September 5, 2025 • 26 mins
What does innovation really look like in the nonprofit world? In this enlightening conversation, nonprofit consultant and author Leah Kral challenges the notion that innovation requires massive resources or technical expertise.
Drawing from her extensive research and twenty years of experience in the sector, Leah explains that innovation can be as simple as switching from paper forms to iPads at a legal aid clinic or as complex as revolutionizing healthcare delivery for the poor. The key is being willing to question the status quo and experiment with new approaches.
For nonprofit leaders feeling overwhelmed by day-to-day operations or limited by resources, this episode offers practical wisdom on fostering innovation within any organization. As Leah beautifully puts it, "The nonprofit sector isn't the withered branch – we are the root system of democracy," solving crucial social problems that deserve our most creative and courageous thinking.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear,joined today by author and
nonprofit consultant, leah Krall.
We're going to be digging in toone of those buzzwords that I
feel like a lot of people talkabout but nobody really
understands.
So I'm excited for thisconversation.
I think it's really going tolevel set some things for a lot
of nonprofit leaders.
So, leah, welcome in.
(00:20):
Thanks for being here.
Thank you, it's an honor to behere, megan.
I'm so excited, absolutely.
So before we dig into the topic, tell the audience a little bit
about yourself and your kind ofnonprofit journey that brought
us to where we are having thisconversation today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, I got kind of attracted to the nonprofit
sector from an experience 20years ago.
So I was in the Peace Corps.
I was living in Jamaica, inKingston, jamaica, for about two
years as typical Peace Corpsservice and just experiencing
extreme poverty unlike anythingI had seen in the United States
before.
I mean, of course we hadpoverty in the US, but it was
(00:54):
shocking People living in hutsthat they built by hand, dirt
floors, living in danger ofhurricanes and bulldozing, and
just kind of children scavengingin trash heaps.
And I, you know, I worked at ateacher's college and it was a
wonderful experience.
But I remember getting a touron the first day and seeing what
they called the library and itwas all I could do not to cry,
(01:15):
you know it was just so.
Those things really affected me.
So I know I just painted kindof a dark picture.
But then all these amazingnonprofit heroes who were there
like rising to the occasion andjust doing amazing things, and
it, it just really pulled myheartstrings.
And prior to the Peace CorpsI'd spent about eight years in
the business world and so Ithought, you know, if there's
(01:36):
some way that I can reshape mycareer to take the great things
that I learned from the businessworld but help these nonprofit
heroes, that's what I want to do, and so that's really what I've
been doing for these last 20years and it's been my privilege
.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's so great, I love it.
So the conversation today we'regoing to kick off around the
idea of innovation and I thinkyou know that's it's kind of
become a buzzword.
Everyone wants to be innovativeand we want to to innovate and
we want all sorts of conferencesor talking about innovation.
But I think sometimes for theaverage nonprofit leader
(02:14):
especially, you know, kind of inthe trenches running the show
from day to day, just the ideaof innovation can be really
overwhelming to even think about.
We don't tend to think ofourselves in that way.
So let's start with a verybaseline level set everybody, so
we're from the same place inthe conversation what is
innovation and what can it looklike in a nonprofit context?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Yeah, I think most people whenthey hear that word innovation,
they automatically think of thenon or the for-profit world and
cool inventions we all love,like the iPad or you know, like
now you go to the dentist'soffice and they could just print
out.
You know, use a 3D printer andprint out your crown right there
on the spot, and all these likecool inventions, right, and
(02:58):
that is innovation.
But I think you're right In thenonprofit sector, we don't call
ourselves innovators, but wereally should, because we're
innovating all the time.
You know, I think aboutinnovation simply as just
finding new and better ways ofdoing things, and of course,
we're doing that all the time.
We're wrestling with really hardproblems and to me, innovation
in our sector can be big or itcan be small.
(03:18):
You know, some big exampleswould be the American civil
rights movement.
Big examples would be theAmerican Civil Rights Movement.
I wrote a lot about them in mybook, how they were super
strategic, super creative, youknow, coming up with new ways of
solving really difficultproblems.
