How Do I Sell This to my Board?

0:04 All right, so welcome everybody to Visionality's Building Forward series my name is Emily Barany i'm the founder and
0:10 ceo of Visionality and i'm joined by my fearless co-host Kristiana Almeida
0:15 who's our ... senior project manager and today
0:21 what are we talking about my friend how to sell your amazing idea to your board
0:26 so we came up with this topic because we keep getting this question so we're you
0:32 know we've been doing these these little webinars for a hot minute now and that kind of is like the
0:38 underlying question in all of these okay these are cool ideas these are interesting these are things we've wanted to try for a while but how the
0:45 heck do i sell it to my board so so we're going to do this in 25 minutes
0:51 so timer's going timer's going
0:56 perfect Kristiana how the heck do i sell this to my board
1:04 that's a good question so i'll admit that like in another life ahead of this one i have two goals i
1:11 would like to either be a social psychologist or behavioral economics um
1:16 i really like to use the social psychology aspect when it comes to selling to boards there's an author or a
1:24 psychologist that i really like to follow his name is jonathan heights h-a-i-d-t he's written quite a few books
1:31 ... however like i was really introduced to his work through chip and dan heath
1:36 in their book switch so switch ... really starts to talk about like organizational change
1:43 ... you know as a like how how to make change happen at a large scale ... i like the con basically the concept
1:51 that jonathan height had come up with is creating change that is going to last
1:56 involves a elephant a writer and a path
2:02 ... so the elephant is kind of like our emotional brain the writer is the very
2:08 logical brain and the path is the thing that we're trying to accomplish so in
2:13 this instance of trying to sell something to your board you are the writer you are you have thought through
2:20 this thing that you want to sell to your board you have thought through like all the benefits like you you've got this in your head like this is exactly what the
2:26 organization needs we're going to be so much better for it the elephant as you can guess in this possible scenario is the board they're a
2:33 little more emotional they're ... and i'm using the term emotional not from like a negative standpoint but they
2:39 tend to have like more like a knee-jerk reaction versus like an analytical reaction of like this won't work or this
2:44 will work it's more like a fast-paced like yes no versus the the thought through process of that
2:51 ... and the path is how you actually get the elephant and the writer to move
2:56 together towards that goal ... so when we start thinking through
3:01 like what this actually means and starting to move this into into action so as we start to think about how to how
3:08 to coach the writer you know if we're first if we're standing watching this situation from an outside perspective
3:15 the writer needs to have an idea of like what it is that they want and why they want it ... and so that's where having
3:22 like KPIs is actually really important because you're then going to need to measure
3:28 whether or not the thing that you're trying is useful and we'll talk about KPIs in a little in a minute or two here
3:34 api's key performance indicators that one ... the next thing that we need to do is
3:40 that we need to use the rider the writer then needs to like motivate the elephant because if you
3:46 look at the size of a rider like how big you are versus how big an elephant is
3:51 the elephant's got six tons of weight on it you've got maybe 160 pounds of weight
3:57 and so there's there's definitely like a very big power imbalance within that relationship and so you're not going to
4:03 be able to force the elephant whether you shove the elephant pull the elephant like coax the like you have to coax the
4:10 elephant so you have to like relate to its emotional side ... and the elephant is the classic like
4:17 what's in it for me you know scenario so you need to be direct you need to be coaxing that elephant and inspiring that
4:25 element because you need to tell it what's in it for them what are the kind of like more emotional
4:31 kind of connection points to helping that change happen ... and then also like
4:36 cheerleading every step of the way that yes that step forward was a great step
4:42 forward oh that second step forward was so awesome look at you go this third step look at the KPIs and now like so
4:49 celebrate every success of the elephant as the writer versus having an i told you so mentality
4:55 ... and then the last part of this scenario is to shape the path so as that elephant starts to move
5:01 in conjunction with the rider how can you clear the the junk off of
5:07 the path or how can you get to you know the end goal a little like faster and easier like can you move things out of
5:13 the way so that the elephant doesn't get hung up on things you know as as it's moving forward
5:20 ... and so that's kind of the framework that we always like to use when it comes to
