Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.
So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Hey, Becky, what's happening?
I think I just found a new best friend to add to my circle of sustainable sisterhood because y'all let me introduce you to a force of nature. In the social impact space. We are so excited to have Channon Lucas on the podcast today. She's the Chief Administrative Officer over at Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. And y'all, you better just buckle up because what she has done to integrate a startup mentality into the world of traditional philanthropy is going to completely knock your socks off. So we're gonna give you a little bit of background in her journey because it's just really staggering and aspirational. Just five years ago, she had started as the second official employee of New York's largest grant making foundation centered on improving the health and well being of underserved New Yorkers as former healthcare philanthropy purists for about a decade. We are right there with you, Channon. And since she has joined this organization, the infrastructure she built has fallen into place at the foundation and has grown they have granted over $635 million to Lord nonprofits. And I know there are a ton of New York City nonprofits that listens to this podcast are in the community. And I absolutely hope that you know about Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. And here's the cool part, y'all from the jump, Channon set out to just disrupt everything that we have all been taught about traditional philanthropy practices, and how we set up our structures. And so she operationalized design this foundation with this startup mentality, you've heard it on this podcast a million times. But thinking like an entrepreneur, setting up your nonprofit, like a business is really the next wave of how to scale. And Channon did this, she built this internal system that allowed the organization to flourish, but still remain flexible. God bless you for that. And it really started with hiring really energetic and driven staff, she was incorporating all that mission focused training into their work. And then she set up this operational infrastructure that allowed staff to walk and chew gum at the same time, all while avoiding burnout. That is what we're all here for. And so that's the story we're going to hear today. And I just could not introduce you Channon without saying that to date, Channon has managed to build and manage a 60 person staff where and this is the exciting pipe part. We're 40% identify as people of color and 53% as women get in this house rock star and tell us how you did all the things please welcome.
Oh, my goodness. Thank you for that introduction, Jon, Becky, thank you for having me. And if you haven't considered it, you should be a podcast host because you make your guests feel incredibly welcome and super powerful. I feel like I need a superwoman or Wonder Woman outfit to start this.
You do and I can't believe I went through the whole intro. It did not say that your Frenchie next to you, Beignet is also joining us on the podcast. We love our dogs. But like we want to get to know you. We before we ever dive into this, we want to know the human behind the work. So we want you to take us back. Take us back to little Channon. And tell us about how Channon grew up and got into this work.
Well, I love that. And I love that you started with Beignet because it adds to who she is as a person. So I'm sitting next to her almost five year old French Bulldog. She's about the same age as the foundation. But I'm
She's been on the journey with you.
She really has she literally in the early days I snuck her in as contraband. Now we don't have the time there are only four of us. But one of the interesting things and I love that you teed it up that way is because I've been reflecting on how people often talk about what they do, and not necessarily who they are. And mea culpa. I am people so you know to think back a little bit about little Channon and who I am and where I grew up is I grew up in Western New York, Rochester, New York. That means that you come from the land of snow, the land of the Buffalo Bills.
Yep.
Which means a land of disappointment and heartbreak. But that's its own its own other podcast, but I am child number three of four. Big family, my parents, both from the south so I always feel like I have a little bit of southern in me. You might hear some y'alls here and there. And I grew up In the inner city, Rochester, so oftentimes you'll hear people talk about, you know, inner city, youth and, and I am one of those people. And sometimes I think when we talk from a nonprofit lens, we don't bring our lived experiences with us. And so sometimes, and we'll talk a little bit more about my role at Cabrini, but I, I oversee a community engagement team. And one thing we often talk about is nothing for us without us. And so I always like to try to bring a little bit of that that framework in, I'm Catholic school educated, you heard a little mother Cabrini thrown in there. But pre K through 12 went to the same school doesn't exist anymore, as is the fate of so many Catholic schools throughout the country. But I am so grateful for that education. I'm so grateful for those nuns who taught us how to be for good in the world. And you know, I always think strong education by women. And by, you know, I, my mom was a single mom, parents divorced, and I was very young. So that female leadership, hugely important. As I work for a foundation with a female namesake.
Let's honor your mother, what is her first name?