Or the invention of the 911emergency phone system, which is
a really cool story too, andthat came about with
philanthropy, nonprofits andfirst responders all putting
(03:41):
their heads together to come upwith this.
Or you know, the XPRIZEFoundation working on the global
water crisis.
Those are big, right, bigbreakthroughs that they're
trying to do.
But, you know, innovation canbe really small too.
If we're just talking findingnew and better ways of doing
things.
Um, I think of a small examplebeing like um, say, you're
working at a legal aid clinicand you're, you know, you've got
(04:02):
a lot of people coming into thereception area taking in a lot
of information, and maybe theyall have clipboards and lots of
pieces of paper and handwritingthings.
And maybe, as a person at thefront desk, you come up with the
idea of well, what if we justswitch to an iPad where people
are just entering theirinformation directly?
And that might seem small andhumble, but you probably just
shaved off five minutes perperson every single day, and now
(04:25):
those are resources that can beput to better use elsewhere.
You don't have to have someonedouble-inchering, right, it's
just going.
So that's small right, but thatmatters too, and we want both.
So I just think it's.
But then the question is well,how do we encourage that in our
everyday practices andnonprofits?
And that's really what my bookis all about.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So something that struck me as you were explaining
that, and I was thinking abouthow a conversation that I have
heard a lot in these, innonprofit circles in general,
but just in the greater space ofthe business world even is
around the idea of AI andeveryone's like again sounds
good, Don't know what to do withit, Not sure how to get started
.
(05:09):
And I think one of the thingsthat innovation takes, whether
that's around AI or using theexample that you just had from
the legal clinic, is an opennessto rethink what people are
capable of, Because I wasworking with an organization not
too long ago in a very similarthing to what you described and
they said but that's Kathy's job.
(05:29):
Kathy's job is to take theforms and input all of the data
into the computer, and that isKathy's job.
But what could Kathy do?
Right, If people were using aniPad like that to put it in,
what could Kathy do?
And so just even having thewillingness to be open to say I
want to think about it and thinkwhat could be instead of what
(05:52):
we've always done, can be areally hard shift.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah yeah, my yoga instructor talks about being
comfortable isn't always theright thing.
That may not be all that funsometimes, you know.
Maybe the status quo can becomfortable, but I think in the
nonprofit world, the peoplewe're serving are counting on us
to be asking hard questions,and you know our donors who are
very generously donating tocauses and that they care deeply
(06:19):
about.
You know it's just not good tobe too comfortable with the
status quo if we can constantlybe finding better ways of doing
things and I share a lot ofthose examples and stories in my
book.
Just to show like this is whatit looks like and it happens all
the time I just I really don'tthink we give ourselves enough
credit for being innovative inour sector about innovation.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
That can be as easy as what you said moving to an
iPad instead of paper forms.
Are there other areas?
Obviously, when it comes to anonprofit, you've got program,
you've got fundraising, you'vegot all of the different
administrative pieces.
You've got new challenges thatcould arise, that could need new
(07:01):
programs.
But what are the?
Some of the ways where you feellike we miss thinking about it?
Is there an area of nonprofitwhere we really miss it the most
and kind of get stuck in the?
That's the way we've alwaysdone it.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
That's a great question.
I really, since my background ismostly focused on social impact
and the program side of things,and so that was, you know,
that's mostly where I focus.
And, yeah, I think, yeah, maybeother people think of tech or
something more than they thinkof program interventions, you
know.
So, yeah, I think it happensall the time and as I was doing
(07:34):
research for my book, I gatheredjust so many stories, story
after story, from across theboard different nonprofits, you
know, finding new ways ofbreaking through, whether it was
, you know, mayo Clinic or theCivil Rights Movement or Habitat
for Humanity, like some ofthese really big nonprofits
we've all heard of, like Habitatall have these humble origin
(07:54):
stories.
Right, and I think that'sexciting that, you know, if
you're a small nonprofit with asmall budget and hearing the
word innovation maybe freaks youout a little bit, you know, I
think these stories are reallyencouraging.