5:25 selling to boards or when it comes to ... you know just kind of creating like lasting organizational change in general
5:32 and i always have this great personal example ... many many years ago when i was just a
5:38 young fundraiser ... starting out and twitter and facebook were
5:43 new instagram didn't even exist ... i had pitched to my board that we
5:48 needed to have a facebook account for our organization like a facebook and twitter account and the pushback was hilarious in
5:56 hindsight it was hilarious ... in the moment it made sense it was the only kids use these like you know
6:03 use these platforms what on earth are we going to use it for ... and so the way that i had tried to
6:08 connect to my elephant in that instance was that we were a disaster response organization i worked for the american
6:14 red cross and i was like as a disaster response organization one of our primary goals or
6:20 one of our primary responsibilities is to deliver timely useful like information to the public especially
6:27 during times of disaster so that you know people who are following us can get information on where to go to shelters
6:34 where to like what should be in their disaster supply kit without necessarily having to wait for the media to report
6:40 those things and so i said let's look at this let's look at it this way like because we were
6:46 so young then because they weren't because hardly anybody in the in santa barbara was using facebook and twitter
6:52 ... and so the way that i had pitched it i'd also said like but it also puts us like as innovative and ahead of all these
6:58 other nonprofits as also a way for us to showcase the work that we're doing on a daily basis in a way that any other
7:05 organization is not doing right now in santa barbara so they're like okay let's give it six
7:10 months and let's see kind of like what that return on investment is so we'll see like how people like what the
7:15 content is we'll see what ... what the followers are because for some
7:20 like not for some reason followers was kind of a big metric when you're first starting out on social media engagement
7:26 is now like the big metric but then it was followers ... and so i had started the program we
7:32 were rolling i was posting on a daily basis and lo and behold the t fire broke out in
7:37 santa barbara and so i remember we were in the middle of a board meeting when the t fire broke out and i started you
7:44 know as soon as our disaster of our director of disaster response came in and said hey we're opening a shelter
7:49 here i started i tweeted it immediately and i posted it to our facebook page and i said if you're in an evacuation
7:55 warning zone here's a link to items that you should have ready to go so i just started posting posting posting of like
8:01 relevant timely information that was going to be useful to our audience
8:06 and by the next morning we were getting calls from cnn for interviews
8:11 we were on national television very regularly and because i was the only person on the ground that was really
8:17 using twitter and facebook ... you know even more than our local pios fire departments etc like they felt that the
8:24 red cross was the trusted name for information as it pertains to this disaster ... and so granted like that was
8:31 a very kind of like flash in the pan like very kind of specific opportunity that came up that
8:37 won't necessarily come up with like most other organizations but it was able to kind of have that opportunity to prove again like we
8:44 wanted to provide relevant timely information to our community that had a huge payoff in the long run ... and even
8:50 in the short term and we ended up you know hitting the KPIs of having like a large number of followers follow ... follow us
8:57 and so it really just kind of came to this opportunity of just like what's in it for the board and you know the board
9:05 really cares about disaster response timeliness they cared a lot about like the image of the organization and all of
9:10 those kind of fears were taken care of and we were able to prove that having a social media program
9:18 integrated into our daily operations was actually a really useful thing for that
9:23 type of you know for that organization and so i just i love this example and i'm so grateful that i have a real life
9:29 example because again i had i was i was the writer i knew exactly why we should
9:34 have you know a social media program but i had a board that was very hard elephant ... and even like after you know
9:42 i was in a pio meeting a couple months later and i remember a representative from a
9:48 large old newspaper in santa barbara also kind of scolded me as being naive and thinking that social media was going
9:54 to be relevant to kind of news distribution ... i hope he's laughing now um
10:01 i'm laughing ... but it's just that that opportunity of like i was i was
10:07 definitely the the right the writer the board was definitely the elephant and then i had to use those KPIs to help