That is Mary and Mary Lucas, and she is a tour de force one of you know, my best friends and somebody who I look to. And actually, as we think a little bit and talk more about purpose, and being for good. Sometimes there are these little gems that come along the way. And I always go back to when she always says and credit it to her. But she always says you can call it your own, you don't have to keep saying my mom once said. But I now feel like I just share that with you. And it's a quick departure. And then I'll tell you a little bit more about, you know, my journey to New York City. But um, my mom grew up in Alabama, born in the late 50s. And she always says people forget when you think about this country and civil rights that she grew up in the Jim Crow South. And so she talks a lot about how when she grew up, there was so much focus on three institutions that don't necessarily have the same sort of impact that they once did. And the first she said, was church, that everything you did was centered around church. So you met, you know, the boy that you went to the dance with that church, the dance was at the church, families gathered together for fellowship, and it was about community. The second was, was labor unions. Her father was a farmer, and that sharecropper farmers space, and that they came together as a collective to bargain for the best, you know, that they could do for each other as a unit. And then the third was the family. And she talks a lot about how and this is very specific, and in her mind with Black families. But I think it's true across the board of when you think about, quote, unquote, broken families, people do family in any which way they want. But when you think about coming together, and it takes a village and how we bring people together as a family unit, it was about the unit, not the individual. And so she talks a lot about our society, and how so much has shifted to the individual and that we take selfies, but she grew up in a world where everything was about the collective. And I keep thinking about that, and focusing on that and coming back to that. And I think not for profit spaces are really truly about that collective. And it's something that kind of is a bit of a passion or purpose driver for me. But yeah, that's a little bit of a Mary Lucas ism.
Wow. I mean, and to give context, I mean, it's 2024. I want to go back five years ago, when Mother Cabrini Health Foundation came into existence. I mean, little did we know the health crisis that it was on the verge that's going to not only just impact all of us, but I mean, it's especially in New York City, just like an epicenter of COVID. And everything that unfolded. I wonder if you just kind of take us back, give us a little bit of context to what it is starting a foundation at the time, and what is your impact look like, I mean, talk about the Foundation's work?
Absolutely. So at the time, and a little bit of a bigger step back, Jon, we were incorporated in 2018. Cabrini comes from a health care conversion, Fidelis care, Medicaid managed insurance program, and the proceeds of that sale created the foundation. So our CEO who was my boss at the Archdiocese, he was the Chancellor and vicar general, which in church terms for everybody else is like a COO.
That sounds very formal. Very important.
Yeah, you'll hear me talk about Monsignor Greg quite a bit. And he's very important, and he's very smart. And so he asked if I would come with him to Cabrini. I said, Yes. And we walked in the door along with our chief program officer and our Chief of Staff. There were four of us. And, you know, to your point about startup mentality, we really were thinking, what do we want to accomplish in that first year, we walked in December 2018. So 19 is our first full year of operations and grantmaking. And one thing that Monsignor was insistent on is he wanted to get grants out the door. We had nothing we didn't have an internet signal. We had phones that we were using our phones as hotspots on our personal laptops, you know, we had to procure computer And we had a space, but we didn't have anything else. And this man is looking at us saying, let's get grants out the door. So we did what you know, most people would do is we found an amazing partner Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors came in, they helped to set up some grant making procedures. And we did open loi, New York State, what and by the way, the foundation is focused on New York State. But come one come all send us your loi is no one knew who we were. So we had to be a little bit determined to find some good partners. But we were able to do it that first year and got out about $150 million in that first 12 months, which was amazing. We transitioned right into that first or 2020, which is the first year of the pandemic. And at that time, I want to say we maybe had 12 employees, one of the most important people I ever hired, and she knows this as my director of IT. And I can't tell you, you guys know this technology is everything. And we knew before the pandemic, that we wanted this foundation to be flexible and nimble, even in how we show up in the world, there were talks of where our headquarters would be, you know, again, we serve the entire state, we're based in midtown Manhattan, and that we would need to be on the road, we might need to be in Buffalo or in Binghamton. And so everything was set up in the cloud, everything was set up to be portable, and that paid off in dividends when the world shut down in March of 2020. But that time, taught us a little bit about flexibility and about thinking on your feet. That first month, we knew being a health funder, that there were going to be some needs for us to fund that we had never done any emergency grants, we went through an entire detailed process and our grantmaking. And we had to shift to even in that side, we got to get cash out the door for emergency COVID grants. And our board was super helpful in that too, and that the board was so supportive and said, the Executive Committee is here for you call us we will approve this. And we found great partners, you know, we've we've had some PPE grants, some hazard paid grants, where we were really trying to be as responsive as possible to the people on the ground who needed that money. So that was one pandemic startup piece. And then also, we needed to hire program officers. And to be clear, I'm not the grant making side, I know people often will ask me a ton of what the processes. That's that's not my work, we have a great program team who does phenomenal work in that area.