No, this is something we allcan do with.
Maybe just a wild idea and afew volunteers and maybe a
non-existent budget.
These are things that any of uscan do.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
As you were talking to folks and gathering these
stories for your book, is thereone that really stood out to you
as the most inspiring or themost encouraging?
Let's see, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I have a lot of favorites, but I think one
really important.
Let me see, I just I want tomake sure that I tell the story
well.
So I think of experimentationbeing really important, and I
love the story of World Reader.
So World Reader was you know.
(08:46):
So why is experimentationimportant?
You know, when we think ofinnovation, finding, you know,
trial and error and even failureis really important for
innovating, and so I have achapter on what does
experimentation look like in thenonprofit sector.
I think people hearexperimentation, they think, oh,
science lab beakers, you know,they don't think of maybe a
nonprofit program, right?
(09:07):
So when we have a good idea andwe have to find out, will that
idea work?
So one of my favorite examplesis World Reader.
It's a nonprofit with a missionto bring digital books to
disadvantaged children and theirfamilies, and when they
launched in 2010, they startedseveral experiments at the same
time.
So in one experiment, they gavethese Amazon Kindle e-reader
(09:28):
machines or tablets toelementary students in Ghana.
But what they found?
And they were so excited theythought this was going to work
but what they found was thatwhen children were playing
during recess, the devices keptbreaking.
So they were surprised by that,but because they were doing
experiments at the same timethey were running a separate
experiment with a mobile app,which they learned from
observation that the young usersactually much preferred.
(09:50):
And so today, almost 200,000users a month are reading books
on the mobile platform, and Ithink there's really good
lessons in this story.
They spread their bets.
They were really smart aboutexperimenting.
If they would have gone all inon those Kindle e-reader
machines that they were soexcited about, they never would
have discovered the far bettersolution of the mobile app.
(10:10):
So to me, that lesson fromWorld Reader is it's far better
to fail fast and fail smallbefore investing too big, and
experimentation can really helpus learn and innovate.
But a key part of that is wehave to be able to have some
tolerance for risk and failure,and that can be kind of hard for
us in the nonprofit world.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, we actually just had Matt Lombardi from
Share Media on the podcast nottoo long ago and he was talking
about some of the examples thatwe can learn from in the
for-profit world, from startups,specifically about failing fast
, like test small, fail fast andregroup and move forward.
But to your point, we are, Ithink, a little scared of it
because of some of the pressuresfrom donors.
Right, the idea that we mightnot hit the mark on the head or
(10:58):
that people are going to view usas not being good stewards of
their resources.
There's so many pieces that gointo that.
So how do we get over the fear?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, I think some of this does really need to come
from the top, from our boardsand from our executive directors
, and hopefully they're havingsome of these conversations with
donors.
But you know, it's so importantto have that right attitude
toward risk and failure and areally quick story that I love.
So the Hewlett Foundation theydo this cool thing it's a fun
thing where they offer kind of asilly door prize to their
(11:30):
grants officers and it's whatthey call the worst grant from
which you learned the most, andso they get together as a team.
They, you know, are justencouraging each other to be
really honest about their flopsand failures and just, you know,
share with each other and laughabout it a little bit and that
takes the pressure off.
I think that's brilliant, youknow, because then you are going
(11:51):
to surface those stories oflearning.
And I know one of my clientshas a really great board of
directors where they set theexpectation you know, when you
come in with your annual boardreport and you're ready to tell
us your stories, you better bebringing stories of failure.
We expect it, and if you comein and just give us a glossy,
everything's great, we're goingto have problems with that right
.
So they set that tone rightfrom the top that we expect
(12:13):
innovation and experimentationand some, you know, smart
risk-taking, and that's going toinclude some failure and we
want to hear about it, you know.
So I think it really helps tocome from the top like that.
And then another quick thing.
I'll say I could talk aboutthis all day.
So, yeah, that was great.
One last quick thing so I thinkpart of it too can just be
treating things you'd normallydo as an experiment.
(12:34):
So quick story on that anonprofit client I work with.