10:13 shape the path and to get things out of the way so that they could see and we did check in monthly to see what
10:19 the relevancy and the usefulness of this was ... so to start to bring this back to
10:24 kind of like some of those nuts and bolts of how we then actually take all this like take all this storytelling
10:31 aspect of it and actually start to kind of deliver the nuts and bolts of that so we kind of wanted to start with we're
10:37 going to go through three items now we're going to go through directing the writer motivating the elephant and shaping the path you know in a little
10:43 more detail so because the writer is that analytical brain like that is the
10:48 one that measures it's the one that looks for patterns it's the one that researches it's like very like very
10:54 thoughtful very kind of like on it ... and so i want Emily to talk about like what are good KPIs key performance
11:02 indicators generally ... regardless of the type of program but how do you start talking
11:07 about key performance indicators to your board and why is that an important part of that sale process to them yeah so
11:14 your girl loves a dashboard your girl loves an excel spreadsheet that she can
11:20 put graphs on and track data over time so ... number one you gotta have data and
11:27 so this is like you know, I... I think it was our last one our last building forward was about no you can't have all
11:33 these sparkle shiny fundraising things if you don't have these basics nailed data data data you must have data in
11:41 order to have KPIs ... i love time data ... so time is money everywhere and so
11:49 it's really ... certainly at Visionality but i think it's important at nonprofits as well
11:55 to know what you're spending your time on ... a lot of times payroll is the number one expenditure within an
12:01 organization so time is money so what are you spending your time on and what is the return on investment of that time
12:09 so we use a program called toggle to track our time every second of the day is tracked much to the chagrin of some
12:17 people in this zoom room i don't know who it is uh
12:25 so that's a great place to start ... and and and to
12:32 think about not necessarily what the end goal is but
12:38 what are the steps to achieve the end goal so so cristiano one of your favorite things to
12:43 track is not necessarily the end dollars raised yeah that's a good thing to track
12:49 but what are the KPIs that lead up to money so maybe the KPIs are followers on your social media
12:57 it could be you know warm contacts in your ... in your
13:03 donor database so what are those like measurable levers that you can
13:09 show to your board that they have a direct like impact on um
13:15 i also have donors as a KPI too especially in fundraising program so if you're doing if you're trying to
13:21 implement a new fundraising kind of like asset to your ... to your system i always love the new
13:27 donor one because so many boards just care about dollars raised but they're all freaking out about the size of their
13:32 donor base shrinking so they also so having that KPI is really important so
13:38 even if you're not making a ton of money on those new donors if you're stewarding them correctly they will become those
13:43 better donors later down the road but new donor acquisition is a huge good KPI to use and recurring donors too yeah
13:50 donor retention i loved it i interrupted you that's all right um
13:56 also i think it's useful when you're trying to sell a new idea to have
14:01 a test time period what is a reasonable test time period you're not going to
14:06 have results in a week so what can you sell to your board of like listen give me this allocation of time
14:14 for this reasonable period of time ... and this is how we're going to measure
14:19 success so you're not saying this is going to be a success overnight but it's like we want to try this thing this new
14:26 thing i want this much runway to give it a shot and this is how we'll measure
14:32 progress progress on our goals ... and yeah then again track your time make
14:39 sure that those KPIs are like
14:44 are like in line with your mission vision values i know that sounds ... obvious but it's
14:51 not always the case ... and so you know really taking a step
14:56 back and saying at the core like what's the one thing what's the one mission vision value that we want to move
15:02 forward ... with this and then building those KPIs building that dashboard to support that vision
15:09 and i think the a good kind of thing to bring up with this too is the difference between goals and KPIs so when you're
15:16 selling this to your board don't necessarily have a hard end goal in place of like we're going to have
15:22 x done by y ... and so it's one of those things where it's like
15:27 look at what the progress scale is over time instead of like was there a hard
15:33 number or a hard goal that was or not met by the end of the by the end of the time period because i think that like it
15:39 causes a ridiculous amount of stress on you trying to implement the program but i think also like when
