The Business Case for Social Impact - Olivia Khalili

9:17PM May 6, 2022

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Olivia Khalili

Keywords:

pager duty

nonprofit

people

social impact

community

business

building

companies

work

philanthropy

support

partners

olivia

impact

values

world

model

listening

employee

yahoo

Today's episode is sponsored by feather feather provides digital marketing tools and strategies for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, including the Humane Society of North Central Florida. Stick around for the break to hear how feather power their $300 digital ad campaign that raised nearly $6,000 In just one day. 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.

So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started.

Hey, Becky, incredible human alert. I hope everyone is ready for the conversation we're about to have with the guests we have been waiting to talk to for months.

Because you know, in our company, we you know, we have an obsession with Susan McPherson. She is amazing. She's the super connector out of New York that really has been championing the social impact space for a long time. And she's really curated this group of impact movers and shakers and changers. And when Susan refers us to somebody we're like, so excited to meet them. And we've had a few on this on the podcast this season. But we're just so excited to have Olivia Khalili on the podcast today. She is the VP of global social impact at pager duty. But her story starts way before coming to pager duty because the work that they're doing there, we really want to unpack because we talk a lot about breaking down the walls and nonprofit and how we can really accomplish what we're really trying to do. As we work across the lines with corporations and for profit and social impact and all the different ways today. And so this conversation is going to be a lot about that the innovative approach that they have to social impact. But Olivia story is like incredible, and I can't wait for you to meet her. But she has been living in this space for a long time kind of sharing so much of the social impact space. She was previously at Yahoo, you know, just casually building their global corporate responsibility program Yahoo for good. But even before that she had launched cause capitalism.com, this huge online resource for businesses to grow by embedding social purpose. And we were joking with her before that she has been working on this before it was cool to work on this. And we mean that in the kindest way because now you know, there's so much societal pressure to have this as part of your DNA. But she was championing for the business side business argument of why it makes so much sense and why it's so good. And so it lifts people way before that was the cool thing to do. So she has got her BA of international relations in diplomatic history from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named one of the 50 most powerful women in technology by the National Diversity Council and 2021. And I could keep going on but she is an incredible human. She is just moved to Austin, Texas. And we're delighted to have Olivia on the podcast. Welcome.

Wow. Thank you, Becky. And, John, thank you so much. It is wonderful to take this pause out of my day to connect with your listeners and to speak with you both.

Well, it's a huge honor for us. We've been counting down the days. And I wonder if you would just start by just telling us a little bit about your story. You know what gave you this tug in your heart to really chase this way before other people were chasing it and catch us up to what you're doing today to with pager duty.

