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Welcome to Engaging Ideas, the bi weekly podcast from Parsons TKO, bringing you conversations with mission driven leaders and luminaries to shift your perspective and challenge your assumptions on the art of the possible.

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of engaging ideas, the Parsons TKO podcast where we like to talk with leaders and luminaries in the mission driven sector so we can get all kinds of ideas and insights to all of our friends here in the nonprofit community. Today, I am delighted to be joined by Mitch Stein, the co founder and CEO of fund. Welcome, Mitch. Hey, Tony, thanks for having me. I'm so happy you're here. I love what you're doing with pond. I think this is revolutionary right now in the nonprofit sector, about how we can start to really think about how we're finding each other between firms, contractors, vendors, nonprofits, and this is really exciting that you're building community around it.

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I'm ready to dive in.

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Awesome. Let's jump in. Just do it. Alright. So from your bio, I was reading you seven years, you were seven years in investment banking, and now you're a nonprofit community startup, I feel like we need to dive into an origin story for the superhero moment that's happened here, like what made you want to dive into the pond, if you will. So I was I was an investment banker at Goldman in New York, for seven years, I had a couple different jobs. But I also kind of in my quote, unquote, free time, which objectively wasn't a lot of but, you know, service and being involved in the community was always important to me. And I got really involved with the LGBT Center here in New York City, through the folks I knew at Goldman and the LGBT network there. And I joined their fundraising events cycle for the cause, which is the Northeast aids drive from Boston to New York, I had an uncle, my mom's twin brother, who passed away from AIDS. And my dad, and I ended up joining that ride together. And it was just completely transformative. For me, as a person for my relationship with my family. My dad used to be a part of this community, my uncle's memory, you know, he lived in Indiana at the time when he passed away from AIDS in the early 90s. And it just wasn't something that would be celebrated, there was still so much stigma and shame around it all that, you know, almost 20 years later, over 20 years later, being able to revisit his memory, it was just really life changing for everyone involved. And so at from that point on, I feel like I was just looking at seeing how powerful these movements and organizations in communities can really be. And so I started spending tons of my time outside of work on fundraising, we were raising, like over $100,000 a year for this ride. And before I knew it, I was kind of like doing my own little development work. Like, I had my donor spreadsheet tracking year over year changes, and, you know, email marketing campaign, and you know, all the stuff that I didn't call it those things. But for me, it was just sharing stories and trying to raise some money, but realizing I had this big passion for this space. And then I also started to learn more about some of the frustrations that came along with the work of like, Oh, they're fundraising platform didn't work super well, or I didn't like how, you know how much it costs donors, when they all these transaction fees, just different things that were bothering me and hearing stories, that they were stuck in a bad contract, or they like hated their old platform. And I was like, This doesn't make sense. Why is this the case? And I just started getting really curious about it and asking questions of other folks or involved other organizations. And all of a sudden, I felt like I was just hearing the same similar story over and over again, of these inefficiencies that were perpetuated by either bad tech, no tech, and just the challenges of finding and adopting anything new and the challenges of making changes. And so this just became something I got really obsessed with. I started actually a project internally at Goldman, where I pitched them on like, Okay, I know, there's, there's a lot of inefficiencies in this space, can I focus on one thing that I have a close connection to? And I was like, What about banking? Like, can we improve how nonprofits bank and manage their cash, and Goldman has these new digital banking products, maybe we could have a customized one for nonprofits that went through this whole accelerator process internally, and got all the way to the end, I thought that was gonna be my new life, that I was going to be an intrapreneur there and working on this product. And at the very last step after like all these different pitch rounds, that ended up declining it. And so I was sort of just in this weird space where I was like, Oh, now that I've seen the other side, both like personally, I was enjoying that. And I know there's this big problem out there that needs to be solved. I just couldn't go back. I just started to like, really be unhappy with my work. And so I made a plan as in five months, I'm gonna leave I don't know exactly what the business will be, but we'll figure something out. And so I spent that time reflecting on problems I'd seen and the feedback on why they didn't hold

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Lily invest in that banking product idea was because, you know, the go to market is just too challenging to like hire a bunch of salespeople. And for a big company like us, it's just not we'll just keep it in our social impact part of our business as opposed to like, part of our real business, even though is a real business opportunity. And the more and more I reflected on that, and the companies that I worked with, in my day job as the banker working with lots of online marketplaces and software companies, I was like, Well, the difference is, there is no marketplace, even though this is a huge sector, spending tons of money every year, it's the fact that it's so fragmented and disconnected is keeping