15:46 you're trying things like you don't know like what the end result is going to be and i think that that's part of the
15:51 learning process so many organizations are afraid of like failing when they try new things that
15:57 they set this like these really weird goals instead of looking at what the KPIs are and whether or not you're
16:03 moving forward with those key performance indicators ... and then this actually transitions
16:09 really well into how we then motivate the elephant ... i love motivating the elephant
16:14 because the elephant is the very like again it's highly reactional highly emotional it goes like it has big
16:22 reactions because it's a six ton elephant ... and so what i love about finding
16:27 those ways to motivate the elephant is like this is what like this like if you've ever read simon sinek's work like
16:33 it's the really start with why like this is where like you're going to get that elephant to start to think through that
16:40 it's actually not scary to do this because you're going to start telling the story of why it's important or how it's so beneficial
16:47 to them and how it's beneficial to the organization or how it's beneficial to the families that you're serving
16:53 and so the elephant really wants that emotional connection to that end goal ... and so if you have
17:00 like any data from clients that you've worked with especially if you're a client like focused organization or just
17:07 kind of like opportunities that are or just like gaps that you have seen between service delivery and you know
17:13 kind of that community aspect you're able to kind of paint a picture for that elephant and that's what's
17:19 going to start to get the elephant moving down the path but again the way the elephant is going to continue down
17:26 the path are a continuing to show that KPIs you know the KPIs and showing progress on those but also celebrating
17:33 every win that they have along the way and i think that those are really important things like even if it's dumb
17:38 and small and insignificant you your job as the writer once the elephant starts moving is to cheerlead
17:45 like it's like your life depends on it and so you're cheerleading the ... success of the board members as they
17:52 start to adopt the you know any kind of like behavior changes that they need to adopt in order to allow this to you know
17:58 to continue to move forward or whether it's celebrating any successes that the organization is seeing as again the
18:04 elephant starts to move down that path so you're to get the elephant moving you need to address its emotional side and
18:11 that's how you're going to sell it but then wants to keep the elephant moving and to keep it motivated to keep moving
18:17 you need to make sure that you're celebrating those successes and showing how those successes go back to kind of
18:23 that emotional aspect that got them moving to start with and then the last one ... the last aspect
18:29 of this is shaping the path so it's you know doing the debris removal it's you know kind of show making sure that
18:36 there's lights on the runway type thing you want the elephant as it's moving
18:41 to see where it's starting to go but also to make it very easy to move down that path as well ... so for example i
18:49 wish i had some really great examples of this you know on top of my head ... but for instance like it might mean that
18:55 there's a little more lift for you as an individual to kind of help shape the behavior for the board ... in case like
19:02 you have to like step up and help them with a couple of things but it also again it helps them because if
19:08 they feel like the workload is over the top for them they won't do it but if you
19:13 but if you help them a little bit and then start to like back off the help as they as you start to train them up on
19:19 certain things they'll feel confident in their ability to do it and then they will see that
19:24 it's not that hard to do so that's how you're able to start to clear the path for them as well is to like get the
19:30 shrubs off to the side get the rocks out it's like it's actually make it very easy for them to move down that path and
19:36 continue moving down that path once you get going and i feel like the cornerstone of of clearing the path is
19:42 defining roles like what is the role of the board or what are the different roles within the board what's the role
19:49 of staff what's the role of the executive director ... so talk to me a little bit about
19:54 how you start to devel define roles and lanes and responsibilities between staff and board
20:01 and leadership and all that stuff this is like one of my favorite exercises that i've done during board
20:07 retreats i call it lanes like figuring out what your lane is and so we start
20:12 with ... with the executive director actually so it's kind of like they're kind of the middle of the spectrum and
20:18 so what is the executive director's role in this change that nobody else gets to
20:23 touch so ... and then what is the staff's role in this change that the executive
