Panel Discussion - Fostering Effective Nonprofit-Corporate Relationships Announcer: Up next from Craigslist Foundation, a panel of industry experts gives an overview of the various types of partnerships between corporations and nonprofits. You will learn many field tested tips for creating effective and mutually beneficial collaborations from the Conversations Network's Social Innovation Channel. [music] Alana Conner: Hi, this is Alana Conner. Eric Nee: And I am Eric Nee. We are your hosts on Social Innovation Conversations. Welcome to the free podcast series of Craigslist Foundation's Nonprofit Boot Camps, which are designed to help people help people. To learn more about Craigslist Foundation or the Nonprofit Boot Camp conferences, visit www.craigslistfoundation.org. This series is funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California, which helps underserved communities secure social justice, access and equality through the application of information and communications technologies. Announcer: The Conversations Network is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. And, if you would like us to produce new and even more exciting programs in the future, we need your help. For a tax deductible donation of as little as $5 per month, you can support this channel and the rest of the Conversations Network. So, please visit conversationsnetwork.org to become a member and help us continue to bring our programs to the world for free. Eric: And now, here is our presentation from the Craigslist Foundation. Susan: So, just to talk a little bit about the presentation, the way that we set up this panel is that I'm going to talk kind of generally about a framework that you can think about for partnerships, particularly for corporations, but really for anyone that you want to partner with. And then Jim and Randy are both going to talk about specific case examples and kind of how they have gone through it. So, we want this to be really practical. So, I think we are going to try to talk as minimally as possible and then we will go to a question-and-answer period. So, the things that I am going to talk about are: What are these things anyways and why are we even talking about them? Why are they important or are they important? What are some of the trends that are influencing these types of partnerships? What are some of the benefits and some of the challenges? What are some of the types of partnerships? Not all partnerships are created equal, they vary in terms of size, in terms of level of involvement, in terms of what their outcomes are, so we will talk a little bit about that. And then, we will have some questions for NGOs to ask. So, some people call these cross-sectorial partnerships, some people call these social partnerships, but the idea is that NGOs are pretty comfortable collaborating with other NGOs and they are pretty comfortable collaborating with government. So, if you think about the different sectors being business, pubic and NGO, the reason it is cross-sectorial is because it is between business and a nonprofit or several nonprofits. So, why do we need these partnerships? You can see in red as Thomas Friedman talks in his book, "The World is Flat" is that we have made tons of advances, scientifically, technology, communications, but unfortunately not all those advances have resulted in social and environmental advances as well. Secondly, when we think about the world today, we think about the fact that there are three billion people who live on less than $2 a day. We think about the fact that everyday 14,000 people are infected with HIV AIDS. And we also think about the fact that Warren Buffet just gave Bill Gates billions of dollars. So, there is a growing appreciation that the world has changed, the role of government in many countries has changed, if you think of Europe and the European Union and the role of individual governments, the role of business and business influence, both internationally and domestically. And a lot of these problems are not so simple to solve. I always say to people, you know, if we had a silver bullet for something, we would have solved this problem a long time ago. I mean HIV is a great example, because HIV AIDS started initially as a medical problem and it certainly has a medial aspect, but it affects labor, it affects economies, because of stigma it affects social issues, children can't get into schools in developing countries because there are no teachers to teach them because they've died from HIV/AIDS. So, the idea is, if only the medical people dealt with HIV/AIDS, they wouldn't solve the problem. And that's what's happening with many of the problems that we're facing today. So, I'm just going to highlight a few of these trends. The areas that are overlapping are really the areas that we're striving for for these partnerships. The likelihood that you are going to agree that everything that a business does that you agree with is probably not very likely. So the question is, is there an area where you can find common ground and you can feel comfortable with that partnership? So, some of the big trends: Obviously, globalization I've talked a little bit about; accountability, things like Sarbanes-Oxley, and the discussions that are going on for NGO accountability; both philanthropy and development assistance--and what I mean by that is the United Nations and US foreign aid have changed dramatically, and most recently, obviously, with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, there's lots of chatter on the Internet. They're growing shareholder resolutions to try to influence business practices. So all these things combined are really influencing these partnerships. So, what are the benefits? For corporations, one of the big benefits is image. I lived in Nigeria for several years, and one of the big issues with the oil companies was that they needed to have a social license to operate. I lived there when all the senior executive directors got death threats from people because the people who lived around where the oil was drilled didn't have electricity, didn't have water, and they didn't have education. So, more and more companies are being required to either have social license to operate--you can use the Nike and Gap sweatshop examples. So image and credibility is a big issue for corporations. They've also found that more and more people don't want to work for corporations who rape and pillage the land. People want to feel good about where they work. And, actually, when Kraft was bought by Altria, a lot of people at Kraft were like, "We don't want to work for a tobacco company." And they actually lost a lot of staff. So, whether it's through volunteering, whether it's through other ways of partnership, people are finding that if you're a good company and you're perceived that way, people want to work for you. And they have better retention, they have lower retraining costs, and they have a lot of skills development. Not all companies would say that. And on the NGO side, we get access to staff and skills: whether that's through volunteering, whether it's through someone like McKinsey doing pro-bono work to do your strategic plan, it's not just about the money. And what I tell my colleagues is that if you go in and you only ask for money, that's the best thing you can get when you walk away from the table. If you go in and you say, "We have this problem, "- -child hunger, whatever it is--"this is how we've been trying to solve it. How can you help us solve it?" Every single businessperson has said that they want to be engaged. They don't want to just write a check. So, the others are pretty self-explanatory. Misperceptions. So, you guys did a pretty good job on this: that they're self-interested, that they're part of the problem, that they're profit motivated, that they're dishonest. What do you think they think of us? [audience laughs] Audience member: Disorganized. Susan: Disorganized. Audience member: Not effective. Susan: Not effective. Audience member: Not goal-driven. Audience member: Delusional. Susan: Delusional! I don't know that they're that bad. That we're inefficient. That we're not very analytic or strategic. A lot of people say to me, because I work internationally, "Oh, you know you Peace Corps people, you're just out there doing good things, you never look at research, " that we're actually fostering dependency. And any of you who were in David LaPiana's session before this, he was saying sometimes we create the problems within our organizations that we're trying to solve and that we're highly political. A lot of times when you talk to businesspeople