I think the things that I'm just hearing so much from you over and over again, are flexibility, and adaptability and evolving in concert with your grantees. There's this baked in empathy and care for your people as much for the grants. And to me that is just hallmarks of doing business differently. It is it is that startup mentality. Talk to us a little bit about the mindset of how you came into this, and how did you start to approach this work with the startup mentality?
It's a great question, Becky, you know, and one of the things I and I keep giving that credit to my CEO, but he and I talked a lot about wanting to build the kind of place we would want to work, right. So even now, when we're at 68 people, he and I interview every single candidate as a culture fit mmm and you know, and there are some that we've had to say. And you feel terrible saying that, right? But it's a question of how can you grow? How flexible are you a question, I often ask people when the interviewer how comfortable are you with conflict. And I don't mean knock down, drag out fight, but we're a startup things are going to change, you're not always going to get your way. I'm not always going to get my way. But we have to be able to disagree and move forward. So some soft skills come into that, that that building of a team as well. But even going a little bit deeper into thinking about the kinds of people we hire, some of it is shifting and pivoting, like you said along the way. We lately have been having a lot of conversations about the requirement to have a four year degree. That was on all of our job descriptions early on.
Oh, yeah.
And, you know, we all live through the tragedy of George Floyd's murder, and then everything that followed in the commitment to Dei. But when you really start to think about it, and you're saying we want diverse pipelines, right. You look at these pipelines, and I think we are requiring candidates to have a four year degree most Americans don't have a four year degree. And then you add minority populations as a secondary kind of hurdle. Why are we building hurdles? Yeah, so you're you'll see going forward for Cabrini there are no more. It's nice to have. I love a degree I have two of them. They're difficult to obtain, we compensate for them, but it's not a requirement to walk in The door. And I think, not just the not for profit space, just the general employment space needs to be thinking a little bit more about the hurdles we build for people to get a diverse team in the room. And we looked at, we have a great diverse team and the smart and capable and efficient team. But as I think about the future, I think, why are we saying this?
Yeah, I love hearing the applied because we talk about this and challenge our nonprofits that are listening to step into some of these practices, but hearing you like put it into practice, what that looks like, in a tactical way is just super, super helpful. And I want to double click on something you've said a couple of times now. And that's this idea of building a team that flourishes, but yet they remain flexible. And this is deeply hard to do. You know, I mean, I think even us as a startup to flourish, but also know the path is ever winding and things are changing, and things are coming out, especially in the world of healthcare right now. So talk about what that looks like in real practical terms.
In real practical terms, I like to call a thing a thing. And I say this to my team all the time. I don't know everything. And sometimes I decide something. And then tomorrow, I might learn something new, and I might need to pivot. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's annoying to my team, don't get me wrong. But I want them to feel the same way that there are spaces where we could do something a little better. Okay, so we can take a step back, and we can we can shift and we've done it several times, when we think about org. I always joke that our org in those early days felt like you know, the Lego, the flat base, and you start adding pieces. And you look around and you think this doesn't make sense. Why is this person on my team? Shouldn't they be on that team or vice versa? We have a team. And Jon, to your point of practical. Early on, we have a community relations team that we built. And we knew we wanted to have some kind of engagement with local communities and have community voice.
Yes.