20:28 director is not going to touch and that a volunteer is not going to touch and then what's a volunteer's role in this
20:35 that again you know looking up that the staff member is not going to touch and then you look at the board last so the
20:41 board then because the lift has been taken by the executive director the staff and the volunteers so that the
20:47 board really only sees that their kind of part in doing the lift like their lane in the lift is actually really
20:54 small and very manageable so it's a way to showcase to them that the organization has it taken care of
21:01 between the executive director staff and volunteers they actually have 95 of the
21:06 work covered to implement this change the board's lane is just over here now and i love doing this you know the lane
21:13 exercise generally regardless of what the change is because it sometimes when things
21:19 when the board especially during board retreats when boards start talking about like implementing new programs or how to
21:24 make change the board often feels like it's their sole responsibility to actually do this
21:29 and then they get overwhelmed and then they burn out and then the change never actually happens and so if you do the lane exercise i always like to start
21:36 with the executive director work my way down and then finish with the board it helps them visualize exactly like
21:44 what their role is what their lane is in making this success happen and it makes them more likely to actually follow
21:50 through with any of the work that they're supposed to do as well it also prevents your board from meddling in
21:56 your staff's work as well which is another kind of big thing we see happen when organizations try to implement
22:02 large-scale change is that the board will often tell the staff what to do or how to do it instead of allowing the
22:08 staff to actually own that lane because they have the skills to do so but the board thinks they're being helpful but
22:15 then there's this lane in between that they're hopping over the executive director so usually when i when if i'm in a group
22:21 setting with a board for a retreat i love doing these lanes as we start to talk about organizational change because
22:27 it helps the board see that they're just there to give direction and consent to the executive director the executive
22:32 director is there to report KPIs to the board ... and it helps you know it helps the board kind of like
22:38 feel good about that change and what the reporting mechanism is for that three minutes to go
22:44 closing thoughts so one thing that i want to talk about briefly
22:51 you know it's been it's been a trend which is wild for a for a while now that it's important to have 100 board
22:58 donation any level you know we don't like give or gets we don't like you know a minimum
23:04 board contribution because it reduces ... diversity on your board and equity and access ... so what we like to say is we
23:11 need hundred percent board donation and it needs to be ... at a level that's meaningful to you ... the thing i want to
23:19 start seeing is 100 board volunteerism and and, I... I feel like you know
23:25 staff on organizations they know what's best for your clients for whoever you're
23:32 serving within your organization they know what's best because they're dealing with your constituents day in day out
23:37 and the only way to get the board to really deeply understand either the
23:43 gaps or the successes is to get them walking the walk alongside with your
23:49 staff and so i it's been really interesting taking a step back and and seeing
23:54 how little often board members are actually working directly with the ... population
24:01 that the organizations serve and i and i say that as like a guilty board member
24:06 because like oh i show up to my board meetings that's my volunteer time but that is not like
24:12 reconnecting and grounding my board service with the actual goal of the
24:18 organization which is to help to serve somebody yeah and i think it also helps kids give
24:25 boards a new perspective on those lanes as well because if they're seeing those lanes in action like they have a better
24:32 sense that they actually don't need to be doing a lot of this work as well because they can go do the volunteer work and feel good about it and have
24:39 like and again continue to have that emotional feedback to keep them motivated moving down the road of change
24:46 versus siloing all of these lanes you know all together and so i think it's important you know from that aspect of
24:52 like giving a board member again like it's a volunteer role versus like eight i'm going to tell you what to do role as
24:58 a volunteer ... that putting those board members on the other end of the spectrum as a volunteer
25:04 really helps them give kind of like a different perspective of how those lanes
25:09 work and i think it helps them see how those lanes work in a super important way that they are not going to see if
25:15 they only go to board meetings okay we got 45 seconds at this point before we wrap up if you start to have
25:22 questions go ahead and drop them into the chat box we'll address them after this ... but just kind of like our closing