their perception of NGOs is Amnesty, or people chaining themselves to trees. That is certainly an important component of the NGO sector, but it's not the only part. We need to be better at articulating what NGOs are really all about. Partnerships are hard, anyways. I know that most people in here have been in partnerships. The thing that makes corporate partnerships really different is that number one: We have really different world views. Those of us know... How long does it take to mobilize a community? It's not something that you can do in a quarter to meet the stock analyst's needs. Our timeline is very different than business' timelines. It's not that one is right or one is wrong, it's just that we need to understand those differences. If we don't communicate that, they come from a mindset that we can do these things. Why can't you get the Ministry of Health to declare that HIV is a problem? You can't get the President of South Africa to declare it's a problem. This is a big issue, that we come from different cultures. Language. I have three different degrees. I have a different jargon for each of those different degrees. When I was a nurse - I was an intensive care nurse, and CPR to me means Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation. When I started doing international family planning, CPR means Contraceptive Prevalence Rate. Depending on who I'm speaking to. Then I went to business school, so now I know all about ROE and ROI, but my friends who do public health don't know what I'm talking about when I talk to them about that. So, one of the really clear things that we need to do as NGOs is when we talk to businesses to be very clear about... I can sit here and ramble on about different alphabet soup, but that doesn't help because businesspeople don't understand what you're talking about, and when they start talking about Net Present Value and ROI and ROE you don't understand it either. Different status. Generally speaking, most corporations are bigger than most nonprofits. The question is how do you... Number one, most nonprofits don't understand what their assets are. They don't quantify their assets. I worked for Care for many years, and we had a project with CDC. CDC was very upset because we weren't putting any money on the table. What we ended up actually doing was saying, "But you're working in ten of our country offices. The value of those country offices is this, because we pay for the phones. We pay for the telecom. We have the license to operate in the community." We were able to say to them, "We're bringing just as much money as you, plus we're bringing our connections in the community." You need to really understand what you're assets are when you sit down with someone in a business arrangement. I think we also, as NGOs, need to really enhance our negotiating skills. The last thing, we have really different kinds of decision making. Generally, we're consensus oriented, participatory consensus organizations. Business isn't, necessarily. Although that ranges. There are some companies that are very centralized, and some countries that are very decentralized. I'm going to talk about four different kinds of partnerships very quickly. James Austin, who's written "The Collaboration Challenge" talks about the philanthropic relationship. He talks about the Gratefulness in Charity Syndrome. What that means is that as NGOs, we're so grateful to get any money that we'll do anything that they say. We don't really negotiate anything. Businesses are so happy to give money - They feel really good about it, and it's good charity. It's good PR. There's very little involvement and there's very little expectation among the two parties. If we think about levels of effort going... Levels of involvement increasing. We talk about a transactional fee for service. NGOs hire accounting companies to do their accounting. Businesses, for example, Chevron has hired the Institute of International Education to manage a fellowship program for them. So, those are very defined, very specific types of partnerships. The next two have much more interactive importance in the organization and many more people are involved. The first one in joint programming, which would include cause related marketing. Things like licensing agreements. And then the last is integrated. The best example I can give is Timberland and City Year. Timberland and City Year are co-housed. They're so integrated that if they got divorced, or they decided that they didn't want to be partners anymore, Timberland's brand - both brands would extremely suffer. They have people on each other's boards. It's very integrated. OK, so here are the questions. I'm going to go through these very quick because we're going to talk about them later. Number one, you need to figure out why you want to collaborate with anyone. Whether it's a partner, whether it's a foundation, whether it's another nonprofit. Why are you doing this? Why does it make sense? How does it fit within the other stuff that you're doing? A lot of times we don't do this. Secondly, what type of collaboration do you want? Do you just want a philanthropic relationship? That's fine. There's nothing wrong with it, but you need to have some idea of what kind of partnership you want. Who to partner with. This could be an university. It could be a government, but if you're thinking about a corporation the second question that you need to ask is, "Who within the corporation do I need to partner with?" The reason that I say that is if you want to do cause related marketing, don't go to the corporate foundation because cause related marketing is done by the marketing department. That's why once you figure out what type of collaboration you want to have it makes it easier to figure out where to go within the corporation to start in that process. There are three other questions. What is the relationship mechanism going to be? What is the required level of effort? And what is the desired outcome of the partnership? If we think about this first kind of partnership, which is basically a philanthropic one. They give in kind donations. The people who need to be involved are the person who is managing the project, the financial officer, and someone from senior management. What they really want is they want the project outcome. You want to educate 1, 500 kids. If we look at the integrative, you can see that the relationship mechanism is - Maybe you have several projects with these people. These projects are usually CEO to CEO. There is very heavy involvement with senior management with both organizations. A variety of staff is involved, and different departments in both organizations. The outcomes are, number one, whatever the project is about. It's about greater visibility for both organizations. It's about improved relationships, and it's about value added for each of the partners. This is really to stimulate your thinking. I'm going to hand this - First I want to welcome Randy and John from Wells Fargo. I think I'm going to hand it over to Jim to go into the case examples. Jim Pitofsky: Thanks, Susan. Can you hear me fine with this mike? [applause] Jim: You can hear me OK? Good. First, let me get a sense for those in the room. How many of you are with a nonprofit? How many are with a business? Hope you were not insulted by the words that were said before. Maybe it's good Randy didn't hear it, but it was... Sorry you missed it too. What I wanted to do is just - I'm going to try to just give four examples of companies that I've worked with, or some of my colleagues have worked with. I'm going to try to give a variety of examples so you can see both how they've been created and how the benefits were. How you can see different types of ways that they manifest. I'm going to try to give a variety of examples so you can see both how they've been created and how they benefits were and how you can see different types of ways they manifest. I'm going to give a local, national, and international example. I'm also going to try to give you an examples of ones that are either engaged in volunteers, engaged in costly marketing money or any kind of support. OK, my name is Jim Pitofsky. I'm the executive director of Hands On Bay Area. And we are local here throughout the bay area managing over 10,000 volunteers throughout the bay area. So we support over 300 community agencies for free and volunteers to 10,000 volunteers, we don't charge them as well. So, we provide this service and several thousand volunteers come through us through companies. So Gap and Cisco and Schwab and Levis and Accenture and others, about 60+ companies contract with us: pay