Alright, my story has some twists and turns some international expeditions in it. i You shared with my my degrees were in but I graduated with international relations, and I want to work in international trade. And you know, I was kind of a bright eyed I moved to Washington DC and I joined this team that was doing international trade education and legislation which was really exciting at the time. And it was part of the US Chamber of Commerce's initiative and I had terrific responsibilities at that young age and got to travel and build programs really learn from a fantastic boss and role model. And it was such a formative time, he's you know, it was my first time out really in the world on my own, you know, post college and it tested my values, it tested my values that were separate from my parents, right, you know, we kind of grow up and we just assume that these are the family values, and so therefore, they're my values. But this was my opportunity to say like, do I personally believe in this or not believe in some of the other policies that the Chamber of Commerce was engaged in, you know, they are there. It's a very pro business. It's a very pro business organization. And so it was interesting for me to observe with their stance on various issues. And, you know, ultimately I said, this is not really where I have the deepest values alignment. And I did a job too. They did a 180 and I moved to Micronesia, and I spent a year on a small ATOL there and doing international development work because I thought I wanted to go into international Ballard and I needed experience in that field. And so I worked as a teacher in the education sector working with eighth grade, and then also for their local newspaper. Because, you know, teaching was one way to get to know the community, and some of the systemic challenges. But working for the paper, I got to see like, how does international aid and foreign aid work? Like, what are the companies from Taiwan and Australia that are investing in this in the US that are investing in this little island? How are they doing? So why are they doing so. And that really helped me understand that, you know, the way that traditional international development was levied was pretty ineffective. And I'll give you a quick example. So the the Marshall Islands, there's a lot of fishing rights there. And so different companies will, will make investments in it to gain fishing rights and access to harbor rights, etc. And so there was one project that they had, I don't remember which may have been the US, it may have been another country, but they invested in creating a new community center for the Marshalese on I lived in the main island in the capital. And they did it without engaging the local community. And so, you know, ultimately, this brand new Community Center was not used, it wasn't at a part of the island, it was very accessible. It did not model any of the architecture that was more open air architecture because of the climate there. And that was such an a one story, I like to tell it like, this is like, there was some good intention here, let's try to provide a resource for the community. But it was done in a vacuum without that community engagement. And that was such a deep lesson for me of, of what not to do, because there's no there's no winners in that scenario. And so, you know, I left that time there I thinking well, okay, like international development, like that model doesn't really seem very effective. Like, you know, and again, there's lots of it, I don't mean to discount all of international development, I think it's absolutely critical. And there's some incredible programs out there. And then I went to work in nonprofit and nonprofit consulting, because I wanted to be able to spot the trends across nonprofits, I was working with foundations. And I was writing a lot of proposals on behalf of these amazing community health organizations in East LA that were serving Latin X communities and, you know, kept writing these grant proposals to support diabetes, support to Pepsi. And I'm like, okay, they're like, the irony here is that we're asking Pepsi for their charitable dollars, around some of these chronic chronic health conditions that are being perpetuated through their core business. And that was such an, that was an awakening for me. But also, what I really took was so much empathy for the nonprofit sector, because I looked at the structural, like the legal and the tax, the structural limitations, you know, the nonprofit sector can often be criticized for being risk averse, and like, well, your whole model is predicated on on a donor ship model, you know, where you are, you are not easily allowed to make revenue that can still sustain you and provide opportunities to reinvest. And so,

you know, with because of the tax incentives and the legal structures, it's, you know, donation base, which doesn't often give us enough capital to make those riskier or longer term investments or even investments in your people development or your technology development. So that was a great learning from there. And I could have left that experience and thinking, well shoot, like I've done all these different sectors. I had moved from Washington, to Washington, DC, to Micronesia to LA, and like, I'm kind of like, I'm at a lock, like, what do I do? I really love school, like I want to, like I want to show up in the world. And I didn't know where that was. And I took some time off a couple of months. And I was doing a lot of like meeting people soul searching, and I read this one book called The Power of unreasonable people by Pamela Hartigan and John Elkington. And it presented this concept of the confluence of business and social impact and how social impact is a really viable business strategy, and how, you know, business because our dominant force is capitalism, and how might we leverage that? How might we work with that? And so that was really my, the catalyst for me to create the cause capitalism, which I would not, you know, I probably would rename it something now, I think some of my my views have changed a little around this, but but not my core belief that we have to be, you know, that we have to business has to show up in a different way. And that is so powerful when it does, and that doesn't mean that all good things need to come through business. Like there's there's so much to be done. The business cannot abdicate its responsibility, you know, in, in in indeed, you know, there's increasing pressure on it, which I really like there's consumer pressure. There's like workforce pressure, you know, that employees are stepping into the workforce are asking for more. They're asking to have a company that As values that are more holistic and kind just to use a really simple term, we also see some more pressure from investors I growing a little bit, which is exciting and then regulators. And so that was really the catalyst and I, you know, over the past 12 to 13 years, I've built my expertise, and growing expertise, I use that word, just kind of as shorthand. But that's the work I've been involved in. And I've done that through in house, as we mentioned, with pager duty for the past four years. With Yahoo. I've done it at noon as a consultant and in various various shapes and forms.