But at the time, but no one knew who we were. So and the early days, I called the Community Relations 1.0. I call them the street team. They're out passing out flyers where the mother Cabrini Health Foundation. Hi, Syracuse, let us tell you about us. We would be meeting with, you know, the United Way and Syracuse with Community Foundation's, who were kind of this spokes of a wheel of who else should we be meeting. So that team has done a tremendous job. In year four or five, our program team said, you know, we have enough LOIs, I don't know that the street team needs to keep doing that.
Good job doing street team.
But, you know, the next iteration is we're now talking a little bit about we've moved that team, from community relations to community engagement. Community Relations sounds a little bit like something's gone wrong, and I'm sending the community relations team to explain it. But the engagement piece is really about a grant is an investment, right? We're investing in this concept in this charity, and we're hoping for these great outcomes. But what can we do to set that charity up for success? Who can we connect them with who's doing similar work? How can we think about folks who are elected officials, departments of health, healthcare influencers, private partnerships, of people who can help bolster and support that grant in ways that are not just, here's the money, see you later. And having been in development, sometimes that is the ideal space, here's the mind, I'll see you later. But we want to be able to show some impact of how we can really move the dial in New York. So to your point about flexibility, I don't know how community engagement is going to end up but we got to take a little bit of a risk sometimes. And also look at our peers. California Endowment does a great job of community building, and community power building, along with their grant making. So in reaching out to them to understand how they got there. There's nothing wrong with saying I don't know, we're the new kids on the block. I often see to your point about traditional philanthropy practices, there's this sense of the ivory tower of we've studied everything we know every I don't know everything. I think that team is a great example of how they interplay with our program team as well. In thinking about and I should share, you asked me earlier about what the foundation does, and I went down a rabbit hole. But we initially started funding eight priority populations, because again, when senior Greg wanted cash out the door, so we said Who are we serving, and we listed off eight populations. We still serve those populations. Let's see if I can do it from memory, youth and young adults, moms and babies, older adults, people with disabilities, immigrants, Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants, justice involved individuals had seventh and who am I forgetting? Oh my gosh, the biggest group of people living under the poverty line. So that was the initial as you thought about applying for a grant. Are you serving anything As populations come to us, we now our chief Program Officer Daniel is really fantastic. And his team, they're now articulating program areas for us. So we've heard what you are, what your needs are, how can we also think about what the foundation's priorities are. So those populations still fit. But we're thinking now about access to care as a program area, health care, workforce, mental and behavioral health, huge, huge area. And then basic needs is a big umbrella. But it covers a lot of things, food, security, housing, you name it, all the things in the social determinants of health kind of wheelhouse, that really will dictate your outcomes. And then there's a fifth program area, which is our general fund. And you know, you might be doing something amazing that doesn't fall into one of those tidy buckets, we still want to know about it and hear about it. So there's been a little bit of a maturation of how we think about the foundations really profile across the state. But yeah, we know that's going to keep growing and maturing and being refined over time. So that's currently where we are. And yeah, more to learn more to do throughout New York.
I'm so stinking proud of you. And I just think that there's some consistent drumbeats when we talk about thinking like a startup, and you've mentioned so many of them. And one of the trends that we're lifting this year is that retention is an inside job. And it's really about how do we take care of people serving our missions. And we are really nervous about what we see as an huge swing, in retention within the sector, people leaving the sector permanently. And I just want to compliment you so much, because what you've been able to do to care for your people, and build systems around them and their leadership that helps them flourish and battle burnout, like we want to know what the heck you're doing, like, talk to us about how you're taking care of your team members. And how in the world can our listeners learn from you?
Well, I'm going to do two things, I want you to hold me to it, because I'm gonna give you practical answers. And then I would love Jon and Becky, for you guys to chat with me a little bit about an observation and something I think you might know, too. So basically, practically, again, I talked about employees first and thinking about culture and how we think about our team. And that shows up in a number of ways. During the pandemic, the chair of our board, asked me multiple times in both meetings, and, you know, casually, what are you doing for employee mental health? And I said, oh, well we've got a great insurance plan our health insurance is wonderful. And he kind of was like oh, okay, I was like, What should I have answered more? So I was like, we have an EIP. And, you know, as I sat with my HR team, we talked a little bit about first, we offered headspace the mental health and thinking a little bit about meditation and calming and soothing the mind, turning off the noise. Yeah, as we went forward, my HR director shared with me, you know, there are some challenges sometimes around employees who want actual therapy, and what the program our actual insurance program will cover and what, where there's a delta. So what we decided to do is we partnered with talkspace. And now every employee has access to their own, on your own time, I don't need to know who's using it. I don't know who's using it, other than that it's being used, and that they can have that to supplement some of their own, you know, some of their own therapists and their own outreach. But it's nice to have something that you know, can bridge the gap for people when they need something in a moment of crisis. So we've gotten great responses on that actual mental health piece. Another thing that we are super clear about with employees is time off. And some of it's a little bit forced.