us actually to manage part or all of their corporate volunteer work. And the perspective I bring is not only with hands on because I've just become the E.D. in January, but I've run different nonprofits and foundations and been a coach to CEOs and/or a partner to many CEOs or companies. So that's why I'm trying to draw on some of these examples. So, thanks for reminding me to back up. So, I'll start with one that actually got me started in a way that I didn't expect. And I purposely start with this example because I don't want you to think that you have to know somebody. I get frustrated sometimes when I go to speeches and somebody's telling them something and they're like, "Oh how'd you meet that CEO?" "Oh, well I was sitting in first class and they were sitting next to me. [audience laughs] But what does that do for me? That's never going to happen. So, I'm never going to get started. So, I went--this is more than 10 years ago, --to a conference and Anita Roddick, the then CEO and the founder of The Body Shop, was speaking and she was the keynoter. And in her speech she said three separate things that she wasn't connecting, but I tried to connect in my head. One was that she was talking about the value of employee volunteerism and how she created paid release time. So she would pay employees who wanted to go to volunteer rather than seeing it as something they do on their own time. And why she valued that as a company. Separately, she talked about the value of, for example, addressing environmental needs and why corporate America needed to address that. And third she talked about the need to inculcate an ethic of service within youth today. And at the time I was working at a nonprofit in education trying to integrate service directly into school curricula so students could learn through real life experience. So, I waited in line at her book signing and as a fledgling nonprofit person I didn't even buy the book. So, you do not need to do that. I want you to know. And when I got to the front of the line I just said, "I heard what you said and I ticked off those three things. Have you ever thought about integrating them together, where your employees go out, side by side with students, to address environmental problems and they could learn more and provide a greater experience for your employees to then educate students and provide assistance to schools that are under resourced?" Something like that. I don't even know. I then wrote a letter to her as a follow up, saying not how great we were or how great I was, but what I heard her say that she wanted to address and how we could help them get there. And Anita immediately put me in touch with people. And as the visionary that she is, she wanted to start on an international scale right out of the gate. [audience laughs] And I wasn't ready. And I'm glad that I good mentors to discipline me not to go blast out. And I really recommend starting out small. So, we worked with some of her local stores in the D.C. metro area to engage all their employee volunteers in this service activity with schools right on environmental needs. We then tracked how it worked, both with the process--I'm definitely a process geek, so it's not just about the outcomes, but it's also about how you get there, how you do the orientation, how you prepare them, how you market it, how, you engage the employees actually in feeling they have some investment? Tracking on the corporate side, how are sales impacted? Like within two years, we tracked that sales went up over 90%. And that it was directly attributable to the service they were doing because we asked the customers, "Why are you here?" Why did you come to begin with? Or why are you coming as a repeat customer?" And they said because they saw the employees out there in their Body Shops t- shirts in their child's school or in their community. That was a powerful thing to show to Anita. And then lo and behold, we then went regional, national, international and we did a whole cause-related marketing campaign to try and gauge their customer base in actually getting involved in schools, addressing environmental needs. But, that did not happen overnight, even when Anita wanted to and I'm glad we didn't. I tell that story because I want you to know that you can reach people. People are accessible or just go to these kinds of things you don't need to know somebody. A simpler example, or a shorter story: Calphalon, the cookware, you all know that? Like it's the high end cookware? Well, Share Our Strength, that is one of the largest hunger relief organizations in the country, decided to build a cause-related marketing campaign with Calphalon. And what they did was, they aligned themselves with the least expensive pot in the Calphalon market, a pot that was created for them. And it was labeled as the SOS pot with a portion of the proceeds going to SOS. That pot outsold every pot in the history of Calphalon. And as a result of that, then Calphalon started to get the premier displays within Bloomingdales, Lord and Taylor, and other stores, that they had not been receiving. It actually put them further on the map than they had ever been. And all the other pots, none of which were giving a penny to SOS, were all moved into that great thing. So the story that Billy tells -- Billy Shore who heads up Share Our Strength and who writes great books like "Revolution of the Heart, " and other books like that that I recommend, where he talks about cause-related marketing campaigns and how he's learned from it -- the CEO presented in a press conference a check to Billy, quite sizable. It was something like $100,000. And Billy said that's the easiest money we ever got. You just gave us this ability, you raised our visibility, and you handed us a check. And the CEO whispered to Billy, "Well, if we just gave you that much, imagine how much we made." [laughter] Jim: And that's the kind of relationships that I want to encourage you to actually build. Because Calphalon was actually thankful to SOS. Billy felt like he advanced his mission while getting dollars, which is always difficult, and Calphalon felt, what a great relationship. And then it opened up doors for Billy to go to other companies. Just two other examples: I worked with a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. And there I was organizing different volunteers and I was working in partnership with different companies. One company went there and one of the employees in my presence asked a naive question. Excuse the question, but I'll just tell you what it was, which was, they asked one of the residents, how is it that you are here in a shelter when there are so many jobs? I don't understand. There are want ads, I don't get it. But this person asked with a naive sincerity about it, but at least asked directly. The resident said, well, you've gone through the job process, but you haven't gone through it like me. I don't have voice mail. I have a pay phone that services the 60 residents in this shelter and I can't get a message. When I put my address down, I have to write such-and-such shelter, and people won't even call if I even get past go. Well, when the employee heard that, he said, you know, I never even thought about that. That sobers me. And, you know, we have surplus voice mail boxes. And so they donated the voice mail boxes to all the residents in the shelter. And within two weeks, 80% of the people had jobs. I tell that story because, when you also venture into corporate partnerships, you don't need to set out exactly what the parameters are, or set a ceiling on what it is. Just get engaged, and you'll see it sometimes organically happens. And change can be effected too. Don't dumb down volunteerism and think that volunteerism is just about feeding people. It can be and that's a critical thing. It can effect change too and you won't even be able to anticipate all the change that can be effected. And the last one is just: I worked with State Farm Insurance when I was at the National Youth Leadership Council. This is an example about trying to make sure that you honor your mission while also recognizing the mission and unique resources of the company. We got dollars from them, quite considerable dollars, about a million a year. But what we also got was, we were working with students. And State Farm was saying, well, we want to educate teenage drivers to be safer around drunk driving, seat belt safety, using their cell phone. So it was in their best interests from an insurance standpoint to reach 16-and-over drivers. So we built a national campaign called "Project Ignition" with them where they funded us to then do