Okay, Olivia clearly knows what's up, I'm just going to say that because here's something that I'm observing about your story that I value and appreciate so much is this constant quest, have curiosity to like, do better, to unify, to equalize. And I have to tell you, that you talking about values at the onset is so aligned with what we talk about when we turn on the microphone here. And it's not necessarily always about your mission. It starts with you as a person, and it starts with the things that are truly important to you. And I think it's healthy to question those things. And what's happening from a social justice standpoint in our in our world is going to shift some of those belief systems. And I love very much that you talk about this little example of this, I don't know if there's a micro failure, or whatever it was in the Marshall Islands of not involving the people in the concept of building community, because you know, we talk about the donor pyramid all the time, and just how damaging that is, and how, if you don't flip it and start with the base in mind, and asking the people who know who live and experience these things on the frontlines, they had the solutions. And so we just have to tap into that, with some level of humility and CO building. I just I'm so intrigued by your story. And I'm just grateful that you were hungry and curious to keep going and pushing the bounds because I can see a lot of my journey threaded in here too. And I want to pivot to pager duty, because I just am so geeked out about what you have done, because to me, it just feels like you are the giant on whose shoulders we are standing here as you've been questioning this for for over a decade now. And I think the thing that's just so powerful about pager duty, I mean, you have this goal to generate long term value as you integrate social impact into into businesses. And so I mean, you all are responsible for delivering one person a product, employee volunteer time and equity to help us nonprofits, expand our impact, improve lives, make the world a better place. Talk to us a little bit about pager duty, and like, tell us the business case for social impact.

Well, let me start thank you with. So pager duty is a software company, we're global, and we are a digital operations management platform. And one of the easy ways to think about that is we help identify and orchestrate action from signals like electronic signals and teams across different technology platforms. And also like different motions, you know, different activities you can do, I'll start with the framework. So I've been at the company for about four years and building this program. And I came in and our founder, Jennifer to hada, is I think she's really progressive in this work, too. And the commitment to social impact. So she had the company had taken the 1% pledge, which is 1% committing 1% Each of its equity, pre IPO, our employee volunteer time, so on, please get 20 hours of paid volunteer time off to volunteer to do voter engagement, non partisan voter engagement, and to vote, and then 1% of our product for nonprofits. And also, social enterprises need to specifically or primarily be corpse that we support. And so I started with that framework of how do we leverage these three pieces of resources. And then I also recognize that good voice, our voice as a company as a platform is very important, too. So what are we bringing voice to? What are we speaking out in favor of speaking out against? How are we thinking about the companies, that customers in the use cases that can use our products, our products, and what are the ethical implications, but those are how we think about what's the good that we can bring into the world through our core business because my goal is that we I work myself out of a job that, you know, soon there is no here's pager duty and here's pager duty.org, right? It's like this is one in the same of how we show up as a business how we think about, you know, utilizing product to help with that. Um, time critical health and helping to save lives by reaching people faster through our core product use cases, or helping to support climate action through Signal to Noise alerts and sensors. And, and so that is That's my ultimate goal. And we're doing something now that I don't know if it's, we're doing something but we also think about this in terms of like a social impact mindset. So how can we work with Newtonian? So that's how we how we call our employees, we have about 1000 Newtonians globally now. So that they're understanding what the work that our program is doing pager duty.org? Because right now, we do have a separate team and a program that is kind of the core responsible leads for this work, but how do they understand that? And how do they come to us and say, hey, you know, in my role in customer renewals, like, here's what I'm seeing, and here's how we can facilitate renewals for nonprofit customers, for example, you know, there's different ways that people can show up through their core roles, because they have the insights, I can't have the insights across the business. And I'll, I'll define momentarily, what we do a bit more tightly. But one of the best, I think moments of satisfaction I've had in my work in corporate social impact was at Yahoo, and Yahoo, for good. And I got this email from someone on the search team Yahoo search, I'd never met him. And he said, You know, I think your team is the right people to do this, we've noticed that if you type into Yahoo search, I need money to buy medicine for my baby, all these predatory lender ads would come up. It's like, we think that there's a better we've identified this as a problem, we think that there's a better way and we want to work with you. So our team that was a really quick fix, we put together a list of government health and human services and nonprofits in the in geographically, the search team was able to upload those. And I took screenshots and other presentations of like the before and after. But the reason this was so powerful for me is because it's not something that my team identified, and then had to convince a team to adopt. They identified it, they knew that Yahoo cared about this would care and they knew who to come to. And then they were co creators, they were partners, they didn't just say here's a problem, can you fix it. So that is kind of also my my vision of how we create a social impact mindset at pager duty. But to step back a bit more programmatically, we work to four key areas of our program. And three of them are around the pledge 1%. So we're building a nonprofit sales program to help facilitate product discounts and support technical pro bono support for our nonprofit customers. We've, we introduced product credits or free product to our nonprofit and B Corps. When I when I joined, we also have our full spectrum support. This is how we think about using our funds from our equity commitment. So we have philanthropic dollars, and we really love to couple those with product support and, and employee volunteer time, whether that's like technical volunteer dime to help nonprofits and B Corps with their specific technical issues, or it could be marketing support or recruiting support. And then we are also building up our, at our ESG, or environmental social Governance Program, which I'm really excited about and started just tapping on that door with pager duty about a year and a half ago saying, you know, like that there's time that we make some investments in this. And I've been really grateful to be able to be given the support to build out that work. And we just hired our first new lead, who sits on my team to run that. So it's great. So those are some of the kind of the pillars of our program or nonprofit sales or you know, nonprofit go to market. Oh, excuse me, on our employee experience, have we leveraged all of our employees, and that's around employee volunteerism, connecting them through pro bono through connecting them to customers.

employee giving, we worked very closely with our employee resource groups, we have a global network of community responders for our community ambassadors globally. Yeah, and then our full spectrum. And if that's how we we drive our philanthropy and there's perhaps we might want to unpack more there.

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Okay, Olivia, I just gotta say, I mean, you got us with your story, then you start with values, then you start, you don't answer the question, you say, it actually starts with this different mindset. And I'm like, Thank you like the way that y'all show up. And I can't just sit here and listen. And just think like, this is a model that every leader should be leaned into listening to, it is not starting a department like that's probably, you know, finger nails on the chalkboard to you to like start an impact department. But it's how do we change the culture are embedded in the culture of our organization probably amplify the culture change is probably the wrong word. But what have you seen is what makes this the company ripe for this and ready for this, and what is kind of the markers of a company that's ready to implement this,

there are different levels of readiness. So you know, I also would encourage people to start, even if it's perhaps not the optimal condition, because I've seen such, you know, a sea change in this work since I began it, you know, a dozen years ago or so right? When I was first tracking this work and really compelled by it, some of the examples out there were like product read, which was, you know, just essentially a cause marketing, I'm like, this is really deep. And I'm like, There's got to be more. And you know, there's fantastic companies doing this work for a while Patagonia in Toms Shoes brought in a whole other model. And it really pushed in and inspired a lot of strong fast followers in there. But you know, I mentioned in the support of our CEO, from the top and from our board. So that's been that was really useful. And to permit me to diverge for a moment. But this is in capitalism is a really strong force. And we are working to try to think more expansively about that, so that there is more reciprocity and mutual outcomes from it, but that work can be exhausting to try to do internally. So it is important that you have some, some support and some understanding from leadership and ideally, that someone running this work has going to proceed at the table and can really understand what are the business drivers and map the program to that and use those as levers versus saying like, okay, like, we're our goal is just to engage employees and, you know, ensure that we are putting out a couple of blog posts on our work, it's really like we think about is like, I need to attune to what the business is doing. And then also help the business understand the opportunities. So I think of my work is also looking around the corner, like in specific to ESG, or environmental, social justice governance, which is a whole framework and criteria that map's you know, environmental, social and other factors. So we need to be thinking about climate change for business resiliency, because climate change is not just something that we need to do fundraising campaigns for and, you know, do our employee volunteer conservation events around but it is going to affect labor and migration and labor shortages, and it will affect offices and our employees. And so I think about my role is understanding operationally what's going on. What are the drivers? How do I support those through our work? So our nonprofit sales were in support of like, how are we attracting new customers, but we really work hard to balance that with delivering real value to those customers. We're not just a nonprofit sales program. And the lead that I have working on this is very intentional around that, you know, one of the reasons I hired him is because he has a degree in social work, even though he's been he was a salesperson for many years. So I think having people on your team with a deep orientation and as well as a specific set of expertise and an ability to be resourceful because this work, it's like you're you're always building something new, which is what I love about it, but that's can also be taxing. And so it's listening, it's adapting, it's iterating it's building something new. And it's having that hunger for a vision, having an ability to bring people along, in your work as well. And that takes time to do that education and to stop and, and listen and to stay curious towards others.