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better providers of products and services out of the market, or the ones in the market, keeping them smaller, or unable to, like invest in their growth and improvement to the full capacity that they could. And so that, to me was the nugget of like, oh, well, if the go to market is too challenging, maybe if we can find a way to fix that. It's better serving the end customers and nonprofit organizations, and better serving companies that could be you know, providing better products and services for those organizations. So that was like the nugget I just kept digging in on and I left with a plan. And five days later, the pandemic hit and like everything kind of went out the window, moved on with my parents ended up spending two years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, feeling like kind of a mad scientist living at home alone, and took lots of twists and turns. But that's still, you know, remained what we're trying to do is like me introduce, instead of trying to introduce one product, that is the end all be all or one service, understand the reality that there are tons of technologies and providers out there that can be helping organizations if we can just better connect everyone and will provide a great service and sector. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for the full origin story there. I took a bunch of notes to I really that's fascinating to on the market space is a trillion. How many trillions of dollars is in the nonprofit sector a year in the United States of America? It's something phenomenal, I think, when you look at it in the aggregate, yeah, I mean, it's over 5% of GDP. And when we've worked through the the numbers of what what that money's being spent on aside from, you know, building expenses, and, you know, people salaries and stuff, we calculated that over $370 billion is spent on software and professional services, consulting, outsource services, and obviously, all the technology that they're using earlier. So that's a really massive industry that by and large is happening offline, like when you ask someone over 75% of nonprofits, choose vendors, exclusively based on the recommendation of a peer. So in some ways, like it makes sense why that happens. But that also contributes to the market remaining super fragmented, because you're just looking at someone next to you, because there isn't a good way to do trustworthy research that isn't completely overwhelming, and a really long process. And that's the most effective way to make decisions, because that's what your board or your leadership team is responds to best to. So we've sort of like, trapped ourselves in this cycle of just looking around us. And I think that's the market. I'm getting better connected and more ubiquitous. I'm getting super excited by a bunch of stuff saying here, so I had written down in your first part, you brought it up again, but trust, you know, I'm reading about it starting to write about it. It's one of these things where I think it was in 2021. And now in 2022, it's top business trend in the US is then they put the word Trust, like what do you really mean by this? And it sounds, you know, what you're doing with bond is, can we really make a specific marketplace for the nonprofit sector where Yeah, I, my company work specifically in the nonprofit sector. Why? Because we actually understand the business model. And I think some of this is with something like Fallout, Salesforce might not everyone knows Salesforce, but like a lot of nonprofits have it, the tool wasn't designed for nonprofits at first, right? And so everyone's trying to fit it into their model, or make it work or tweak it into doing something and it works fine for a lot of groups. But I think to your point, there really could be a specific market. And there are tools out there that do it. And then because the way the nonprofit's have looked, maybe I love that, you know, they don't, they don't get as much money. So they're not able to grow as much as if they were a private sector focused tech firm, they would be getting series A or B or whatever you call it when you're getting investment rounds, but you don't get it as much for groups that are trying to help this $370 billion a year spend. You would think there might be more investment straight some of the technology there. I love it. Thanks. This is awesome. Yeah, I mean, and there's some other like, really interesting market dynamics because you have this philanthropy element, right. So just think about the economics. It kind of throws a wrench into things from traditional markets. So you have a lot of

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founders of these companies that probably wanted to work in the space, not just because they're trying to be the next Jeff Bezos, right, they're like, truly want to help. And so you sort of have this imbalance of people trying to serve like a lot of people starting companies and products are in the sector because of that good. And then they also are competing with the philanthropic efforts of really big companies that also want to get their products utilized by nonprofits. Be it Salesforce, or Asana or Monday, like every big tech company that has kind of what I'll describe as an like small to medium business technology product, once nonprofits use it. Why? Because social impact is becoming a bigger and bigger requirement of any big company, for their staff, you know, for their investors looking for ESG things for that, like cover of their annual report and makes everyone feel good about the technology that they're working on. It's like, oh, well, nonprofits easy to do. And we have a nonprofit discount. And also, but if you think about what this is doing of like supply demand in the market, it's creating this like, really wacky environment for people to be serving as a vendor, especially if you're focusing mostly on nonprofits. So my next question was, you know, what lessons? Have you learned the process starting point? And I feel like we're diving into that a little bit. I mean, but yeah, in terms of building the company, and, and our warmup period, you know, you and I were talking about building a network and a community to that needs to be involved. And that's sort of what makes some of this stuff work here for bond and in the nonprofit sector. So yeah, but lessons have you learned so far, what I'm going to share with us

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a few days now,

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for a podcast talk as long as you want.

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I mean, some of the things you brought up just now, like, the biggest challenge with any marketplace, there's whole books written on there's a really great book called The cold start problem that I've studied very intently. Which is just funny, because there's this, people call it chicken and egg or cold start, whenever you have a networked product, meaning it's only valuable if more than one person is there. Zoom. Right? So this conversation wouldn't really mean much. If it was just me talking. All right, it's, it's, we both need to be here to get the true value of zoom. That's a really simple example. Then you have things like Airbnb where like, Okay, well, if there are no homes there, I have zero utility as someone trying to rent homes. So that exists for any of these marketplace models. And then and so what the book does is walk through probably 20 different examples of how companies got over the hump of that, like, empty room problem or cold start problem, and there is just no right answer, it is seemingly impossible until something works. So there's just sort of this constant experimentation of like, what gets everyone there? What is the hard side of our marketplace, where we need to focus more of our energy, what keeps people they're engaged. And so just learning about how, and we just experimented so much over the last two plus years of like, every from both from product and like content? What is it that works for people and like, user experiences, and I wouldn't say that we have it back. But we've found a couple of things that have been most impactful have definitely been whenever we are leaning into things that build trust with the audience, like hard side is definitely the nonprofit side. I mean, the vendor side is relatively straightforward. They want to find new customers. And if you can bring new customers to them that are the type of customers they want, then like they're all in to give it a try. And that's like, a very straightforward part of their business. Or nonprofits like this is a, this is so much more complex of like, I don't necessarily know if I'm in the market, do I know if I'm doing something wrong, or I could have a better vendor, or like when we should shop, so there isn't so cut and dry. They need the space moves at the speed of trust is something someone said to me, like probably a year ago that I think about all the time that in a startup, you want to be moving really quickly. And especially in a marketplace, you want to be growing that audience super fast. And you just move at the speed of trust in this space. And that is you have spent all your time trying to build that. And I think things that we've experimented with that have worked well have been just creating really valuable content and spaces for people to connect. We started testing some like live panel discussions that we do on LinkedIn. And we were getting like hundreds of people coming to these things, and just clearly really hungry for some of that connection, and really wanting to feel like they were in this with their peers. And so I think a lot of that trust barrier comes from people feeling isolated in their work so often. I mean, even if you're so many people are at small nonprofits, or they're wearing tons of hats, so they inevitably are kind of the only one charged with solving a bunch of problems, which is really isolating. But even if you're at a big organization, you