a national competition for students to come up with different plans and campaigns, that would then become media campaigns and then become documentary kind of things that then they would show within their communities and then on the news. Then they'd be flown in to our national conference. State Farm gave us a considerable amount of support to do this, but it was also in their business interests. They got great publicity around it. It advanced their business interests because they are in the business of insurance. Personally I know there are varying reactions among, well, we shouldn't help them. Some people say that. And I just feel like, as long as you're honoring your mission, you're doing OK. And I'll just give one corollary to this. There was one time where I was offered -- it was the first time I had ever been offered a million dollars by a foundation to do something. It would have been great. Basically, OK, I'll explain. It's not a company, but I want to give it as an example. I was working kindergarten through 12 and they wanted us to work with higher education. It would have been incredible to do it, I had never been offered any money like that, it was my first nonprofit. I said, "No." The reason I did was because I stayed true to my mission. You will be offered dollars where it takes you off, and you will be incentivized to do so, you will be persuaded to do so, and it doesn't make your business bad. Don't demonize them, they're trying to advance an interest too, and they're trying to gauge whether you're interested. As long as you can stay on your core mission while honoring their mission too and recognizing it is a partnership and not a hand up begging. You're relationship will grow. The reason I love working in the field of nonprofit for private partnerships, and I'm proud about that, is because I treat it as a partnership. And as a result, more companies contact us unsolicited and want to engage. I'll have more examples as we go, but I wanted to just give it some breath. So thank you. [applause] Randy Chung: I'm Randy Chung with the Wells Fargo Foundation. I've been there 11 years now. Basically I'm a commercial banker by trade. I've been with the bank for going on 20 years now. They had me do this as part-time, exactly 80 percent of my time for the last 11 years. I haven't done any lending in 11 years so I don't know how they let us do this for 11 years. [laughter] Randy: So before I get going, I'm a very corporate guy, as you can see, for 20 years. Our attorney's asked us to show you our disclaimer statement before we move on. [laughter] Randy: This is what it's all about with corporate giving. I read Susan's PowerPoint and I was just amazed at her talking about corporate responsibility. We try to keep it really simple. I hang around with the Fortune 500 guys, so we all talk the same language. I see IBM up there. So we all take away the same language, we all give away the same amount of money. None of us really understand what corporate responsibility is, what that means. Because, in the eyes of the public, to us, it's how much money do we give away and what would get to us? That's what really the corporate guys are looking at. Kind of head lights, what makes us look like a good corporate citizen? And we make no apologies about it because the fact is, corporations make up maybe four percent to five percent of total giving in the United States. So it's not a lot of money. But we make no apologies at Wells Fargo that we gave away $116 million last year and we on run a rate for about $120 million this year. What I'm going to do is kind of give you an idea of what Wells Fargo is like, because you'll find that a lot of the major corporations are generally in their foundation department or generally organized in this manor. So for us, we reported about $95 million last year in total giving's. When you add in property, in kind giving, we're in the rage of about $116 million. That ranks us third among financial institutions. Basically, what makes us tick is what we invest in. This is what we did in California last year. As you can see, it's relatively a small range of areas that we give to. I just wanted to highlight the main one because this is where you need to go if you want to form a long term relationship with any type of corporation. I can only speak for Wells Fargo, but our focus is: because we're a financial institution in community development or economic development. That's the best fit for us. We're a bank; we understand economic development issues, affordable housing, small business, technical assistance, and job development. If you come to me and ask me; you want to have a long term relationship let's say based upon human services. That's not going to make my clock spin because first of all, I have a graduate degree in business, so I know nothing about human services. Basically I know about the widgets of affordable housing and I know how small business technical assistance works. If you come to Wells Fargo, or BofA, or Citibank, they're going to be more interested in looking at those types of areas. If you asked them about human services, they may give you a small grant, maybe for a year or something of that nature, but there's not going to be a long term relationship. I think that's the way you have to look at corporations. What's in it for them, what's their main expertise? Basically, let's say in the east bay, these are the type of organizations I work with. There's an organization called Satellite Housing. I think there's somebody here from Satellite, they do affordable housing for senior citizens. Now they're moving out to a more general population, low to moderate income housing units. A New America works with immigrants and they start them off giving them small business technical assistance in small business. The Center for Employment Training, they train low to moderate income populations in positions where they can get in at entry level such as doctor's assistant, medical assistant, something of that nature; carpentry. The second thing you need to know about corporations that make us tick, is most corporations were relatively decentralized. Decisions are normally made at the local level. I'll tell you why. You're looking at the bucket right up here. I have to sign off on the check essentially; however, I don't shop any anybody's Safeway. So for instance, my territory goes all the way down to Los Angeles and other states. So if somebody tells me from Idaho that they want to do "XYZ" organization, like I say, I don't shop at your Safeway. I don't if that organization does good work, I don't know the reputation in that organization. So I'll sign off as long as it meets certain template guidelines. Our templates of coarse look at financial stability, every organization has their core values that they want to look at to make sure the organization falls into that area. What the local markets normally have is simply committees that met maybe once a quarter or once a month and discuss some of the requests that come in. At Wells Fargo, we measure them by the foot. We get about three and one half feet of requests everyday. What we do is pass it out to the various markets for them to make the decision and then send it in for me to fund it. That's how it works. In terms of forming the relationship, true, it's nice to have a relationship with good old Randy Chung, the bucket... [laughter] Randy: But he's not the guy that's formally going to say, for instance in Visalia, "Let's fund this." You're best relationship is the other 150,000 employees that we have out in the company, and I won't even say the CEO. In the 11 years that I've been at the Wells Fargo foundation, my CEO has never requested that I fund a specific project. He's sent me letters saying this is a wonderful idea, why don't you take a look at it. I funded it. [laughter] Randy: Basically, it's our employee's out in the field. It's IBM, their employee's out on the field, they bring in the requests, and they really determine what's important to the company. We look at them as our eyes in the community. I needed to throw in a few charts because I'm a banker so I just thought I'd throw that in. [laughter] Randy: I come back to that, see? That's what we look at. It's a strategic giving pattern. They met; they look at, "Hey, do we have anybody on the board?" They look at that chart. I was just even being facetious, but that chart talked about small business development. They kind of look at that way of thing and say, "Hey, does this organization fit into our strategy of developing small business?" And then when they all say, "OK", they send it to me, and Randy