What I keep thinking, John is like, we just gave this big presentation at Virtua as a couple weeks back, you know about the impact arc and the the penet. of of what is so important is that we need to be not asking the right questions, we need to be asking bigger questions. And I feel that so much in your story, that it's never about the tactic. It's never even I don't even feel like it's even about the strategy. It is so much about the bigger picture of how every part of our work influences not just business, but connection, community environment, purpose. And as I'm just listening to you unpack, like a bajillion ways that you are smartly and innovatively approaching this, I just keep thinking, what what companies are Olivia pouring into, because those are the companies I as a consumer want to align with. I want companies that care about these things. Because back to values, again, I see such value alignment in these questions that you're asking, and the way that you are continually pushing yourself to get better. And to get bigger, and how you're thinking hiring a social worker is so brilliant in that role there is there is a level of system that they would know, and a level of empathy that you could not tap into from someone who's had those sort of lived experiences. And I just had to think, you know, we have such a broad nonprofit author, audience, but we also have a ton of marketers and B Corp and social impact people in this community. And I want to sit on the social impact piece just for a second, because I think what you've done to prove the business case for social impact is such a Rubik's cube for the rest of us. We are always trying to talk about why our missions matter why what we're pouring into matter. So can you talk a little bit, one about the current landscape of social impact right now? I mean, have we ever seen it as explosive as it is in the last two years? And really, how can people listening right now start to formulate that business case for the impact that they are putting out into the world?

Yeah, it's exciting to see the development, I'm getting goosebumps, because it's so you know, being a practitioner in this work, your audience know, that was like, there's so much more to do, right? And I'm kind of more sprinting towards that, and I'm just having a moment of real celebration, you know, so thanks for that. And, you know, I'm just appreciative of your audience out there, too, who are really leaning in and staying curious and honing their thinking and asking those questions. So yes, you know, definitely there is a new understanding or interest in this work. And I think there's reasons that I showed before, just you know, this is driven by what the what the labor force wants to, and particularly with the, how it is a job seekers or an employee's market, they have more choice, and they're, they're activating, and they're voicing their values, which is great, we really work close friendship with our Newtonians and invite their perspective, I love our workforce, because I love our workforce, because they're curious, and they're, like, sophisticated in their thinking about world issues and inclusion, diversity and equity. So I think also, that was another piece that has contributed to companies adopting this more is just the spate of racially motivated murders and, and violence in the US. That is one outcome of that, that I hope will really have a favorable long, long term effect. You know, there is more regulatory pressure, some more investor pressure. And so companies are saying, you know, an example like Salesforce, and Salesforce is a leader in so many areas, but they're requiring their larger vendors to adopt science based climate targets, which is amazing, right to have that pressure from a vendor. And so that's really they're having that amplification and that network effect. So those are some of the trends I see more companies doing this company a lot of companies before they IPO. You know, my husband joked years ago and like it's our current joke is it's the truth. He's like you can tell when a company is going IPO because they start to hire ahead of social impact and they start to like gin up their efforts in my area. So little out there. Yeah,

yes house are just different.

So the Gulf War, right, like, you know, sometimes we're motivated by something that's more surface, but the opportunity to really route that work and impact is so deep underneath. And so I'm really inspired by that. And I'm inspired by people who are stepping into this work as professionals, because they are coming from different backgrounds. I think that's such the beauty of this. When I was going to school, when my peers were going to school, there was no, there were no courses around this. So it was a lot of learning on the go. And you've heard how I kind of tapestry, my past experience to do what I'm doing. And I hope that to a degree that continues, I think there's absolutely a place to coat, codify learnings and elevate the sectors that we're not always reinventing ourselves. But I see that I also see an opportunity for people to continually open source and share their work. And this what I love about the social impact community, it's so generous and open, you know, these values of like, transparency, all you know, all tides rise together. So pure, there isn't lack of competition,

there's a lack of collaboration, it is our space, it doesn't want to be over here.