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always like everyone's always trying to do as much as they can with as little resources as possible, right? That scarcity mindset really pervades the space. You everyone, even if you're at a large organization feels somewhat isolated in their roles, I think they're really looking for those ways to connect with others learn grow. And then that's when they're comfortable to start questioning things with you, or within the product to say like, we actually like, not totally sure we are doing all the right things with our fundraising event, and we need to talk to a consultant or actually, like, maybe we aren't being effective with our grant writing, do we need a new grant writer that's external? Or is it really time to think about a new CRM, like whenever these, those bigger questions come up, you really need to be in a safe space to be able to ask them and trust that you're gonna get valuable answers. I think that is the most important lesson is like, everything we do needs to go through that lens of is this rest building, and trust building invaluable, because it doesn't only they trust you, but it's like, well, this isn't helpful.

Unknown Speaker  16:03  
You know, I'm too busy to pay the city mind. But if it is genuinely helpful, even though everyone's really stretched for time, people really make time for things that they're going to find helpful. I think there's a hesitation to bother people are like, Oh, they won't want to attend this thing live, they're too busy to join a webinar for an hour during the day. If it's something they really need help with. They're starving for that help. Don't underestimate that. People will take the time when you're doing it. Right. That's awesome. Yeah, I read a bunch of things there. I was thinking to just for, for nonprofits, anyone listening from that space? One thing they've always talked about through the years that I've been doing this, how do we connect better with the audience? What are we really do? And I really liked that idea. I mean, maybe they should just be doing a live, it's not about let me just, this is just a message I'm always sending to you. Or this is just the event about the latest report or the facts we have. It's like, I actually want to listen to you, people who care about my cause. And tell me what you think, how do I get you more involved? How do we lower you not lower you in but get you trusted with me and you feel a part of it? You know, people feel that when somebody you know if I got $10. Now I care more about this. But then if I was actually able to talk to somebody there, you know, that might might go a long way to help. I was thinking too, I mean, I think what I really enjoy, when I hear it most too, and just talking to you and seeing what you're building is in the nonprofit sector. It's telling me to run like a business. And I think a lot of the times with the technology or the outreach, or do we need this? There's a few things that affect the right, there's generally a higher turnover rate. I think for staff that comes through, there's not a lot of knowledge management that happens in transferring, they say they need a new system. And then the leadership's like, Well, why it's like we check the box, and then we have that thing already. And then you're trying to internally articulate why it's not exactly right. And you're having a hard time figuring that requirement out. And then you just at that point, you're like, Yes, I'll just keep using this thing. So I like that you're you're creating a space for people to be able to come together, I really need to figure out because this isn't the right fit. What's out there. I mean, that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, Jeff, we've definitely seen that our super users are super fans tend to be these people within an organization where they do meet that resistance, right where they like, they are the kind of person that looks something like I think this could be better. I want to figure out how this could be better. That is such a gem of a person to have on staff. And I think when they're meeting resistance, oftentimes, that's why there is a lot of turnover is like to your point exactly. If it appears to be too big of an uphill battle to just make positive changes, because we're too stuck in our ways. Then, like I there's I have a limited amount of fight in me to fight.

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And people will just kind of move on to a place where that instinct of theirs is better received into women. We've definitely seen that happen. And and I would say with the other lessons that we've learned are, I came into this, obviously a passionate person about nonprofit work, but never to say me, Mitch Stein, I know everything about nonprofits. So like, let me design this thing and tell everybody what to do. And I think that attitude has been really helpful. I mean, sometimes you just can't get away from it. Yeah, I've had kind of like nasty people or nasty grams be like, Well, I don't know what you're doing here. You've never worked in on

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everyone's Well, it happens. Okay, just kind of have to brush it off. But tons of other people have been like, I'm so glad that you're reexamining things because we so often are too stuck in our ways. And it's really valuable to have someone with a different perspective, come in and question things in a respectful way where I'm also just, I always have to be asking questions that everything we do, and not making assumptions. And I'm when I don't I constantly get reminded like, oh, no, we need to make sure we're touching base with our users. And I think that goes to what you're saying like a lesson for nonprofit work as well. That you just need that constant communication with your

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Audience trying to engage your donors or people in your programs. That's a practice that you really hone in product building that I definitely think lots of nonprofits can benefit from. And the other thing is that we learn lessons all the time for how our company should run from nonprofits. In the podcasts that we host with nonprofit leaders called the kids table kind of tongue in cheek to say, so often, nonprofits are looked at as like, oh, you should run more like a business. And I know that like, that is correct like that there is a business to be run around this nonprofit. But it's often spoken in a kind of demeaning way, or like, kind of making this false comparison between the two. And so often, and especially people that come into this sector, from the business world, or on the boards that are from the business world are like, well, this is what we do in my company, or this is what we've done. And so let me tell you how it works. And I just think there should be way more back and forth learning the one of the questions I ask every single person or podcast is like, if you were in a room or when you're in or in a boardroom or a for profit business, like what would be the lesson you want them to learn from your nonprofit work, is there's actually a tremendous amount that we've learned about things we can do in our company, that I think more and more companies could be listening. And I think more nonprofit leaders should be on for profit boards, and that we too often underestimate the value of the lived and work experience of people in the sector. I 100% agree with you. Yes. And I do I feel that too. Yeah. It's it always comes off a little demeaning, like, Oh, you're not doing it the way the private sector does. It should be doing it like this. Like we're not the private sector.