Chung signs off, and you've got your check. It's a very simple process. In corporate structure, because we really don't have levels, board members. It's usually one person or two people that can simply sign the check, and you're looking at the bucket here. Susan: So I think with that, we wanted to try and open it to questions. Irene Dobson: My name's Irene Dobson, and I work for a government organization that has a number of affiliates in the Bay Area. We're each going to the same bucket, and I'm wondering how you would accept a proposal from the whole group instead of the little ones on their own, and how much of a difference that makes. It makes sense to me that we should be doing that as a region, rather than on our own. But I'm just wondering... Randy: Most corporations like to fund an organization once a year, because we like to spread it around. I'll give you an example. You probably know we're the number one funder in the Bay Area. We're probably the largest funder in California. We did $14 billion last year in the Bay Area, but that was 1,300 grants. So you do the math on that, it's a lot of organization, but it's not very large grants. So if an organization like you, and I can speak for my corporate brethren, they're just trying to spread it around. We have a lot of stakeholders in the community, so if you came at me nine different ways, and you hit nine different people, and they're employees in the community, and they all sent me nine different grants, I'll see it because we have a centralized database. I'll say "No way are we going to fund this." That's when I can say no. We want to do it one time, and that's it. Female Questioner Event sponsorships? What's the difference between applying for an 2: actual program or project versus... Randy: She's asking me about event sponsorship. There's really no difference for most corporations. It's just a matter of how we structure it, how we pay it out. This session is about making a relationship with a corporation. Event sponsorship, if that's your first touch with the corporation, that's the worst way to start it off. Because you're asking us to brand with your organization, and we know nothing about your organization. So why would I want to put my name on your organization so that you can put it on your web site and put banners and tell the public that we're supporting you when I know nothing about you. For all I know, you might embarrass us down the line. That's the main thing. If you ever embarrass a corporate giver once, you never get money from them again. Questioner 3: What is the best way to start a relationship with various corporates who are looking at a lot of Silicon Valley high tech companies, for instances. Randy: Like I say, you just need to meet... I'm not going to say everybody in the organization has the same amount of influence, but let's say you need someone relatively senior in the organization. It doesn't have to be somebody with the foundation. If they are impressed with you, or they like your program, they will bring it up to the foundation people. I gave you the example of my CEO, and I was not being facetious. The more senior it is, the more I trust their relationship, their opinion. So if Dick, our senior, writes me a letter and says "Hey, this organization is great, " I'm sure I'm doing it because he's my CEO and I don't want to work in Alaska. But also, I'm assuming Dick has very good judgment, so I'm going to look at that very seriously, as opposed to someone who's been with the company a year and is at an entry-level position. Man: So always do your homework, that's obvious, about the different companies. But one thing I don't get, and I think it's so obvious, is go where the companies are. There are many conferences where it's almost entirely companies, but nonprofits are not excluded, and I'm a kid in a candy store. So example of Social Venture Network, and Business for Social Responsibility, to membership organizations that are based here in San Francisco but are national, and have grown international in scope. I've been a nonprofit member, and I've gotten so much from it, and Anita Rotic was one of those members. I met her before becoming that, she's the one who introduced me. She and that network introduced me to so many different companies, including CEOs. Some of it is just targeting certain companies by doing your research and connecting their issue with yours or their constituency that they're interested in, or geography. But another example of just making cold calls, I want to give one. It's like, read the magazines that they might read, or read the things where they win awards. Because I found when I read them, like I remember a business ethics magazine was running their social responsibility awards for different corporates. It was describing, from the corporate perspective, from the CEO perspective, why they did what they did. It helped me understand. So when I made the approach, in this case it was to the then CEO of Odwalla, I read the article and I immediately just called Greg Steltenpohl. I didn't know him, and you'd be surprised. I just called. I'm not saying always go for the CEO. This one I just tried. I called and they said "And you are?" I just said my name, and they're like "OK, we'll put you through." Nobody questioned who I was, nobody asked. Next thing I know, I'm on the phone with Greg. And the thing I said on my first interaction was, "Congratulations on winning the award with this ethics magazine. I read what you said you were excited about, and I also read your challenges. Can you talk more about that, because I might be able to help?" The fact that he was that accessible and reachable... But he talked about his challenges, and then we tried to figure out ways that we could help, and we became partners for a good while. Again, it doesn't mean do that all the time. What I'm saying is, by reading that magazine, it helped me understand, and it opened a window. I didn't even know necessarily about Odwalla's interest until I read it, and I didn't know what language to do to do it. But I didn't use their language just to B.S. him, to say "Oh yes, we can do whatever you say." It was, "I saw a fit, and that's what inspired me to call." So there's different things. Female Speaker: And I think, just to add on, is that I think sometimes it's like, "Well, how do we start?" Just do something. I have to say, I have had amazing responses to writing letters to Senior Vice Presidents and CEOs. In fact, I wrote to the CEO of Levi's and said I'm really interested in what you're doing. I know you're really busy. Is there somebody on your staff? This is what my interests are. And a week later, I had an email from someone. It doesn't work all the time, but what's the worst they can say? I mean, the worst is you don't get a letter back. You're not any worse than what you started. Norma Hotaling: You answered some of this, but how do you best approach a corporation? I'm Norma Hotaling, I'm the executive director of SAGE Project, and we work with commercially, sexually exploited youth. How do you approach a corporation that may be inadvertently contributes to that, and partner with them without embarrassing them? [laughter] Alana: Are you asking me? Susan: I think when you walk in to have your first meeting, is that you have to have... A lot of things that people said about corporations being prisons, being impenetrable. OK, those are corporations, but the fact is, corporations are made up of people. They're people just like us, and they have kids, and they go to school, and they do all the same things that we do. A lot of times, particularly in the early part of partnerships, it's those relationships that will make that partnership work. I think that if you go into a partnership and assume that these people are bad, and they're sin incarnate, you're never going to get anywhere. So I think you have to at least go in with some good faith and say "These are the issues." A lot of the campaigning organizations that I've talked to lay out what the issues are. For example, the campaign that was against McDonald's for chicken, they had actually had ongoing dialogue with them for two years, and then felt that nothing had really happened. This is why I think negotiation skills are so key. Because I think that you need to be able to lay out what the issues are. But all the corporations that have had problems, they say "Well we never want to talk to those people," and that's how protests start. That's how campaigns start. So somehow, you have to figure out a way of opening that dialogue, and maybe not starting with the worst scenario. When I talked to this guy