25:27 thoughts is that a change is very hard like even if it's positive change positive change is really hard you know
25:34 coming out of a negative change is really hard but if you just start to think through like what the framework is
25:39 ... to make change in an organization and you give yourself the time space and grace in order to do it like you will
25:46 probably find that you're able to try to get a couple pitches in front of your board to make those changes that you
25:51 think are going to be really good for the organization in the long term ... and so with that we're going to open it
25:58 up for questions if you have them drop them in the chat like we always promise we keep these to 25 minutes oh there's
26:04 my alarm we always keep these to 25 minutes just because we know that you are all super
26:10 busy humans and we respect that well and while we're waiting for some questions, I... I want to address the
26:17 elephant in the room if i may be so bold wow ... we as consultants and and
26:24 our friend kathy's on here and there are a couple other consultants ... we have we share this magical space where
26:32 we get to come in and direct the elephant in the same way often that staff has
26:38 been directing the elephant but then magically because the consultant says it then magically the board does it so just
26:44 know that that's true and i'm sorry that's true but it is true
26:50 ... and so think too if there's an opportunity to partner with a consulting agency or like
26:56 if there might be like some outside education that you could offer to your board to help you know to have that
27:02 outsider perspective to support what you're already saying so there's there's a real opportunity there to to get other
27:10 outside examples to say what we're proposing actually isn't crazy it's not you know it may be not
27:18 new here are some other organizations who have implemented similar things and here's their successes ... so just think
27:25 put that tool in your toolkit of directing the writer who who is the outside source or or a similar
27:31 organization across the country that's doing something like what you're proposing and what their results have been
27:37 yeah boards really kind of thrive on some fomo sure do like oh so and so organizations doing
27:44 that well we should do that like about why haven't we why haven't we done that yet why haven't we director of
27:50 development sitting there like slamming their head on a desk because they're like i've been telling you this for four years
27:57 yeah it is kind of this weird relationship that consultants you don't own from the standpoint i always kind of
28:03 refer to it as marriage ... you know your spouse says something to you over and over and over and over
28:08 again and suddenly you have lunch with your girlfriend you come home and you're like oh my god sally said and then all
28:14 of a sudden your spouse is just like are you for real like i've been saying this for two years
28:19 ... but for some reason sometimes it's just the delivery like who's delivering the message you know that matters and
28:25 as consultants like we find that nine times out of ten like the staff knows exactly what to do they just need
28:31 somebody out front to go get hit by the bus for them to the board and that's fine
28:37 don't mind my assistant
28:43 all right i see no questions my friend i think we've done it i think we nailed it
28:48 just like that all right we'll see y'all in two weeks do you ... hold on girl we gotta pitch
28:54 something really quick ... i know so Visionality is turning 10 next
29:00 month i know Emily has kept this ship afloat through storms droughts
29:06 fires fires ... and so we are actually going to be celebrating ... 10 years next month and
29:13 we hope that you'll join us on october 13th for a slightly different building forward we're actually going to do a panel discussion on the future of
29:19 philanthropy ... and the fun part is that we're going to have kind of like the younger faces of our sector kind of
29:26 talking about like their positions and where they think that the sector should be going ... and so that should be a
29:32 really great discussion and we'll also have a little bit of opportunity to just kind of hear from Emily like what she's
29:37 learned over the past 10 years of owning a business that has somehow survived like economic
29:43 collapses disasters and who knows what else ... so but thank you guys so much for
29:49 joining us today we hope you'll definitely join us for october 13th it'll be at a lunchtime meeting instead
29:54 of our 10 o'clock but we'll be sending some information out on that in the very near future
30:00 other than that ... we ... when we send out the follow-up email for this we will have links to all of the books that we
30:06 mentioned today go support your local bookstore and go buy those books like don't buy them off of amazon um
30:12 otherwise ... we have cops coming by so awesome i'm going to
30:18 sign off there. Awesome, thanks for joining us today, have a good one!