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There's not there's not a single bottom line to rally around. Right? There's, we have a different thing we're chasing as metrics and what we're trying to achieve as an organization. And yes, we need money and to be able to manage it. But it's very different than I just gotta hit this quota at the end of q4. I mean, I think the the way to get to get a similar outcome with without sounding demeaning or or, you know, because it just turns people off to like, if they're like, I came to work at a nonprofit, to not be in for profit sector. So like, what, you know, that kind of closers up, but it's more like, hey, get let's get specific. What do you mean by that? You know, and I think that helps getting away from generalities and getting specific, and then providing examples that are also in their context. So it doesn't have to be more like a business, you're like, hey, well, you know, XYZ nonprofit down the street, did XYZ did this to change their operations, and increase their visibility, their cash flow? And like, you can understand why that's valuable in the nonprofit setting. Without it needing to be a black white comparison between, you know, the for profit nonprofit sector, while getting to the same point. I'm curious, so So what are some of the things you've heard on your while you're doing your podcast? And we'll definitely make sure there's links to everything you're talking about here in the show notes for everyone, hopefully, get them over to your podcast, too. Yeah. What are some of the when you ask that question? Like, what or is there a trend and the responses? Yeah, I mean, I think they're very often is like, better, plenty of nonprofit leaders and nonprofit organizations who kind of have to prioritize their staff experience more than a for profit company, because they aren't able to pay like massive bonuses that sort of help people forget the other bad parts of their. So if they're doing it, well, they really do have to think about their staff and care for them. And oftentimes, their staff, it has a lot of overlap with the audience that they're serving. And I think that is a really interesting frame when it comes to like people management. So then just the LGBT Center in New York, where I also got to interview the executive director there, you know, when there's things that happen, that you need to care for your community, you're also caring for your staff. But by and large, you know, over 80% of our staff also identifies as LGBTQ plus. And so it's like, if there's something traumatic that happens in the community, it's also traumatic for your staff. And I think that's true for a lot of especially social justice organizations.

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So I think that those sort of like people, management lessons are huge. Where that like caring for your people and the impact that has been really powerful. I think that the understanding mission engaging community is big and something that not very many for profits, develop like a real community of their audience. That's really unique. When you see that at a company where people have this like you had mentioned an example of Patagonia earlier but the people that are, you know, diehard wearers of Patagonia, they understand they're connected to that like environmental mission of the company, but

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that's pretty rare that people experience brands and companies at that like national level. Whereas that's like, you have no choice as a nonprofit that is like 100% of what you do. So I think that's where a lot of people have lessons to learn and lessons to share. And then I also just think not being so simplistic of single bottom line is the only thing that we focus on. But having the ability to hold complex and multivariate outcomes as success is another thing that nonprofits do really well, which is hard. Like it's just more complex. And I think that's what a lot of people miss what comes up a lot in the podcast, interviews, people being like, yeah, people do kind of think someone in the nonprofit world couldn't make it in a for profit business. Like there's this sort of like, false dichotomy, again, of people that work in this space. And it's like, actually, our work is arguably harder, in so many ways and more complex. And by the way, we're tackling problems that like, are falling through the gaps of societies that other people can't solve, including your company. So like we are, we are tackling harder, bigger problems often in our communities, then even like the government or these big companies in the area, so I think that sort of under appreciation of the complexity of the work comes across a lot. Thank you for that. Yeah, I can see that coming through. You, you used a phrase earlier means that, again, the challenge of change. And I think even just that last statement there, you know, everything is really hard and complex and dealing with these heavy issues that you do feel involved with, it's hard to pull your head up to, to just get out of the day to day to find the camaraderie and the community to realize everyone's going through these similar challenges. And I think that's something I want to ask you a little bit about what you hope Hans is going to achieve over the long term. But I think there is something to be said about the community you're striving to build where people can step up, away from the day to day just a little bit. And then I'll talk about that tech problem they're having. See that other people have it is what I have found in my career change management, a lot of what we do, and we did a report, we were trying to does content study, and really what it turned out, we talked everyone was like, Well, I don't think we're doing that great, but I just really want to know what everybody else is doing. And it's because they don't really have the time to get up and see their colleagues that aren't in the same org, and then start to think about a community wide the nonprofit sector as we're solving things. So just Yeah, I mean, what impact do you hope bond is going to have over the long term? Yeah, I think it's something you just brought up there that we've seen a ton that is unique about the space is kind of this camaraderie amongst people working in this space.