Yeah. And that, you know, that's also how I want to model and you know, I want our team to model how are we open sourcing our work,

you reminded me in this conversation that I think 1.0 with impact is corporations giving a gift, right. And now, I love and just threaded in your story, I see how you've come out, not just awaken to it, but implemented it. But then the layers of how it can really take part and become a mindset of an organization to me is so powerful as you activate the employees and give power to them taking that to their communities that they're living in, especially as a global

their networks there. I mean, there's so much more other than the financial gift. If you're thinking about asking for a corporate gift to buy a table at your Gala, you are not asking a big enough question.

And I will tell you, we don't do that. Okay. So this is front and center, because we have been pitched multiple times with this one internally with this one event that our team, another team would like to get sponsorship to. And it's an absolute. No, because it's transactional. And that's not how we're going to engage. That's transactional. And that was a larger, I'm not saying we don't do any events. But that was a larger golf sponsorship, which I'm not executing social impact through a closed door golf tournament, that to me, is really misaligned with how we are trying to connect with an uplift communities. And so we think really deeply about this is where I geek out philanthropy, philanthropy, that system is rigged, right? It is people with wealth with privilege, like I don't earn this place. At pager duty, I spent a year living in a really impoverished community in Micronesia, I understand that it is, I believe, like it's kind of like the birthright lottery, like and so there's a huge responsibility that comes with my privilege. And I was listening to a powerful teacher and they said, like privilege, we have to have privilege not be a dirty word, but have it really seen as a responsibility. And so I'm trying to like really step into that, like, what does it mean to be of privilege to acknowledge that and philanthropy is some subset of individuals with wealth, who make decisions about how to impact other communities, we're really thinking about, like, how do we shift and share power, which means we don't get to control all the decisions, we are really trying to work with our our partners, we are grantees are partners, we're trying to engage people with lived experiences, we're trying to engage experts in these areas. And I can talk very, you know, I'll finish this, but I can give some examples around client climate justice work that we're deep in this process now. And it has been, it takes a long time, it is not linear, it has not move at the pace of a fast paced tech company, like we have had to really shift our expectations about what it does what it means. If we truly want to engage in in opening up a dialogue and inviting people in with different perspectives. And that is what we want. We want to not perpetuate this, like the inequities through philanthropy. But to figure out how to do this differently, we have resources, we want the resources to flow into the community, and how do we do so in a way that is truly empowering. And so some of the like the tactical things are that we give all of our funding as unrestricted funding, so that nonprofits get to determine where and how they want to use it. And we have this amazing partner that does

called we robotics and they're a global partner. They work with a very equity based model with local, local organizations to empower them. And they use drones to deliver medicine COVID vaccines, and we did a pilot with them connected to our pager duty technology in remote province in the Philippines. Well, guess what the pilot was cut short, because there were these elections there. And the elections if they continued their pilot, the elections, it would have unduly influenced the electoral outcomes, because this, it was so remote in this very specific area that to bring in this, outside health care would have influenced the electoral votes. So they listen to their partners on the ground and said, We really need to cut this pilot early. They came to us and they're like, We need to cut this pilot early. I don't know if we're gonna get like the data that we were hoping for. We didn't and we're like, okay, like, we trust you. Let's figure out how to move this forward. And we've had this powerful conversations, and we're learning so much around them. So we give our funding is unrestricted. We're working with our partners to co create impact metrics so that we can we want to have a sense of like, is our work effective? It's not like, it's not all spewing principles and values, like we're trying to also gauge how do we do this better? Like, how do we really show up? So we're working with them to co create impact metrics we're providing our first grants last year is multi year grants, you know, we have very low requirements for reporting with our grant partners, we're trying to work with them, see, how do we be more equal so that there's not a power imbalance in this funder FundI relationship. And we're here to learn with you. We're here to learn from you. So that's how we think about and I mean, there's so much more I can say around trust based philanthropy trying to be more inclusive, I want to figure out a new word for philanthropy that it's really about this has disrupted that model. And we're early in our journey around power sharing, we're learning a lot we engage this in this process around helping to build out our just an equitable philanthropy strategy. And we're still engaging this, it's been almost two years and stops and starts and, and part of the feedback we got earlier, we have our ag.org mission is to meet urgent needs faster to advance justice and health. And our vision is a responsive world where everyone has the freedom to thrive. And we got some feedback that like, you know, that's that's kind of a supremacist mindset, like just to be so much about speed, and so much of it and like, who, who's measuring who is thriving? What does it mean to thrive and and I share this as an example of like, when you really open it up and invite participation and input is that it's our responsibility to deeply listen and determine how we want to move forward with that. And that was not feedback that we ever expected, right? We actually weren't asking for feedback on our vision and mission, but they said, like, you know, just, we're kind of caught up on this, like, this isn't really resonating with how we're trying to affect change in our communities through our work.