from PET, he said that they had six criteria that they wanted McDonald's to change how they dealt with chickens and how they farmed them, and they changed two. And a lot of the environmental groups came back and said, "Oh, but they didn't change all six." And they're like, "but they changed two huge things." And now other people are trying to catch up with them. So at some point as non profits it's like if you don't save everybody in the world then we haven't had any kind of accomplishment. So it's like you got to figure out how long you're going to chastise people and if they make some good movement then you have to at least acknowledge that. Randy: I used to run the Echoing Green Foundation. Some of you may know that. And what it does is it funds, and I was funded by them originally so I love them. They gave me my start in this field. They fund social entrepreneurs around the world to effect social change and very often do things in really dicey situations. Sometimes at the threat of their own life. That wasn't the case for me. And so a number of the fellows, the grantees, were doing things that weren't as salable as Special Olympics or Habitat for Humanity or something like that. And one of the things I recommend is actually looking at Echoing Green. Like looking at the portfolio because they list all of them. And they show Cuz and others and see who are your colleagues even if it doesn't eclipse exactly like 911 post discrimination kind of activity. But are doing things that are a little dicier, not as mainstream. Stop Prisoner Rape is like one of them. A friend of mine worked there. You know that kind of thing though. One was dealing with trafficking of women in Russia and she went under cover. They were all facing this issue. What you can do is look at who supported them. Don't start from scratch. Really just don't. And just keep looking and start your search not just on the corporate side. Don't just go to the corporate directories because I think that s harder. I think look at your colleagues and do that. Look like at the Reebok Human Rights Award winners and then see who funded each of those Reebok Human Rights Award winners. Who funded each of the Echoing Green fellows? Who funded the ones that work in similar space that you think doesn't sell itself as easily? Because it is challenging. I mean I feel for you because it's not as easy as if you work with youth. But I wouldn't give up and I'd start more from the NGO side than the corporate side and then work backwards. Alana: In the back. Questioner: I'm an environmental attorney and I worked both. I was with corporations and right now I'm in the process of starting a nonprofit and especially more advocacy work. And I work with many corporations who have very, very admirable accomplishments socially and I've seen individuals on the inside who are ready to give as much as they can. And now that I'm switching into working in the nonprofit sector I see a lot of skepticism from people who are so supportive of causes but they say, "OK, if you partner with this corporation I'm going to think you're evil and there's something going on here." So, how do you combat that? Because I can [inaudible] corporation it can have a wonderful agreement and absolute sincerity but then when you try to get supporters on the outside they immediately shut off and it's only getting worse with all the scandals so how do you balance that? Where do you draw the line and go, "OK I'll deal with this company but not that one?" I mean you can do your homework but then it's a leap of faith almost to get in bed with a certain... Susan: Well I think that it is. And one of the things that I say to corporations is that there are Enrons in the nonprofit world just like there are Enrons in the corporate world. It's not because all corporations are bad. There are bad corporations. There are bad NGOs. There are badly managed NGOs. And I think that the idea, I mean part of it is there isn't a lot of trust. And that's for a variety of reasons and all the things that we listed. You know there are the Enrons and there are scandals on both sides and at some point people are going to have to say, "OK that all happened but now we're going to try to figure out how to work." And I think there are more partnerships. There are more partnerships that are being sustainable. But it's like you got to put in the work and you've got to be able to get people to at least have that space and go in with good will and say, "OK we're going to try to sit down with the corporations. Whichever corporation you pick." There's various philosophies. Some people say that if they're really bad you shouldn't work with them because it will tarnish your brand. Other people say, "Well if we're really working for the poor and they're really doing child labor then maybe we should work with the ones who are the worst if we can actually get them to change what they're doing." So I think that's an individual decision or an organizational decision that each NGO has to decide and I think that different criteria fit for different organizations --NGOs. Jim: And I'll add I remember when I was a member of Business for Social Responsibility about 10 years ago or so and Monsanto joined and there was objection on the part of a good number of the members. What's Monsanto doing in the room? And I have to say, and I'll go out on a limb on this, I loved and respected Bob Dunn the head of BSR's response. He used to run Levi's foundation and his response was, "Well, what are we about? Like are we supposed to be Ivory pure and are we claiming that we are? Isn't BSR supposed to be about trying to get those to be more socially responsible? We're not giving our Hallmark seal of approval to say that they are socially responsible. We're a group that's trying to convene to figure out how to be so. So I want them in the room rather than to vilify them and then I'm the hypocrite if I don't let them in the room." And going further, I've worked with some companies that I think do good work and also have their challenges; Gap and Nike and stuff like that. At different times, they've taken their hits and other times they've done great stuff. I've seen them improve in a variety of ways even if they're not Ivory pure. But personally, and this is more personally, I want to be in the room. I'm glad I'm in the room. I want you in the room. I want you to be working with them. Don't give up on them otherwise sorry but shame on you that you're just writing them off. We can have an impact and I feel like I don't know many Ivory pure companies. So get in the mix and effect change rather than curse the wind. Man 2: [inaudible] when you're sort of planning your year out and say what do we want to do we want to go after 12, 20 corporations and get money or do we want to maybe get six for the whole year? Jim: Yeah, I mean everybody's different on this and my take on it is, also you may want to talk about being approached. For me I've always felt like it's not worth it to cast a wide net. I find that too many nonprofits feel like they can check something off their box and feel proud if they send out 500 solicitations but 480 of them they don't even know anybody there, it's a cold call. It was a good waste of the time and a stamp and a good waste of the time of that company. I think if you go deeper and really do your homework and cultivate a relationship so the person who receives that request actually knows it's coming and you actually know that they're going to receive it with some warmth. It doesn't mean it's a guarantee that they're going to accept it. So for us, like for Hands On we have Hands On Bay Area Day. It's October 14 here and 2,500 people are going to be volunteering throughout the Bay Area and one of the kickoff sites it here at Berkeley. And with many corporate sponsors for it. The community in the bay area is very rich with companies but we're not sending out a thousand solicitations. We're going out to the ones who are known to volunteer, we have relationships to, or we have some referral to and then we invest in actually making calls or doing some more work to see will they receive it and receive it with some warmth rather than just "OK didn't know it was coming." I know that sounds sort of intuitive but I just have to say I don't know if, for any of you who are nonprofits, a lot of development directors just feel like they just need this, send out as many and they are on record for doing that. It's never borne fruit for me where I've been. And because I've been more focused I've had a very high yield rate. Man 2: Maybe I didn't ask the question correctly. Jim: Or maybe I didn't