Unknown Speaker  27:41  
You definitely don't, you know, find just, I don't know working in like, enterprise software sales and at one company and you know, I meet someone that works in enterprise software sales and other company, there's, there's not necessarily this like Kindred, we're in this fight together, you probably feel more competitive. And I just think there's this really unique sense of people in this in the nonprofit world, and social impact world of like, we have this shared mission, even though we're all focusing in our lanes, we have this connection of choosing to spend our valuable professional time tackling these really, seemingly insurmountable problems. And because of that, you just find people's willingness to help each other much higher. And I think that is a really important ingredient for community building. But I do think there has been the communities that I've come across, they're either localized, they're within literally a local community, which I am, none of these are bad things. It's just like, evidence of the fragmentation of the sector. So you've got like, local community groups, maybe at an industry level. So within a certain like, sliver of the nonprofit sector, like all the folks that work at aquariums might like each other or be in a group around space. And but but otherwise, there isn't that sort of central, gathering place where people are connected around shared issues, as opposed to just I'm in this geographic location or work in this like sub sector of the nonprofit world, even though there's tons of crossover between those different sub sectors in terms of their operational and business needs. That is what I think there's a lot to capitalize there on of like, okay, if we can bring this into a more universal platform, can we start to really develop and hold up for people, the examples of problems encountered and how they're solved and what's working well and get to a more universal catalog of best practices and good outcomes. And what does success look like in the sector? No one's defining that. You're just there's your it's about like avoiding bad outcomes, because I don't think we'll really have a good death.

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Nishan of what success looks like, like, you'll, you know, there's raising more money. And you can see that on there, you know, 990s Every year, there's just big organizations tend to get a lot of attention of like, Oh, they're successful, so we should do what they do. But I think if there's a way to get down to clearer and more consistent definitions of success, when you're doing these using new technology, using a new vendor, new service provider, these things are really scary and intimidating. You can standardize both the process for acquiring or procuring those new vendors, and also understanding good outcomes. I just think that makes both a search and decision process. And also the like funding or budget decision process so much easier, I think, a huge contributor to why this is the change is so hard, is there just is no standard. And so it tends to be so finger in the air, what did someone else do really ad hoc with this happening and occurring in a similar fashion and so many places around the country, we know this, we know, that just 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of these purchase decisions are happening every year in isolation. And I think everyone would be helping each other by bringing this into a central place. And beyond that, like, you know, long, long term,

Unknown Speaker  31:24  
just like we talked about earlier, I think we have to start with a space dedicated to nonprofits. But I really see the broader worlds converging around impact. And so I think that there's going to be a time when it's about like, what are the highest impact solutions is that sort of nonprofits looking for at the end of the day, that is different in how they purchase from a business. And so I do sort of feel like having a space that is all about identifying and holding up solutions and use cases for things that are driving impact is also going to be just where the world has to go, right? Like, it can't, we can't isolate impact to nonprofits, we have to expect that of every organization that's operating. And I see this in the startup world today. It's like, if you don't have a like reason, if you don't have a mission, like a positive outcome, and externality of what you're doing, aside from just making money, it's actually really hard to get funded and interested in it. And so I genuinely believe the world is heading towards centering impact as a part of every business organization. Love that? Yeah, I mean, a lot of thoughts talking there. And just the whole operation and business model within the non profit space. And for nonprofit organizations. I mean, a lot of stuff is driven with how they're funded than what the grant makers asking for and what's in the grant. And then a lot of times, it's, you know, I've had talked in other episodes about this, there's that tax or the communications and fundraising team that has to come out of the programs funds, because 501 C threes want to keep overhead air quote, low to a certain percentage, I forget what it is like, can't be more than 10% 20% writer I was working at house, a Virgin has several nonprofits. And I asked somebody financing, said number come from that reals, the IRS checklists are like, it's just a standard, we all feel safe by now, we won't get by Michael, you have to have infrastructure and operational teams to run nonprofit, you shouldn't be the afterthought. So I think there's a little bit of when you get the money for that project, finally, or that system. It's like there's extra weight on you. Because now everybody in the organization staring at you because a the system is going to touch everybody in the org, they got you the money for that year to get it done. And like, all the pressures just on you, like I felt I'm speaking from personal experience, some of the nonprofits I've worked at. I've felt that pressure internally, right, and you had it delivered, you had to make things up. And then on impact two, I think, I think there's a struggle. I like the way you phrase it veterans outcomes, what are the outcomes are achieving, because a lot of times grant makers just say, Now I want to impact report, but they don't tell you what metrics they don't tell you what they're really looking for. They don't tell you what signals they assume along the way would be positive signals to see I think there's something else you're you're talking about there too, with the standards. I'm like, where's the I feel like we need playbooks, like these are the set. These are the playbooks, we're seeing what's happening in the space, how could that fit to you? Because there's a whole thing about benchmarks, people love benchmarks. They want to know what everyone else is doing. But like, benchmark doesn't necessarily apply to you unless it's an exact one for one organization to what you're doing. Other than that, it's like guess that's happening in the industry, but just benchmarking against yourself where it was like you could have playbooks Hey, these are the types of systems tools and this is what they do. This is why you would use that and now let's figure it out. So yeah, I mean, I love where you're moving all of this. I think it's exciting conversation for me. I could riff for hours on the

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
operational and organizational.