Oh my gosh, we believe that.
We have a summer Friday. Well, we try to do two things, especially with the hybrid model. Every team has certain days that they're all in, but Fridays are work from home days for everyone. And we've also instituted meatless Fridays and I say meatless to make a bit of a Catholic joke, but also there's no meetings on Fridays.
Jon will love that as a vegetarian, as well.
I love to know meetings, too.
Exactly. And I should say to just quickly and I'll come back to meatless Fridays. As I said, a Catholic joke Cabrini as a foundation is technically not a Catholic organization. We choose Catholic teachings and principles to inform our grantmaking but you don't have to be Catholic to work here. You don't have to be Catholic to get a grant. And sometimes I like to just clean that up a bit because I see the questions that come into the foundation of I'm not Catholic, may I apply? Yes, you may apply, please do. But meatless Fridays, the concept is I'm that scheduling an all admin meeting on a Friday. Things come up, you may need to take a meeting. You know, our investment team is very busy doing a lot of you've got folks in from China who are here, you take the meeting, but we as a C suite committed to we are not scheduling all team meetings on a Friday, on during the summer we were doing every other Friday you were off. One thing our CEO shared is, I would like people to feel like they're a little bit more on call. So again, if somebody's in town and you got to take that meeting, take it. But I don't care. If you are driving to your mother's and taking that call in the car, you know, there's no expectation for you to be on screen. And to have that stress of does somebody see that I'm logged into Microsoft Teams, I deliberately step away from my own computer on a Friday and I read and I catch up on the things that are industry related or healthcare related or admin, IT all the pieces, I tried to take physically my paper and go sit on a couch over there and not be on the computer. So modeling is a big piece of that. And then I'll add foundations and you to know this are notoriously flat, sometimes I'm talking to you and your listeners from a place of privilege, right, we have money in the bank. And so what makes them flat is that people stay a long time. So if the chief administrative officer doesn't leave my number two managing director of admin, how much can she leave or think about, you know, being promoted. What we're trying to do now, and this is a new stage is think about how we can give people other experiences within the organization. So I just had a conversation with someone on our technology team who was curious about another department. And we're going to try to set up some kind of shadowing, you know, thinking about how he might be able to, he doesn't necessarily want to work in that department. But how he can experience something to help build his resume. So when he wants to leave, we would be supportive of that too. Hopefully, he never leaves because we love him. But of giving people that space and comfort to know that these are things that are open to you, and we're not threatened by you looking or wanting to see something else. We want to build your resume and your experience while you're here. So those are my practical notes.
I love finding people that are doing this out loud, you know, because we want to turn the tide on these stats. And so just hearing from organizations that are doing it and living it out and making it work, it's just so inspiring.
Thank you for those compliments, because remember, I said this started with the chair of our board having some discussion. The chair of our board is Al Kelly, and Al is the former CEO Visa, but he's currently the chairman of their board. So I'll get big picture mental health, he gets the investment in employees. And I don't think he was necessarily telling me go by Talkspace. But the question allowed me some space to think and allowed me you know, the board has approved the expenditure. So you often operate out of fear of what your board is going to say or what a donor is going to say. And that's kind of that segue into where I was gonna go with you guys a little bit about retention. Big thing we all know this is compensation, right. And I've been kind of discussing this a lot lately, I worked in development for many years, I have a great mentor, friend boss love of my life, who was my boss then but we talk a lot about she and I would do our little overhead report and our cost to raise $1. And she would come back and say 11 cents, 13 cents, and we would be so proud and pat ourselves on the back. As I sit in this seat now. And I think about the the state of the nonprofit sector. What that means is we're not paying people well. And it's interesting, because again, I know I'm at a foundation where I'm not fundraising, right. So don't get me wrong. But that dynamic between what we think donors want from us, there's got to be a little bit of a culture change and how we ask those questions, but also, in thinking about educating donors of this is a noble career.