answer it correctly. Man 2: Well I like your response, but weather or not we should consider maybe five corporate sponsors to sponsor the whole year to sponsor our organization or to have to go after when I plan an event and I have three of them do I need three separate groups of people? Jim: I'll give a shorter answer. For us we're going through that shift what you're describing. Before I came on we would get discrete sponsorships for unique events and unique things. Now we're looking at funders to fund across the board, and to give them visibility, because we have great partners, some of the ones that I mentioned before. But instead of doing these one-off deals, first of all it's a lot more work for you to have to keep approaching. But also bundle it. I mean the other thing is I feel like I'm almost treating it like we're approaching them a la carte. How about we give them a full menu of things and then we give them a break a little bit. But it's good for us, because now instead of seeking $20,000 here, $10,000 here, from the same company, I'm saying, if you bundle these six things, we'll do a total for $90. It would have been $120, but now we're done. And we're going to give you higher visibility in all of these regards. And it's working. Man 2: How important is it to be a consumer or customer of the corporation in order to seek funding? [murmuring] Man 2: My former occupation, I work in legal services. In my former organization I knew your bank manager. They saw what work we were doing, how many great claims we were getting coming into the bank. They were helping process our daily customers. Another thing is it was a good relationship. Now your organization stopped working with [inaudible] a few years ago before I came. And I'm wondering whether or not I should approach that corporation now and how? [inaudible] [laughter] Jim: I'll put it this way. A couple of years ago, maybe ten years ago, maybe six years ago, we stopped funding the Boy Scouts because of their position on... Man 1: Discrimination. Woman 1: Yeah. Jim: We called it a discriminatory position. So in one day consumers pulled out I think $180 million from us. Woman 1: It was a lot. Jim: So the CFO gave us a call and said, hey, what's going on? [laughter] Jim: And we said, well, about $180 million was removed. He says, well, give a call to Joe and Joe is ahead of him. So I called Joe. And Joe said, well, don't bother me until it hits a billion. [laughter] Jim: So I just give you that point. When you're talking with large corporations, the fact that you have an account with us or a relationship, it better be relatively large to have an impact. But it's just another factor. It's not a huge factor. I can honestly say, 80% of the grants that I sign, I have no idea if they bank with us or not. I don't want to know. The only time I know is if it's coming from very, very senior, and they tell me, hey, these guys have a $900 million relationship with us, or something of that nature. In that case, yeah, they want me to know that. But other than that... [laughter] Man 3: I don't think anybody in this room has a relationship with Wells Fargo at that level. So it's not a relevant subject. Woman 1: Yeah. Man 4: I'm wondering about the timing of the cycle, both from the timing of the proposal letter sent out, about how long after that until we should expect some kind of a response? And then how long after that for funding? And a second thing, if I may, is any comments or do's and don'ts or advice with regard to the corporate employee giving programs? Man 1: That's good. [murmuring] [laughter] Jim: We can do it in 60 days. I mean, we turn everything around in 60 days. The only thing we cannot do, and most of my brethren in corporate giving, is give you status within that time. The simple fact is it's a matter of logistics. You get a three-foot stack, you just start looking at it chronologically. And if somebody calls two weeks later and says what's the status, it could be in that three- foot stack. And you just don't know. So that's one of the do's and don'ts: don't call to ask what's the status if that corporation's guidelines say we have 60 days to take a look at it. And more than likely they will respond within that time. I talk with most of my brethren. They have a system, they get some response out within that time. If they cannot respond in that time, there was a time when we were sending little postcards saying, I'm sorry, we're not going to respond within 60 days, but we're getting to it. So the issue, no, we got it. Woman 2: Yeah, and I think one of the myths that I hear a lot of nonprofits say is that, oh, corporations have so much money and they're very decisive, and so... Susan: Yeah, and I think one of the myths that I hear from a lot of nonprofits is that, oh, corporations have so much money and they're very decisive and so we'll just do this proposal and they'll give us a million dollars in a month. And my experience and the people that I've interviewed's experience is that, while corporations can make decisions very quickly, they don't always seem to make these kinds of decisions very quickly. And certainly for international grants, it can take nine months to a year preparing for things. And if you don't have an established relationship with a partner, with an organization, a corporation, it can also take that long, because there are often many different channels to go through. And oftentimes they start with very small grants or very small kinds of relationships, because if there isn't a relationship, trust is a huge issue. So they want to see, are you an NGO that does what you say you're going to do? Can you perform? Do you have that capacity? And then you can start doing other kinds of things. Randy: And I'll just add two things: one, 60 days is great and unusual. It generally moves at a glacial pace and it frustrates you. But hang in there. But on the employee giving question, one thing I'd recommend is trying to cultivate employee ambassadors on your behalf. That's the best way to do it. Now this is not an example of a CEO. This is just somebody at whatever level who can get something on the corporate intranet and post it, or make sure it's featured on the employee giving site. Some have access and it's really quite democratic, depending on the company, and it's not that you need to be an executive. Then there are some companies that have structures that are in place, processes that are in place, like Levis. So Levis has CIT's, Community Involvement Teams. And what they do is, they volunteer in communities, they volunteer through us and Hands On. And then if the employees believe in the organization that they have now served, they then have the authority to give a grant of I think $5,000 to that nonprofit. They are given that authority as a recognition of their volunteerism for that NGO. That's not common, but it's not rare. And so looking for those kind of companies can provide some access for you as well. Woman: OK. Jim: I did want to add that while we don't give away a lot of money per organization, the relationship is critical to start, because once you're in our system and the trust is built up, it is very hard for me to remove you. And you will find that out of the 1,400 grants we give out, I would say 90 percent of them are redundant. It's the same organization. Because, heck, it's a no-brainer for Randy Chen because these guys are not going to embarrass me. They come in, Vyselius says "hey, let's do this. Oh, no problem. Sign off." Then you don't even have to worry about it. So once that partnership in established, in the long term you may end up with a substantial amount of money. But not in the short term. Alana: Sir? Man 3: All right. Is there a good suggestion for a financial value over which you'd see this done at the bottom of the corporation? We're a very small organization right now. We stayed in the black for our first two years in a row. It's our third year. We could grow with zero benefits, we could grow under ten thousand dollars for two years in a row. We could grow into a much larger corporate grant mission to have. Is there a dollar amount schedule for that? What's the low-down? Jim: As long as you're sustainable; I mean I look at financials, I see organizations that have $28,000 in revenues. So it's not an issue with me as long as I can see that you're sustainable. And the grant's not going to be $28,000. You have a $28,000 revenue, you'll probably get a couple thousand dollars to start. And as you grow, the grant gets larger and larger. Alana: Here. Woman 3: I don't have a way with words. Our organizations does spend a lot of time and effort