Unknown Speaker  35:03  
I mean, when you when you brought up playbooks, I think that is really smart. Because one of my favorite quotes, I have no idea who to attribute it to. But there, it's that there's no such thing as good advice. There's only great stories. And I think that's what you're getting at in every nonprofit, is their own unique,

Unknown Speaker  35:22  
has their own unique situation. And that's part of the problem is they look to someone they know, and like, oh, this works for them than that. Because it's it's hard to do the alternative Well, of, you know, assessing exactly what's all out there and what meets your needs specifically. But I think if you have clear stories, like you said, playbooks frameworks, where you understand how different solutions have worked for different problems people or have been able to solve, now I can apply that through the lens and context of my own situation to make an informed decision. Without, you know, 100 hours work.

Unknown Speaker  36:00  
That would be amazing. And I think that's what we would love to continue building as like, as more and more people are finding their, you know, solutions to their problems through the bond platform. We are building this library of playbooks for different types of organizations and problems to be able to look at and be like, Oh, well, that's when you can use this or this work, or similar kinds of organizations and have that repository to be able to hold up what what again, what success looks like, like what good, what's possible, because I think that's, that is something that a lot of people don't if you haven't, maybe if you've been in the same organization for a while, you've always worked at similar organizations, it's hard to, like see beyond that, and know what's possible. And I think that being more visible, that happens with community that happens when you're better connected with your peers and their settings, and have that space to understand other people's experience, and not settle. I think that's huge. Yeah, I've been thinking a lot to come through the pandemic, I mean, any bit of a status quo that was out there. I mean, this is the moment of change and transformation it is. But it's thrust upon you in a way where it's unavoidable. So it only amplifies the discomfort, and amplifies the sense of urgency, coupled probably with anxiety, because you're trying to figure out so many things at once right now, like, are we going back to the office? Do we have an office? Where do I hire people from? What does that look like? And then you're amplifying that on top of, Oh, my God, everything is digital. I'm way behind. I've gotta ramp this up. Yeah. And I just think there's a lot happening there. And I think the more people to your point can get out and just talk with each other and realize, hey, I'm not in this alone, this is happening. Let me look up a little bit. But the industry is changing status quo is not getting anybody anywhere at this point, or what we've gone through.

Unknown Speaker  37:50  
I want to switch just a little bit may change up a little bit. But to get just a little bit of the procurement process for nonprofits. You know, I think you've made the point earlier, right? Nonprofits, a lot of times you have board members who've only ever been private sector, and then you've got different groups and standards. And, you know, even the government has tried to figure out how to contract faster, they're legally bound to certain things. I'm curious, you know, how are you reaching out to nonprofits and educating them about any of the downsides of a typical RFP process or what they can be doing and as they start to maybe look for consultants or different groups or different technologies in a way they haven't before?

Unknown Speaker  38:29  
Yeah, and this is something that we're actively working to improve, based on feedback from folks out there is like, the RFP process is a requirement without any standard, you know, even big organizations, they'll just kind of repurpose as the last RFP we use so someone go like fill this in, and, and then we'll just put it out there, and whoever we reach grade, and they'll post it on social media maybe or on our website. And so the problems with that RFP structure are many fold.

Unknown Speaker  39:00  
It's very time intensive, right, because you're kind of like figuring it, you don't have a standard to go by. And so you're you don't actually know if this is all the information you need. But you don't want to waste too much time on it, a really, really lengthy RFP, which they tend to be, sometimes that's done without having total clarity of what you really need. So you're boxing the responses your responders into something you've predetermined as your need or the outcome, but maybe you don't actually know your outcome yet. And so that can limit the, you know, ultimately, who you're engaging with and what you're getting out of it. It also tends to gather a lot of information that maybe you don't need, and so you might be wasting a lot of time from vendors, which ultimately just drives up the price of what you're what you end up getting, because they had to spend time on applying to those things. Not to say that they like oh the vendor or something but like it does ultimately impact them. And the last thing is just the process of like post

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
Seeing getting responses to RFPs tends to be limited to your existing network or like second order network that you reach, or really big firms that pay someone to be scraping the internet, find RFPs somewhere, which is typically not in reach for smaller organizations. And so then the last thing I'd point out is we are woefully bad in the space about supporting the minority and women owned businesses, because there is they tend to be newer or smaller. And there's this risk aversion and a space where you we put an outsized amount of importance on how long the company has been around. And so you know, you've got like, time wasted things becoming more expensive, and then like, not really aligning pretty much anyone's mission by kind of leaving out this, like social or gender or racial equity component that they could be supporting process. So what we've tried to do within the pond platform is to, number one, have a place that is accessible to any vendors, and you know, also being able to flag vendors being able to flag their own identity of being, you know, a diverse owned or run business, which I haven't seen in other places. And so it's totally accessible. And we just asked a couple simple questions to get you started. And I think it's more in line with what some people refer to as an RFI or request nation where like, maybe you don't need to start with the giant formal, you know, 50 question long RFP, if there were a simpler way to get quick responses and a quick vetting, so you're able to list a few, a few key pieces of information about your problem and what you're looking for. And you can actually ask a couple vetting questions all directly within the platform, you know, you could respond and be like, Hey, I think it'd be a great fit for this project. Here's what we do. You know, just to clarify, are you looking for this offering and like, so both sides are able to save so much time, but just asking a few questions might be like, hey, actually, we don't need to get on a call. Sounds like it's not the best fit. And then you say difference time, or you don't have to fill out, you know, a massive RFP, when it's really wasn't going to be a good fit for you all. And so I think there's a ton of efficiency there, and also avoiding an assumption that you've figured everything out. Now, I think there are some requirements when you work, this is what we're learning about from our users and trying to build around is like, if we take government money, there are certain requirements for like, how we run our process and where things are posted. And so we've talked about like, Okay, can we add just like an upload of an RFP document if you need to have that out there for people as reference. So I think that's something that'll be helpful. But it gets back to the way things have been done. Like you said, sometimes the requirements, sometimes it's just like a bit of a status quo. But I think pretty universally, almost everyone I've ever talked to views, the RFP as a four letter word,