And don't you love it when somebody just tells you when you have broccoli in your teeth, truly, I hear the word responsibility a couple of times, you know, and I love that juxtaposition with responsibility and privilege. But this is also back to your original point about the community center. If we're socializing, and making sure that the base is really feeling seen and lifted in this, we can't go wrong. And to back to the all the do gooders in our community. This is how you build rabid fans. This is what we call them, people who believe so deeply in what you're doing that they will tell you, you know, when you've missed steps, and they will tell you how it makes them feel. And it's incumbent upon us to pause in those moments, which is very hard for me, I talk fast, I walk fast. I do everything fast. But it's really a trigger that's like, Whoa, this is a moment we need to sit in and Bravo to you for listening.

Well, thank you. It's it's a process, right. But that is what we're doing is practicing being uncomfortable and curious,

I am convinced we could talk to you all day on all of these things. But I'd love to kind of round out this segment just for the nonprofit listening. I mean, I think you have goodness put a stake in the ground of a better way to do this, you know, and moving away from the transactional. What is an ideal partnership look like? How does a nonprofit posture themselves start to build the relationship and come to the table with a corporation

and find the right partner? Where are they where can they look?

So first of all, you know, everyone should do their research, right? So corporations should do the research. nonprofits should do the research and understanding what is a corporate social impact program focused on because we're focused on time critical health, and we're building out a strategy and focused around climate justice. So those are our two in terms of what the areas we're funding. Those are our two primary focus areas. So if you're coming to me around Education or criminal justice are so many rights that I'm deeply passionate about. But I'm not really going to be able to execute those through this work. So understand that, or you know, if it's outside of the scope, so you could say, I've actually read that you have a really robust volunteer program. And I understand this might not be part of your funding scope, but maybe we could partner in this capacity. So doing doing the research to try to find that alignment. And then, so many of my peer, corporate social impact partners and teams are very much in the similar thinking around creating a true partnership. So I would look at what are the values there and recognizing that as a nonprofit, or as a social enterprise, there's so much deep expertise that you bring and really own that, like, that's what we look for and partner, someone who will be willing to help educate us. And that's an ask that we're making. That's not an assumption, right? That's like, they could say, no, like, we don't want to spend our time trying to educate you. But we come to it saying like, this is we're trying to learn and get better. And like, this is part of it. Wait mittens to partner with us? And we're not going to be undo we're going with our requests, we're going to compensate you and be considerate, but that's. So I think, you know, coming with that sense of expertise, and a sense of collaboration, of being curious of being able to listen, but also, I really want our partners to say no, when they can't do something, it would be the worst, if I'm trying to support something, and I don't know that what I'm asking them is really counter aligned to what they need worst, like, that serves no one. So please, like, recognize your power, your experience, be open, be curious, you know, set your boundaries, like we and you will find open minded partners, you know, through that we just had we did as a first round of climate justice grants, and we're doing a larger version of that now. But we had we weren't gonna make for grants. And we reached out to the the founders, we also really prioritize. And this is not exclusive. We it's not a criteria, but we consider who's in the leadership roles are the organizations that we're funding, is the board leadership is the executive leadership. From you know, women are bipoc underrepresented, we're trying to ensure that we get a little bit out of everyone funding the favorite nonprofits, how do we really tried to equalize. So we found these four that we had selected through multiple layers of processing criteria. And we also reached out to say we'd like to give you funding, this one organization very young, like they could have easily said, of course, like they were like, almost student run, like they were so new they had initiated as students, they said, We'd actually like to take a call with you to understand more about your work, your intentions, what this entails before we can accept, like that is starting to shift the power dynamic.