and thankfully not very much money creating a sponsorship opportunity document for corporations. Do you recommend that that be tailored for each specific relationship-building situation? We're including in a packet of a lot of other materials, do you want to see other things corporations have the time to? I mean I think I have an answer to that, but how much do you want to give to a person for background or sort of inspirational, pumping them up for the conversation? Alana: Do you want to answer that? Male Respondent Sponsorships don't pump me up. It's a strategic decision. It's a 1: business decision. So, if I see an organization that does XYZ, it doesn't--I'm sorry it doesn't--bring tears to my eyes unless it's something that I personally am involved with. And it's simply a business decision with all the corporate givers. Female 2: So, you're funder in essence of that. Questioning is more pertinent to clients you work with, Jim, because you're working with relationships of corporations that are not funding per se or not necessarily funding. Jim: My simple answer would be to customize. It goes to the same thing I was saying about like not casting a wide net and going so thin that it's diluted and it's just dumbed down to the--it doesn't mean anything to anybody. Same thing for foundations, I mean I don't feel like we just cut and paste the entire thing and say, "OK, now go here." And the same thing with the companies, I'll try to pull out quotes from the philanthropy corporate director or from the CEO or things that they got positive press around or I'll try to turn their own words--I don't mean this in a negative way but--turn it on them. You know and say I heard you say this. From a corporate standpoint or the individual standpoint, and we can advance that and here's how. And so by making it a little bit unique and I don't' think that's very spectacular, but people just don't spend the time doing that; It's worth it. Susan: And I would say, "Less is more, " because I see nonprofit folders that they give to corporations that have you know six volumes of newsletters and that's great, but basically if you can make your pitch in five minutes to a business person, you don't even have a chance. And so really thinking about what's the most important for them. Pulling that out in a way so that it's this is who you are, this is what you do, this is--and making it easy for them. I mean even for foundations, make it easier for them. But I think a lot of times as NGOs, we just put tons of stuff in there and then as the person who's going to fund it--because I used to work for the US government-- you still have to go through it all -- and I just in a simple one page sheet, I want to know who you are, what you do, how can you help me. Female 2: So, documents that indicate levels of sponsorship wouldn't necessarily be awful? Susan: I guess it depends on what you're asking. Randy: Combined with other information or persuasive letter, yes. Susan: Yeah, I mean first of all I would say--and Randy mentioned this before that --out of all philanthropy, only 12 percent comes from corporations: 88 percent comes from individuals and foundations. So when you're prioritizing where you're going to go, I think that that's one thing to look at. There are different--if it's a corporate foundation, there are online--do you have to buy those databases? Randy: Yes. Susan: You have to buy the databases now and it goes through every foundation, what their area of focus is, where they work--you know if they work in Latin America or if they only work in California. Jim: Unless you go through the Foundation Center. Susan: OK, you can go to the Foundation Center to use that. So, there are. And with more and more companies, lot of times on their websites, they'll have global citizenship, which is usually kind of their corporate involvement. They may have a separate site for their foundation which usually has guidelines on that. Alana: So, one more question. I'll go here. Questioner: How do you start with that? Because if you can identify how we--you know, keeping kids safe, how that can relate to a lot of corporations. But I don't know how to start that relationship, so it's not built yet. And I have five people in the funding department. This is the marketing department. Susan: Well, I guess my approach would be to talk to the corporation and find out what would make the most sense. Because it may be that what your needs are, what they have to provide, it may be that you come up that it's not cause-related marketing. It kind of goes to what Jim was saying about it being organic. And I think as NGOs we actually don't know very much about corporations and what they can offer. And so a lot of times just starting with that discussion, "OK, this is what we want to do. And these are the kinds of things that we have been doing. And what are the things you think you could do?" Cause-related marketing: there are lots of different ways to start. There are also books written on it. There's the cause-related marketing forum. There are like 10 principles of cause-related marketing, and I think they have case studies. So that would be the place that I would start. Randy: Yes, it's called the Cause Marketing Forum. They have a conference. I've gone to it, it's great networking, kid in a candy store. Cone, Inc., which does the Cone-Roper Study: they do a lot on studying the results for a variety of companies in cause-related marketing campaigns, so you'll see case studies there as well as they're just a great resource. So Cone like ice cream cone. And yeah, it is about working with the marketing team. When I met with State Farm that first time I was amazed that I had a couple people who were in the room from the foundation side, but it was mostly the marketing team, the finance team. They saw so many different roles about it. It's a commitment, but it's talking to a different side of the house. And it's a different language for each of you. When Home Depot decided to partner with Kaboom, which helps build playgrounds, and Habitat for Humanity, there's obviously a business interest in there. Well, sir, I'm building, using certain supplies. They found a way to get their volunteers involved, so it actually helped them apply. Their employees, if you go to the Home Depot, need to know how to answer every dumb question that we ask. So the reason they know that is because they have to go out in the field and do it. So Home Depot built with Kaboom gymnasium floors. And Home Depot did a cause-related marketing campaign and paid Kaboom for the privilege to build the gymnasium floors, because they felt it was good training for their employees to be better prepared. And it helped Kaboom. You understand? So it's finding those things. But the conversation was, how can we address a business interest while also advancing our mission as well. And it's just really thinking that through. But it is approaching different people and having a different kind of conversation, same thing I had with the body shop. Alana: So with that, I'd like to thank everyone. We do have some other hand-outs up here, if you're interested. And I'm actually writing a book on NGO-corporate partnerships, so if anyone has any case studies that they'd like to have, I'd love to hear about them. Thanks! Yeah, I'd like to talk to you at some point. [applause] [music] Eric: We hope you enjoyed this free podcast from the Nonprofit Boot Camp series. Craigslist Foundation produces events and online tools that provide knowledge, resources and visibility to the next generation of nonprofit leaders. To learn more about Craigslist Foundation, or the Non-Profit Boot Camp conferences, visit www.CraigslistFoundation.org. This series is funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California, which helps underserved communities secure social justice, access and equality through the application of information and communications technologies. Announcer: The Conversations Network is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and if you'd like us to produce new and even more exciting programs in the future, we need your help. For a tax-deductible donation of as little as $5 per month, you can support this channel and the rest of the Conversations Network. So please visit ConversationsNetwork.org to become a member, and help us continue to bring our programs to the world for free. The post-production audio engineer for this program was Rob Leper. Our website editor was Leo Ramiro. The series producer is Liz Evans. Eric: My name is Eric Nee, and I hope you will join me next time for another program from the Non-Profit Boot Camp...