Unknown Speaker  43:00  
is a negative thing. So we've even talked about like, can we even use that term? Is that just gonna, people does not even want to hear about it at all. Because it just feels like if you can, if we can leverage this platform and network to make that more efficient for people and also achieve more of their impact goals, even in their vendor search. You know, I think that's a huge win for everybody. Yeah, thank you for all that. I mean, I was shaking my head radically on the outside waiting of size of an org, you know, or tenure of the org. And it really does exclude a lot. For smaller orgs. Even like mine, I mean, some of the groups I've worked with talk about how they really prize working with smaller firms. And then they asked you to up your insurance. And they asked you to do all of these things as if 500 person company I'm just not. So sometimes that gets tough, too. And it's probably somewhere in the middle is interesting. So you're talking about like, the RFP, I think as an intention is good behind it like this could be open, and anybody can come and I should get the most favorable price and be able to see what happens. And then I often find though, there's so much detail lacking I think, to the point you're making, you know, I've worked in house, like as mentioned before it a few and it was like do you put a price in here or not. And I was like, if you don't put a budget range in, I mean, gosh, you get things all over the board. And that doesn't help you either. Now you're wading through so much, try to find and get to one or two that felt like they were within your range. People get really sensitive about that. So I just I pitch for anyone like it's okay to put a budget range in, like, it's really going to help everything move a little faster, and you're still going to be able to get a fair price out of it. No one's trying to game you forward.

Unknown Speaker  44:35  
And I'd say to just getting help and getting focused, you know, I think that goes a long way too. Because sometimes I think to your point an RFP gets released massive, they want everything under the sun in it, but they don't really know what it's supposed to be at the end and the outcome comes and so it's really hard to get fruit to fruit comparison of whatever people are submitting because you could get a wide range of mental solutions then if that outcome is not as defined

Unknown Speaker  45:00  
Oh, oh, yeah, you're going? Yeah, I feel like, um, the other thing that we don't necessarily have an answer for yet. But when an art when your process is gnarly, it's like this really massive undertaking that takes forever to get started. And I just wish people would leverage something like on to just be like, Hey, we're contemplating a new website, but like, I don't have my RFP yet together. I don't necessarily know what looks like. I'm just curious, right? And just using that as a chance to have some questions, have some questions answered. And it could be from a few vendors, but like, they're just going to be helpful, because they see this all the time. And to your point is that using that as like a first step, before, it's a formal process, to make sure that your formal process is well informed, and that ultimately takes you less time because you're gonna be more specific. And I just so often see people that are like, Oh, no, well, we're not starting that search for or, you know, my, I guess I'll check with my boss, and it becomes this like, big bureaucratic process. And it's like, you know, you're gonna be responsible for this, you could much sooner, start just getting those questions answered. And it will ultimately save you a ton of time, and get you to a better outcome. Yeah, love it. And I think that's the one thing that gets missed for any firms that are that do listen to this podcast is for you to realize to internally think to make this point, it's a long time and work that went into that RFP, when you finally see it. So people are already three months into the zone of trying to produce this and they're trying to move as fast as they can. So they're already carrying a lot of that weight into some of those conversations. So I think, keep that top of mind when you're having a more broad for the community. I'm fascinated for these answers from you, you know, What trends are you seeing in the nonprofit space based on your conversations? And I know you have a lot of them. So I'm really curious to know, are there? Are there trends in like, worries or hopes or frustrations that you're hearing? Right now, there's definitely a lot of anxiety about economic outlook. And what that's going to do. We were just talking about this on a call this morning, someone made the comparison to Chicken Little feels like, you know, it's been a pretty good and strong fundraising environment for a long time. And so it's like everyone kind of has a sense of like, when is it going to go wrong. And so I just think that creates a bit of anxiety among people. So I would just generally say that, be mindful of that, for anyone listening who, either with your teams or vendors that are working in the space, that that just is like a bit of an overhang and worry for people right now, I've definitely heard a lot about that. And, like I said, that the people that come to on tend to be the like agitators for change, that's why they're there. They're either interested in learning or introducing something new definitely see, people because of the tight labor market, those people don't stick around if they're not getting heard and listened to. And so we've seen people changing jobs and moving to new roles where they feel like they're going to be able to have that impact they know they can have. So I think, you know, honestly, it's a lot of empowerment for people in this space, which I think is is exciting. And there's a lot of issues in the individual person experience working in the nonprofit world around pay and benefits and, and advancement and all that kind of stuff, which, you know, we isn't really the topic of this conversation. But I think a big theme that is changing because of this mobility created for people in the sector to work remotely or be in different organizations and that they're they're not locked into any one organization, and that they have so much more flexibility. So that's definitely a big one is how are we retaining those people for sure. In on the technology front? I, you know, I think during the pandemic, there was just sort of this worst disruption of everyone's process. Everyone, some people, maybe they had made a bigger digital transformation. And so they were well set up. But by and large, most people had to make some sort of technology changes, adopting new software, like there's just been a lot of change that's happened in the past two plus years. And I think that now there's a bit of space to like, be a bit more intentional with like, Okay, we made a bunch of fast decisions or made a bunch of these changes, like what is going to be the long term picture for us? And is it now maybe we're in a good place to think about like a broader overhaul of our core CRM system or our overall website? I've heard a lot of that, like people feel like the dust has settled enough to think longer term. So a lot of people coming to us with that kind of framing, which I think is exciting. Like they're they're just better informed. Now. They write things they have a good sense for their priorities. They feel confident about the outlook of now what the new normal look like and able to make some of those longer term decisions. The last piece that I would just throw in there is I think that