Yeah. So here for it. Okay, you've already thrown down the gauntlet that you want to rename philanthropy. So we may need to hear this. But we want to give a space we believe in the power of the word formerly known as philanthropy at this space, you know, like, so I mean, would you take us back was a story that's really informed your worldview because of the power of philanthropy. So we

did a, I have my my kids are five and seven, and we did a the fiber wants to do a bake sale. So we baked cookies, and we were going to go sell them. And I said, you know, let's, let's use this to raise money for Ukraine. And he was all in because he's five, and he's not that connected to money. The seven year old, not so much like he really wanted to earn this. So they they made science we went out to, there was a music festival in a park in East Austin. And we sold cookies with the science and they decided it was a pay what you want model, if it's a pay what you want model. And if we find anyone who's unhoused, they don't have to pay, we can just give him the cookies, which I'm like, less, bless your hearts. So you know, and they just five and seven, it's hard for them to go south. So they've heard they're out there. They've got their sign, you know, pay what you want cookies for Ukraine. And I coached them and they do this. And people come they it was wonderful. It was fantastic. We sold out within an hour, we raised $102 for Ukraine. And then they wanted to do it again. So the next weekend, we go out but they didn't want to do money for Ukraine. This time, the seven year old prevailed. It was such a different experience they had such a hard time trying to sell. And I think the lesson there is that there was a different engagement. It was like there was they were doing nothing wrong. They were still kids at a playground at a bake sale. But they for whatever, you know, they just weren't in that. They were caught up more in their own timidity around it. Rather than trying to do something on another person's behalf and people reacted differently. You know, you're going to perhaps buy cookies that you didn't intend to buy when the money is Going through a different cause. So I think that was a really interesting, it was something interesting for me to observe and haven't really broken it down to them in such terms. But I wonder if they felt that.

I'd love that. Okay, I love that story so much. And what a beautiful metaphor for anything that shows up in life, do we not just pour our passion? It comes so much more easily when we believe in something, when we're passionate about it. And I am just loving these little Olivia type children that you are raising in your little part of the world because I think even that rejuvenates the spirit. I mean, when I'm out there, and I see kids fundraising for a cause, I mean, I want to I want to slap way more down than I normally would to, and I'm totally going to steal that no, no gift amount, and we're going to try that the next time my kids and I fundraise for something so Okay, Olivia, I, we are deeply depressed that we have to close out this conversation. But we end all of our conversations, asking our guests to share one good thing with our audience, it could be a life hack, a mantra, a piece of advice, what would you offer up to our community?

One good thing I'm thinking of right now is that just to recalibrate if you can put your feet on the earth in the grass and look up at the sky, that is the first thing that came to mind. So that is one good thing. And the other is we need a different model of leadership in our world. So just continue to lead with your full selves, your voice, your values, lift up others lean and it is hard sometimes when we're caught in structures, and we feel vulnerable or feel we'll be penalized for for X or Y. But it's so important and courageous. When I see people do this, it is so inspiring. It gives me more permission. And I strive to do this to give other people permission. That is part of what I love the most is just kind of getting into that and helping grow my team and their visions and influencing the social impact in a Heartland mindset at pager duty.

Olivia, clearly, will you be my best friend forever. I'm just so heartened to know someone like you exists in the world and that you're out there fighting for things that matter. It's just totally empowering and uplifting conversation. I hope our listeners got as much out of this as John and I have

let's run this out. How can people connect with you I know you have such a presence on LinkedIn. So definitely find you there are other ways to connect with pager duty and the work that you're doing.

Oh, it's a pager duty. On Twitter with there's a pager duty blog we just published last week, our impact report our annual impact report, which is filled of wonderful stories of our partners we really strive to amplify and uplift their work and up do Tony ins who are just going above and beyond in their role there. So I didn't even get to those stories today. But they're fabulous. So if you're interested in learning more about our work, there's we talked about our values, we talked about what we're striving to do, you can check out if you go to pager duty.org, you can check out our link to our impact report. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter at at Okay, l. And I would love to hear from your community. I want to thank you both and really just honor the work and the vision and the hearts of your listeners. I just feel inspired.

Thank you. Oh my gosh, we've got full hearts. And I feel like we're just dreaming bigger for what's possible. What a great moment. Thank you for leading us in this amazing conversation and appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

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