Yeah.
This is not something we're doing for a hobby. And it's the same discussion. And it's tell us all this time with teachers with firefighters, policemen, people who are healthcare workers, who are expected to be living paycheck to paycheck, you know, I have no problem with the titans of industry, well I might have some problems, making what they make. But at the same time, you know, these are people who are providing vital and critical services throughout New York City, New York State. We all and I know, for those who are in New York, and I don't know if this happened throughout the country, but in New York City at 7pm. During the pandemic, people would open their windows and have a collective cheer for healthcare workers. They would bang pots and pans and it was the raucous time.
Those videos gave me life.
Yes, yeah. But how about we give them something that can, you know, jingle in their pockets, a little more than a jingle. People want more than just the accolades and they should be able to do good, but also do good for their selves and their family and have a career. And so that's just something and I would love to get your guys take on that about that dynamic between donors, development professionals and not for profits and thinking about, you know, where's that value for the people in a retention mindset?
I mean, I just think of Dan Pallotta coming in the podcasts like this one, my favorite quotes that he shared that just resonates is, you know, this generation doesn't want its epitaph to read, we kept overhead, low charity overhead low. We want it to read that we changed the world. And it feels like every step of it, we keep asking a smaller questions. That's why I love hearing like the challenging questions that you're getting, you know, brought by your boss to say, investigate this, like, figure out a creative solution, because at the end of the day, scarcity is driving our decision to play small, and not to actually change and revolutionize our cities and our communities and all those things. And so I'm just here for this conva. Yes, we see it, yes, we're trying to combat it. But it's going to take, you know, changing the minds of those in our purview, because each of us are going to play a role in that. And we have to start in our own organizations and the places of influence.
I mean, I agree with you, 100%. And I want to give some love to the well meaning board member or volunteer who feels like they understand a little bit of nonprofit because they understand the dynamic of cost to raise $1, or what is net return or ROI, or whatever the words are. And I think that they are well meaning. But it's time to have a very frank conversation. And I think you can give as much mental health to someone, but if you don't pay them, that's also going to put a strain on mental health as well. So I love that we're having bigger conversations about it. I just think that changing your part of the world, which I think was Dan's whole point was you don't have to change the whole world, just change your part of the world and increase that sphere of influence wherever you are. And I think that's something that every single one of us can do. Yeah,
I love that impact to start up. It's just a tiny shift. Right. And I love that you said I don't think anybody intentionally is thinking this, but we don't question it. And we assume this is what donors want to see. I'm just thinking, let's move people into a place where they can see a career path where they can see, you know, a reward for the work that they're doing, which is rewarding in and of itself. But you know, you have families.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, Channon, we're just kindred spirits loving this conversation. And I want to ask you to kind of go back in your lifetime to tell it talk about a moment in philanthropy, we celebrate the power of philanthropy, which at the root is the love of humankind, and we see it in all different facets through the podcast. Is there a moment that really has stuck with you and your journey that you'd share with us today?
Yeah, so again, in the the private foundations that I've only been five years, but in thinking about a moment, and I love, love for mankind and humankind here, as we started thinking about the future of Cabrini, I mentioned early on, we had that open LOI process, and someone, a peer, just again, in a discussion about what we don't know said, in a way, you guys are sprinkling cash across New York state. And I did a little bit of a pearl clutch and said, Wait, what? I don't think she meant it as an insult. But what she was getting at is in this seat of a private foundation, you have an ability to think about upstream, right. And I tell that story, not because it's some kind of novel observation. But in that discussion with her, it allowed me again, to step out of the the day to day operations of we got to get grants out the door, get cash out the door, of there's an opportunity here. And you know, that sprinkling cash thing keeps reverberating in my head. Well, and it does, because again, I've spent my entire career in not for profit, I worked in political campaigns, which is, I guess, kind of adjacent. But um, I said this recently, when you guys probably think the same your entire career, I've raised a lot of money. And I think about the problems that we set out to tackle, some of them are worse than when I started. You need to be able to start to think upstream, you need to be back to my, my Mary Lucas ism early on to think of collective power. And I think, you know, stepping outside of your physical office, or your work from home office, and connecting with peers and friends and people who are in the sector and just to have some conversations that can both nourish you, but also gets you kind of motivated and excited to think again, no upstream. I don't have to do everything every day. But I can find peers and I can find that fellowship and I can find that collective that we can do big things and tackle big dragons together. So it's just a little bit of a sprinkling cash. You'll always see me in my head thinking about money falling, but it's really about how we can move the collective industry forward. Yes.