Unknown Speaker  50:00  
The kind of racial justice awakening that happened around George Floyd's murder in 2020 is like, very much still a process. But it is still something whenever we post conversations where we are centering, that it is the most popular content and event that we do. And so I would just employ and we've done a lot of interviews and studies with people around how that intersects their priorities with vendors. And so I would just implore folks in the vendor space to be mindful of ways that you can avoid turning people off by not appearing to have a good grounding and understanding in your own company, for racial and social justice, if those are the kinds of organizations you're gonna be working with. And I think that historically, people put up with it, you know, they've their vendors, they just had lower expectations of their vendors of being at Mission aligns at a deeper level. And I think that that is definitely changing. And it's something that we are also working on some different partnerships around, like, how can we help empower vendors to better meet those needs as well.

Unknown Speaker  51:10  
I love that phrase and mission alignment, feels right across the board, like what you're saying there, to me, maybe their long term thinking is coming back. And I think the shock of the pandemic probably helps with you and I talked about the difference between spinning and pivoting earlier. But you can have a long term plan, you know, there's going to be, there's likely to be shocked, and things are going to happen, and how, you know, having the ability to understand how you when you need to pivot why you need to pivot, what's going on. And I think, to sum all that, to write a systemic change that has to happen, every part of our country, let alone just nonprofit space. I happy to see a lot of in this sector that we work in the leadership that's coming out that I think a lot of private sector companies should start looking to the work that's being done, I think on the racial justice, equity and the movement here in the nonprofit space, I do think we're leading, which is great. I'm seeing a lot coming from the foundation's things that they're asking for too. So yeah, that long term thinking to take the system change inside of it, then that discomfort of change management transformation. Like it's all here, though, it's like putting it all back together. And hopefully we're doing it the right way. Yeah, and I think it's it is a clear understanding of the fact that your spend as an organization, and the vendors you work with, also is a part of needs to reflect your mission as well. And I think we're on the cusp of people having a better understanding of that I was chatting with someone local here in New York City who's worked on an effort of that locally, and as they interviewed nonprofits in New York spend like $75 billion a year that could be going to different vendors. And it's like 99% of the spend is going to white male owned businesses or some or something, you know, really offensive. And as they dug into, especially the larger organizations, which obviously account for a large percentage of the primary decision makers, and to be the COO and CFO, in the vast majority of them were older, white, straight men. And it's like, well, the other networks are going to be similar to them. And all these things are rigid. So like, I think we're just starting to have a greater realization of that as a component of the work is all the partners we work with, because every nonprofit is working with vendors, like it's a core component of running your organization. And so it's definitely a miss not be mindful of where that can be, you know, completely mission aligned.

Unknown Speaker  53:38  
Thank you for that reminder. That's really wonderful. So if anyone has been listening for a while, I'm gonna have one last final question for you. Before we get there, you know, join on.com That's the site, or we're gonna get a link to your podcast, but you had said it was called the kids table. Yes. And heck, zoom. LinkedIn is a great way if anybody wants to find you and reach out to you. Yes, I am as loud as one can be on a written platform. So definitely reach out. I'd love to connect your chat there. I'm on it way too much. But I love it. I love LinkedIn. I really liked LinkedIn too. So yeah, I see you on there a lot. So if anyone's listening is interested, they'll give you a reach out. But to click to get to our last question here. What is your go to song when you need a boost? And why? Ah, man, I have a really, really soft spot for Florence in the machine. And their song dog days are over, I just think is like the most energizing song well, I would say my favorite genre of music I describe as dance around the kitchen music, which I think is it's different from like dance like dancing at a club. It's like silly, just kind of like throwing your arms around with your family. And that to me is like quintessential that version. You're just like jumping up and down. So for me, I love dancing and there's a very specific kind

Unknown Speaker  55:00  
I find that you do when no one's around and it's just like a fun song to throw yourself around. And I think that gets my I will do that sometimes I work at home by the way, just like the middle of the day

Unknown Speaker  55:11  
when I need a boost,

Unknown Speaker  55:14  
like sharing that it's dance around the kitchen is very good. I can we do that in our household? So yes, that happens a little bit.

Unknown Speaker  55:22  
It was more reference to where I grew up in my apartment here in New York City, my dance would just be like an in place.

Unknown Speaker  55:30  
Understandable. With thank you so much for everything and your time today and all the thoughts and ideas you shared with us. I always enjoy talking with you much. And we might have to have a follow up on this one too. Maybe a little while, but thank you, and I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for having me, Tony.

Unknown Speaker  55:48  
Thank you for listening. Join us again for more engaging ideas with your host Parsons TKO CEO Tony Kopetchny. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a comment and share with your friends. Send us your feedback at create change at Parsons tko.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai