, creative companies. But what I found was there are some parallels to designing a movie, and designing nonprofit programs and intervention. So I think we can steal this idea of design thinking and translate it for our own use. And so design thinking it's a process for exploring what's possible and thinking very creatively and strategically. And so my version, this is kind of the Leah version, that Leah translation version of design thinking to nonprofits, but I broke it into four questions or four kind of groups of exercises. So the first three questions are kind of thinking questions there, what's desirable, what's scalable? And what's feasible? Those three questions are the thinking part. And then the fourth question is kind of the action part. And that once we've done the thinking, then the action part is how might we then design pilots and small experiments? So just taking one of those questions, what's desirable? And I've got a chapter on each one of these with lots of stories. But what's desirable is asking for a nonprofit, well, what is the social problem we're trying to solve? And are we good at identifying hidden needs of the of our beneficiaries and the people we're working with? And teams struggle with this? I think of that Henry Ford quote that go he was he said something like, If I would have asked my clients what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Like, are the people we're working with in the nonprofit world, that they're not going to just knock on our door, walk up to us, you know, with, here's what I need wrapped up in a bow, hey, here's how you should design your programs to help me right, it's not going to be that obvious, we have to do some detective work, some legwork. And so there's a chapter on that what's desirable, that will take teams through kind of a thinking process of how we might do that. And that's so important, you know, being clear about this specific social problem we want to solve because everything we do then cascades from that. So for example, let's say that you work at a nonprofit that focuses on workforce development. Well, what what aspect of workforce development are you trying to solve? Are you focused on those who are temporarily unemployed and most likely will readily find their way back into the workforce with just a little bit of help? Or what about the chronically unemployed or underemployed, and so there's a chapter on what's desirable. And there's some great stories from a workforce development bakery, where they did work with the very seriously unemployed and even homeless folks. And just the crazy innovative, wonderful things they did that they discovered through an immersion experience of actually, their staff living on the street for a few weeks to really dig into that question of what's desirable, what is it we're trying to solve? So, so my book includes a chapter on each one of those four design thinking questions with stories, and these are questions and thought exercises that we can either take our team through, or if you're just reading the book as a lone kind of reader, you can do on your own sort of back of the envelope thinking exercises. So I'm a strong believer in design thinking and how it can help us.
I mean, it just all connects. You know, we started the season with Seth Godin, who really challenged us to say the sector's acting If we know all the answers instead of coming at it, that we're trying to solve some of the world's biggest problems, we have to come at this from a lens of innovation and what we love to call trying stuff. So I would love for you to kind of talk about the traits that we can cultivate. You know, we're really big on a growth mindset kind of perspective here that we know, what we don't know, we can figure out we can learn what are some of those traits that you know, social entrepreneurs and innovators really encompass for what a modern innovative nonprofit professional looks like today? Like, what are some of those things?
Yeah, so I found that social entrepreneurs are fearless and relentless problem solvers. They boldly challenge the status quo. I like how you say trying stuff, they're not afraid of trying stuff. They're really good at persuading others. And the good news with all of that is we don't have to be born with these traits. These are all things that we can learn, practice and get better at. And so I have the last section in my book is all about that, like, what are the traits of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit innovators? And what can we learn so, so this section of my book really invites a lot of self reflection and asking yourself a lot of questions. One of those chapters is about how nonprofit innovators can learn to be persuasive. And if you think about your experiences working in the nonprofit sector, you know that if you have an idea, you have to convince others that your good idea is a great idea. You want your idea to stand out from the crowd, you know, we need resources. And that means we have to persuade people. And you know, my organist, I work at a nonprofit of about 200 people with many teams. And so we're often in a position where we're trying to convince our colleagues down the hall to work with us on a project or, you know, if there's a request for our IT team, they might get 50 requests, but they only have the resources to do 10. Or, you know, likewise, a, say a grant making foundation might get 100 grant applications but can only find five so or say you you trying to attract superstar talent to come work with your nonprofit. So you're always in a position of being persuasive. And so I found some great stories that I shared in the book about people doing just that.
I'd love to hear one, can you give one to us?
Yeah. So there was this one story about how a team member at a wildlife conservation nonprofit in South Africa had this really gutsy idea for saving an endangered herd of rhinos. What they ended up doing was pretty out of the box. So the short version, many, many conservation nonprofits, especially with rhinos, struggle, because there are these very tenacious poachers. It's kind of horrible, right? So you have an you beautiful creature like a rhinoceros. But these poachers were pretty clever, pretty innovative, unfortunately, you know, they would learn to kind of sneak in in the middle of the night, they had night vision goggles, and all this equipment. And so these wonderful nonprofits were, you know, just struggling, how do we overcome this, like the costs of security teams, and all these things just were adding up and not really working, their herds were dwindling. And so this very brave soul at a nonprofit kind of, you know, I can just I love to picture this in a meeting kind of timidly, someone timidly raising their hand and saying, Do you think maybe we could move the herd to a safer spot? And you know, these are huge creatures, can you imagine I mean, But to their credit, right, this organization actually took the idea seriously, they did a cost benefit. They're like, well, you know, when we add up, the cost of security compared to moving in, it is very, like, I think was like $50,000 to move one right now. But they identified a spot out of the country. In Botswana, they experimented, they did move a small number of the rhinos, and to a safer more, you know, a place much more difficult for poachers to get to, and it worked. And the herd I think grew from to like, 130. So that person can you imagine how persuasive they had to be because that is such a crazy, you know, wild idea, but they were other stories like this kind of crack me up. But as I was reading stories of Mother Teresa and Fred Rogers, learning that they were told no so often, and you know, can you imagine?
Who says no to Fred Rogers and Mother Teresa?
Yeah, can you imagine getting to the pearly gates? And saying yeah, that's me. I'm the person who told Mother Teresa, her ideas were terrible. But they did and I think there's hope for all of us, because they were of course, we all know they were superstars and had great ideas and did great, you know, advance social change in so many ways. But they had to learn to take no for an answer and kind of deal with that become more persuasive stuff, dust themselves off and try again. And so just like them, if we want to bring our innovation a game, you know, we're gonna face many obstacles and we have to be persuasive. And then one other chapter and the section of the book is called, What's your superpower? And the I work with economists and so they would call it finding your comparative advantage but finding yours superpower's another way of saying it. And so there's a chapter that kind of takes you through that thinking of, well, what are your gifts? And what are your skills? And what are your passions? And once you have a firm handle on that, then that can give you confidence to say no to things that you should be saying no to. And, and you can ask that not just for yourself personally, but also for your team or for your nonprofit. What what is your superpower? And what should you what should you be focused on? So yeah, I think that's the encouraging thing. These are these are things we can learn. It's not rocket science.
And, it has me thinking Leah, that really building a culture of innovation in your nonprofit means that there's gotta be equity in it. When you I, you, you talking about the person timidly holding up their hand? The what do we talk about a nonprofit all the time, we say the answers to our problems lie on the front lines, whoever is experiencing the issue, y'all. We are the staff, we are the people that are powering these missions, we have the answer, it could be your receptionist, it could be what you would consider a low level employee. And I think giving permission, Jon, this reminds me of like when we are in our healthcare philanthropy days, they used to have this thing called a timeout, like in surgeries, which is where even the lowest person, the surgical tech in the room could have the ability and the advantage to raise their hand and say, Oh, I don't think we're operating on the right leg. You know, in a system of power, where the surgeon has all of the power, there's a way to share power, collective power. And there's a way to give somebody permission to raise their hand. And so really encourage people to embrace this project. Joan Garry was talking about this a couple episodes ago about how can you just start a pilot, you talked about this word yourself, Leah, like, how do you start? And I just think, can we do that? Like I even think about that with We Are For Good, Jon? Like, could we start a pilot this year? Could we try something and put intentional energy, conversation, budget into piloting something, and let's stinking talk about what went wrong and what went right. And let's keep and Joan talks about bringing your boards into it. And guess what, when more hands and hearts are connected to something, you got more allies, you got more voices, you got more grit in there. So I think the collective is really the way but we want to talk about action, because we are an activating community, we don't want to just talk about stuff. Help us here, activate innovation, talk to us about how we move these ideas into action. And PS, we are very guilty of this on our team as well. So I want to be very clear about this is that it's a hard thing to do. So give us some points on this, Leah.
I love it. Yeah. So, you know, we're often building the plane while flying in nonprofits. And so we also know, like, our dazzling idea may or may not work, you know, we have to find out. And so what we can do then is design small experiments, small experiments, right, lower the risk, if it's, you know, something we're a little nervous about, or oh, we might fail. But, you know, small experiments can kind of lower the risk. And so we can learn and adjust before we scale and grow our idea or decide, okay, it was a bad idea. We tried, we learned. So a great story of this is World reader is a nonprofit that has a mission to bring digital books to disadvantaged children and their families. And so when they launched back in 2010, they began several experiments at the same time. So in one experiment, they gave Amazon Kindle e reader machines or tablets to a small group of elementary students in Ghana. And they were so jazzed about this, they thought it was it was going to be the thing that worked. But what they found through the experiment was that when the children would play during recess, the devices kept breaking. And that surprised them to learn that. But at the same time, they were wise enough to have another experiment going. So they had a mobile app. And in the end, what they learned from observation was the mobile app ended up working much better for the children. So the young users actually preferred the mobile app over the Kindle e reader. And so they learned from that it worked. And so today, there's almost 200,000 users a month young people who are reading books on the mobile platform. And so I think there's, there's, you know, several good lessons in that they, they were very smart to spread their bets. And if you think about if world reader would have just gone all in on the Kindle e reader machines, which did look really promising, they might have never discovered the better solution with the mobile app. So it's to me, the lesson is, it's far better to fail fast and fail small before investing too big. And that experimentation can really help us learn and innovate. And part of that, though, requires building in some expectation and toleration of failure. So it's I think it's very important for leaders and organizations to have the right attitude towards risk and failure. And along those lines, there's another story out really like from the Hewlett Foundation, where the Hewlett Foundation offers a prize, kind of a silly door prize to grants officers and encourages them to share what they called the worst grant from which you learn the most. Isn't that great? I love that.
Oh to be a fly on the wall.
And so I love, I love that spirit of humility and openness, you know, and so then they would have gatherings to kind of come together and learn. And I just, I think that's so great. It takes the pressure off, and allows us to be human and honest and even laugh at ourselves. And I'm very fortunate where I work at Mercatus, we have this board that encourages us to take risks and experiment. And they tell us, it's perfectly okay to fail as long as we're learning and adjusting. And we can kind of explain the rationale, you know, here was our thinking for this experiment, we tried to, you know, we learned we failed, here's why. Right? And here's what we're going to do different. So to me, you know, when we talk about, you know, how do we how do we take innovative ideas into action experiments are the key, especially small experiments. And then based on what we learned, right, we can start getting clarity about what works. And I think our vision and strategy comes into sharper focus.
I mean, so many nuggets there that I feel like leaders who pour into to create the place the space where innovation is really going to thrive. Well, we wanted to carve out time, in today's interview to really talk about this idea of a theory of change. We have, you know, some of the most evolved, nonprofits are dialed in on this and know how to talk about it, how to thread it into their materials, how to build it into their case for support? Would you kind of walk us through that? I mean, how can a listener really put words around what a theory of change is? Why is it important? And how do we build it like, functionally? How do we come up with this?
I love that question. So where I start thinking about it, so whether we want to admit it or not, in the nonprofit world, every single nonprofit program really is based on guesswork. So we don't always know what's going to work, you know, like the world reader example I just shared. So, you know, you can call it a theory of change, you could call it a bet an experiment, a hypothesis, a kind of heard it called all those things. But a theory of change is really it's just a hypothesis for how you think or how you believe your efforts might have an impact. And so usually in a theory of change, you'll see a logic chain or kind of an if then sequence. If we do a, then we think B might happen. And then if we do C, we think D might happen. And that chain will kind of lead to our, the outcome we're hoping for. And so it's just kind of a way of saying what are the conditions or sequential actions that need to be in place. And so that example I mentioned earlier Rhinos Without Borders, the the wildlife conservation nonprofit in South Africa, they might have a theory of change that something like, if we can move an endangered herd to a safer, more remote location, then the herd might be safer from poachers and the herd might grow. So notice that kind of if then language, another example, that people might be pretty familiar with Habitat for Humanity. So habitat is really about more than just shelter for people. And so if I was just kind of doing some guesswork, a simplified version of their theory of change might look something like if habitat owners personally participate in building their house with their own hands, and paying for their mortgage. And if obstacles are removed, like unaffordable mortgages, then homeowners are personally transformed, they gain skills and pride of ownership, they gain credit history and build equity, they gain a sense of community and have a more stable foundation to build a life on for themselves and their family. So you notice that kind of if then sort of chain. And so a theory of change just takes maybe a far off vision, it could even be 10 years or further into the future, and just provides kind of your theory, your guesswork, and how that vision could be achieved. And, you know, we can change, of course, right, as we're running experiments and learning that theory of change might change. But it makes our underlying thinking and assumptions explicit, which kind of helps everybody at the organization row in the same direction. And it can serve as a guide and decision making better informed decisions about on the ground strategy and daily activities. I thought this was super helpful. So one economist that I know and who I interviewed for the book, he compared to nonprofits theory of change to how an architect relies on a small scale model of a house to help us see how it all comes together. I thought that is one of the most brilliant visuals.
That is good. Visual, I get it.
Yeah. So that was so helpful. So then to your question of, okay, maybe we get what a theory of changes, but how do we figure it out for ourselves? So I wanted to know that too. When I was researching that book, I was actually pretty excited. I wanted to dig and find stories of this and I did. So I kind of picked a lot of nonprofits that we've heard of that we know are successful, you know, like Habitat or Alcoholics Anonymous, Mayo Clinic and then went back and looked at their origin stories. So there's some commonalities with what I learned. This was so cool is, you know, with the startup, there's usually this kind of initial startup phase where, you know, they're starting very small, humble, often very local. Typically, there might be like one passionate founder or just a small group of founders who have a strong sense of a social problem they want to solve, but maybe not much more beyond that, like, they know that they're passionate, they want to solve something, they're all they all come together on that they have a deep personal commitment to do something about it. But in this early startup phase, they may not be entirely sure about what's going to work or how they're going to go about solving it. They're just trying to figure things out. And so one of the stories I love that I found was the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. So here you had two, their stories are amazing as you dig into, two individual different men from different sides of the country who were very much struggling with alcoholism, they tried everything, nothing seemed to be working for them, and just one on a business trip just unexpectedly accidentally met the other. And as they met and talk very honestly, with each other, what they learned was they they discovered there was this power of one alcoholic talking to another there was sort of a healing process, they were helping each other through this honest conversation. And this helped them it's helped them find sobriety. They're like, Oh, my gosh, finally, something works, you know, and so they are so excited. They wanted to share this with others. And so they were kind of stumbling through starting a nonprofit on this. But but they didn't know exactly what they were doing. And it would take a lot of time and experimentation. You know, they didn't know their 12 step model right off the bat, they discovered it over time. And, you know, they didn't know that there, it would be helpful for their members to be anonymous, like they didn't know that at first. And they kind of learned the hard way, like they had a celebrity, I think was a baseball player who had joined and very publicly fell off the wagon and really hurt kind of the brand of Alcoholics Anonymous. So then they they learned right through trying and doing that these models part of their theory of change. And, you know, they just learned by doing. And so our theory of change helps us say, here's what we think will work. And now we're going to test it. And one of the best the books I read to reading about the history of the civil rights movement in the Southern Christian Leadership Association, how they discovered their theory of change. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes really eloquently about this. And he said, faith is really about taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase. And I think that's a great way of thinking about it.
This whole explanation, I think, is going to be new for a lot of people who've never thought about their nonprofits this way. And I have to tell you, I went back to my childhood home, sitting there with my father going through my third grade science project going through the hypothesis of if this, then then this will happen. But I do think that it's such a great and brilliant way to keep innovation in your conversation. And I think if you built this in as a heartbeat, or a drumbeat, when you're talking to your boards, this is what we think this is where our expertise is leading us to, this is what we're piloting, this is what we're finding, bring your community and bring them in as part of the solution. I just think it's a beautiful, beautiful way to not only innovate, but do it together. And again, the whole world is not on your shoulders, when we think about this theory of change is just brilliant. And thank you for bringing up Alcoholics Anonymous, we love that organization. It has saved many of our friends, so appreciate that drop. But you've talked a lot about story. And it is such a bedrock of what we do here. And we want to know a story of philanthropy that has stuck with you and your life, you have been an agent for social change in so many different ways. I even listen to the way that you talk about Richard, you know, in the Peace Corps and how you're able to even just hitch your wagon to his journey. And is there is there a moment of kindness of gratitude and generosity of service that has really stuck out in your life.
There were a couple of moments, I'd say one kind of a low moment and a high moment that I would say kind of affected my my path or my journey, but one was seeing kind of disastrous philanthropy, so I it stuck with me I volunteered once long ago, it was a pro bono legal aid clinic. And I was just volunteering on the weekend and I was kind of the doing the reception kind of the intake where people would walk in the door. So you know, the role of the volunteer was to take in their information, kind of help them fill in this form. And then that would guide which kind of pro bono attorney they got assigned to. And so I remember this young mother, I was just so impressed that she like had the gumption to you know, she was in need. She was young single mother kind of impoverished, and she was really struggling financially after the birth of her baby. So, you know, she knocks on the door, this legal aid clinic on a Saturday, and was just seeking help. And, you know, but she had I think, like $10,000 in medical bills. And what I saw though, once she was paired up with the attorney, the attorney was so rude and condescending to this, like bold, young woman. You know, they, they kind of blamed her for a situation and I was just cringing the entire time. It was terrible. And to me, it was, it was a horrible, horrible example of what not to do that stuck with me. And I'm like, we need to do so much better, right? There's all this need out there, and shame on us. So I can't forget that. And I always think of her you know, just how brave she was, and how together she was, despite all of her challenges. And that nonprofit really failed her that day. But I've also seen the very best that nonprofits can be so as you mentioned, of course, it's going to be Jamaica, right, that experience in the Peace Corps. But, you know, having that good fortune to spend two years as a Peace Corps volunteer, there was so life changing. And while we certainly do have poverty in the United States, I just never seen the poverty like what I saw there. You know, I saw families living in dirt shacks, you know, shacks with dirt floors, and zinc roofs, and these were homes they built by hand, and many of them were considered illegal squatters, and lived under the risk of their home being bulldozed not by choice, right? This was there just kind of scrambling and struggling and, you know, just roads and transportation were so challenging. If it rains, maybe you're maybe maybe you're not going to get to work that day, maybe the bus isn't going to come. There was one community where I saw an entire neighborhood swept away by a hurricane, and other community where I saw children kind of scavenging in garbage heaps, collecting soda cans so that their family could buy food. So many people were just struggling, but in the midst of all this poverty and need, I saw these heroes, you know, people rising to the occasion. I always think of that Fred Rogers quote, I think it was around September 11, where he said, you know, in times of crisis, look for the helpers. And they were there and so inspiring. You know, even if in a crowded, noisy open air school, in Jamaica, I would see children and teachers who were just so dedicated to learning no matter what the obstacles were, or, you know, I would see Jamaican community leaders walking miles in the hot sun to get to the Habitat for Humanity community meeting. So, in my work assignment there during that time, I was assigned to a teacher's college to teach computer literacy to Jamaica's future teachers. And this teacher's college where I worked was run by these wonderful, strong, feisty Franciscan nuns, who created this beautiful school in the midst of poverty and violence. And they created they made sure to create this meaningful learning experience for their students. And every day I saw how they were changing lives and how their students admired them, and how could that not stick with you?
Oh, my gosh, I just I love your journey. Love this experience. And thank you for taking the time. And two and a half years of interviews, were some of the few people that can relate to what two and a half years of interviews this like, but I know how it just changes you as a human being getting brought into these different stories and people doing different work. So thank you for putting that in together. With your books. As we round out, I want to ask for you to share your one good thing, this could be a piece of advice, maybe something you want to distill down or just a mantra that means something to you in your life.