So one of the staff membersproposed a new podcast to the
executive director and theexecutive director had seen a
lot of their podcasts kind offail, so he was kind of
skeptical.
When this person was allenthusiastic, I want to launch
this.
But rather than micromanaging,he heard him out and he's like
(12:56):
okay, well, what if we treatthis as an experiment?
You know we have someparameters, we set some
guardrails, set some metrics ofwhat we're going to monitor and
at the three-month point,six-month point, we're going to
be checking in.
So by treating it kind of notas a forever project, but a lot
of nonprofits might have justtreated it that way by just
calling it an experiment.
(13:17):
You know, and having thatmindset, that's something anyone
can do.
I think that can be reallysmart.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, I think that's great.
I think you're right, I thinkwe can.
I've seen so many organizationsthat have programs that worked
well 20, 30, 40 years ago butmaybe have not kept up with the
times, and even just beingwilling to say nothing we do is
forever.
It's okay to change that, butthat takes some humility and
(13:48):
some vulnerability that I think,as leaders, we struggle with.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
yes, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, there's some mindsetshifts that need to happen as
part of having an innovationculture, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, so okay.
So let's talk about that,because I'm sure that there were
some traits that you saw as youwere kind of working on the
book and listening to all ofthese stories.
I'm sure that there were sometraits of leaders that emerged
as common traits for folks whoare being innovative.
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah.
So when I finished putting thebook together, it took me about
two years, two and a half yearsof research.
And so when I finally finishedthe manuscript as a whole and I
was thinking how do I kind ofsum this up, what I found were
there were kind of six keyprinciples, that sort of bubbled
up of what innovators look likein the nonprofit sector.
So I'll just share those reallybriefly.
(14:42):
The first is like a detective,be a fearless problem solver,
because it's all aboutuncovering hidden needs.
And you know, I think of thatHenry Ford quote if I would have
asked my customers what theywanted, they would have said a
faster horse, you know.
So it takes some digging toreally figure out what is this
problem we're trying to solveand that we don't accept how
(15:03):
things are and that we challengethe status quo.
And I think of Aravind EyeClinic in India, where cataract
surgery was out of reach formost of India's poor and they
really wanted to revolutionizeeye care for the poor and they
found a way to do it.
They kind of McDonaldized theprocess and made it really
affordable.
But it was by asking thosequestions and doing a little
(15:25):
detective work.
The second ask courageousquestions, ideate.
We can start small but dreambig.
And I think you know, as Imentioned in good news for us,
so many successful nonprofits ormovements started so small and
humble.
You know just the seed of anidea, so lack of resources is
not necessarily an obstacle toachieving impact.
The third is that when peopleon the front lines are empowered
(15:47):
to speak up and collaborate,breakthroughs will happen.
A great story in my book isabout how the night staff at
Mayo Clinic found ways forpatients to get a better night's
sleep.
The fourth is to, as we talkedabout with World Reader, leave
room for experiments, playrisk-taking and even that big,
scary word failure.
The fifth is to embracecontinuous learning by asking
(16:07):
ourselves hard questions, and soI have a chapter on metrics,
and I know that can be kind of apain point in nonprofits
because it can be done verypoorly, but when done right it
can be very powerful and reallysupport innovation.
And I share a story in my bookfrom LifeWorks, a youth foster
care nonprofit that began askingthemselves those hard questions
and transformed their metricsand then really transformed
(16:30):
their services in a great way.
And then the last is bepersuasive.
We have to be really good atthis, and as I was looking for
stories and examples, I kind oflaughed when I discovered that
both Mother Teresa and FredRogers of Mr Rogers'
Neighborhood had doors closed ontheir faces all the time and
people telling them no when theyfirst started out.
And you know it happens to thebest of us.
(16:52):
And you know, even the mostsuccessful social entrepreneurs
have to knock on those closeddoors and field tough questions
from skeptics and kind of bracethemselves for hearing no, but
then still, you know, make ourargument better, right?
So to me all those things worktogether as traits and in good
news, you know, we don't have tobe born with any of it.