I love that you're taking your mother's words and just living them in every part of your being and I believe community is the way and I just applaud you. And I, just, to me, you're sitting on the cloud, like Jon, as the great oracle of like nonprofit startups like Mother Earth. I just love that about you guide us in your ways.
Well listen, join me on the cloud, because I always say, again, private foundations rare air. My CFO was like, oh, I love not having people who have to rely on to fundraise. It's a tough gig, I used to stay awake counting to my annual fund goal of if this person doesn't give, how will I get there. So I don't pretend that it's, you know, typical to have cash in the bank as an organization. But I wanted to welcome you know, peer funders, grantee partners, potential grantee partners, to join this conversation with us. Because if we can help think through or power through some ideas, we'd love to do it.
Well, we end all of our conversations with one good thing. And we are wondering, what would be a one good thing you could offer to our community? Favorite quote, mantra, maybe a Mary Lucas ism, whatever you've got.
Well, I started with Mary. So that's a great one good thing. But what I will say and it's a theme throughout, is just really invest in relationships, you know, that same former boss and mentor, she used to always say we work in development, not in fundraising, because we are developing relationships. And she is now and she may or may not murder me for saying this, but she'll be 91 next month. And she won't murder me because she had a big 90th party herself, to celebrate herself. But, you know, when she was planning her retirement, she said to me, I used to have friends. And I'm going through my Outlook contacts, and they're all donors. And I said, Helen, that's because you did your job well, which you always say to us is we're developing relationships. Those relationships matter from a donor perspective, they matter from a peer perspective, they matter vertically, up and down in your organization. And again, back to that startup, as we built the C suite. I often say we know each other, but we don't know each other. So that's, you know, be comfortable building that relationship and taking that chance, because there's so much Becky, as you said, to scale and to learn and to grow and to do in that in that space. So that's my one good thing.
Holy hecky. To Helen to Mary to Channon, I'm raising my iced coffee to you all, I mean, what a beautiful collective that just like, created your passion in this space and your perspective that's so shaped by this. So I gotta ask how can people follow your work? How can they connect with you or the foundation kind of point as to all the ways they'll show up online?
Sure. I would highly recommend following the foundation on LinkedIn. And also on Twitter. I can't say X.
I literally just said this on a podcast episode.
It's hard to say in a sentence. It's just bizzare.
Follow us on x. But and then I my own information is Channon with a C. Channon K Lucas. So you'll find me on Instagram on LinkedIn is just Channon Lucas, and also on Twitter or also x. But yeah, we'd love to have you join us for the ride.
And for all our New York nonprofits out there, if you work in healthcare, or in any of those categories that Channon mentioned, like check them out, get together, you know, you have a good human that is found here and just an incredible, vibrant culture. Thank you for coming in sharing this incredible knowledge. I am freaking out at how amazing the retention conversation has been. And just so excited for our community and for what you're building too so just know we are rooting you on every step of the way as you continue this important work.
Oh my gosh, thank you and thank you guys for having me. It's such an honor and I really do mean and I don't know if anybody saw the Niecy Nash speech but you should thank yourselves.
I thank me. Oh my gosh, yes. Did you not love that?
Yeah.
I was crying.
But what the two of you do for the sector. You know, thank you. So I think you should end every episode with the We Are For Good. Niecy Nash trivia.
That is amazing. Thank you, that's so kind.
What a compliment, thank you.
Yep, you're my friend for life.
My gosh. Thanks again.
Such an honor. 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
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