Yeah, I'd say, my one good thing is something I love that you have mentioned this a lot. But this idea of really empowering people who are on the front lines, the ones who are doing the work to speak up and challenge the status quo and, and for, you know, executives and managers to just kind of get out of their way. And so you you have some some experience in the healthcare field. So you might like this story, but Mayo Clinic is probably one of the best nonprofit hospitals in the world.
We were literally there like three weeks ago, four weeks ago. Isn't that wild? Hi, Rochester. Yes.
It's beautiful too. So nice.
Small world there. So I've been nothing but impressed in hearing stories from Mayo Clinic. And I imagine maybe you had a the same kind of experience when you were there. But they're famous for finding innovative solutions for people who are very sick. And the reputation did not happen by accident. So in interviews, team members at Mayo will say that good patient outcomes are because the staff are empowered to carry out their organizational values. And I love that their values aren't just platitudes on a wall, they really they really do them. So one of their values is the needs of the patient come first, and they seem to truly live this. So the team members are trained and empowered and encouraged to put these Mayo values and practice. And so I'll quote now from a Mayo clinic staff worker who said, If the employee's choices are either getting back to work on time or taking 10 minutes to get a wheelchair for a patient who seems unsteady, the patient will most likely get a wheelchair. And I think that's wonderful. And that's what bottom up empowerment is all about. And so those values become part of their workplace culture guiding all decisions big or small. And so another story like that, for Mayo Clinic is the night staff at the hospital, we're concerned for how noise can affect a patient's sleep, which as we know, is very important to the healing process. And so the night staff came up with this idea to conduct noise studies. And those noise studies then led to more ideas that led to designing quieter flooring, quieter wheels on hospital food carts, lower decibels for overhead paging. So to me, that's innovation and bottom up empowerment. And so that the middle part of my book is really all about those kinds of organizational design, how we can intentionally design processes and systems that support a workplace culture of innovation and bottom of empowerment, without losing sight of accountability. So that would be my one thing.
The fact that someone would care enough to keep things quiet while you're sleeping in the hospital and pour time and effort into those are my people, 100% by people. And it just goes to show that I think the fresh eyes thing is really just hitting me and looking at our organization with fresh eyes and looking at it in new ways that we had never before. And I just honestly think doing that feels good, not just for the beneficiary on the end. But for us that's providing this invaluable service that's changing the world. So, okay, Leah, our audience is gonna want to know how to connect with you, where can they get the book, give us all the connections of where you hang out online, and how people can connect?
Definitely. So yeah, I have a website, it's my name, leahkral.com. And from there, you can find links to my my blog, I'm blogging regularly on substack. So if you're the kind of person who kind of likes to nerd out on social change, or, you know, organizational workplace practices that lead to innovation, that's my passion and what I'm writing about, and I'm also on LinkedIn, and Twitter, and you can find the book, just about anywhere at your favorite bookstore. It's available at all major retailers.
Okay, shop local, go grab it. I think that's amazing. And I want to make sure everybody knows that. If you're looking for Leah Kral, it's it's k r a l. And so thank you so much for a another incredible trying stuff conversation. And I kind of want to close by telling everybody that Leah dedicated her book to you. She I'm going to read this really quickly, because I think it's pertinent to all of us, and it's a great call to arms. This book is dedicated to all of the innovators with big hearts, who make life better for others, through small acts of kindness, or courageous deeds of justice. If that is you, congratulations, you are part of making the world better lean into that innovation. Please go check out Leah's book, it would be an incredible stocking stuffer for somebody this year in the nonprofit field maybe for you. So thank you, Leah. Appreciate what you're adding not only just to the sector, but to the world. I think it's affecting some really incredible, positive social change.
Thank you so much for having me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Rooting for you, friend, take care.
Thanks so much for being here, friends, and 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 come join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. Sign up today. weareforgood.com/hello.
And one more thing if you love 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 this community. Thanks so much friends. Can't wait to our next conversation.