These things we can learn andget better at.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
As a as a Pittsburgh girl, I am all for any Mr Rogers
reference.
I appreciate that call out.
It's great, but it'sinteresting I it's interesting
to think about Mr Rogers andMother Teresa in the same vein
as hearing no, because I thinkyou just automatically assume
that people at that level aregoing to get whatever they want.
(17:36):
Whatever I ask for is going tohappen and whatever I want to do
.
But they in and of themselveswere innovative in their time
for how they were going aboutdoing their work and caring for
people Very much.
So yeah, I laughed so much,because at some point like Mr
Rogers wasn't always the famousMr Rogers, at the beginning he
was just starting out with anidea of I want to change
(17:58):
children's television, correct.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, yeah, super innovative.
I write more about him in mybook and different ways that
he's innovative with findingbreakthroughs for just how we
talk with children.
You know he kind of inventedthis language that folks in his
expertise area call speakingfrettish.
So I write about how he kind ofinnovated that.
And, yeah, I laugh so much atthe Mother Teresa and her story.
(18:22):
You know, can you imagine beingthe person getting to the
pearly gates and saying, oh yeah, that's me.
I'm the one who told MotherTeresa her ideas were bad?
Yeah, but it's true, and that'sgoing to happen to all of us
because, you know, challengingthe status quo, coming up with
some kind of creative off thewall, you know idea for doing
something better in thenonprofit sector, you're going
(18:42):
to absolutely going to run intoobstacles and skeptics and we
have to be ready for that.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Well, and I think, too, you have to not compare
yourself to the end of Mr Rogersand the end of Mother Teresa,
right?
I think we tend to look atthese people who we would say
have been successful, whetherthat's as a nonprofit leader or
in their space or serving theway that those two did, and we
tend to compare our currentsituation to their highlight
reel, right?
(19:11):
Because I think we'd all argue,at the end of their lives they
had achieved a lot of success,but that didn't come overnight,
and so I think sometimes, atleast for myself, I can get
paralyzed in the well, I'm nevergoing to be that good, but they
started where we started.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I think we have to keep that comparison out of our
brains, yeah 100% and let me seeif I can tell this story very,
very quickly.
So yeah, alcoholics Anonymoussame sort of story, you know it
kind of formed accidentally.
The two founders were bothalcoholics.
I think this was in the 1930sor so, where there just were not
any good treatments.
(19:48):
I mean they did lobotomiesright or lock people away.
These were two professional menone in New York, one in Ohio, I
think one was a doctor, one wasa salesman who were both
struggling.
It was affecting their lives.
They randomly met and just hadthis.
You know, they were kind ofhitting these rock bottom
moments in their lives.
They had this very honestconversation with each other
(20:13):
that ended up being very healing.
And so just through accident,they realized the power of one
alcoholic talking to one anotherand they're like oh gee, you
know, maybe we're on tosomething, maybe we should
gather a few other folks andjust see if we can help them too
.
And so it was kind of trial anderror, experimental.
They learned things the hardway, like they didn't know right
away that members should beanonymous.
So to your point, yeah, we allvery well know Alcoholics
Anonymous today and their12-step model and there's
(20:34):
copycats all over the nonprofitsector, kind of taking that
12-step model.
So wildly successful today, butdidn't start that way.
So yeah, I love what you'resaying about don't hold
ourselves to that standard,especially if you're a startup.
Think about it.
I think those origin storiescan be really inspiring.
That's so good.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So I'm curious in the book process full disclosure I
also have a book out.
It has nothing to do with thenonprofit sector, but something
I learned about myself in thewriting and editing and
publishing process was how muchI really enjoyed that work.
And I'm wondering for you whatwas your biggest learning moment
(21:16):
in that process of the book,either about the topic or about
you as an author yourself?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I would say, you know , I'm kind of an introvert and
writing the book was just a joyto me, I would say.
Once I realized I had to be outmarketing the book as an
introvert, that was far morestressful, but I learned.
But yeah, there were thingsthat surprised me, some chapters
that I ended up rewriting.
You know probably the I justposted about this this morning
on LinkedIn the question ofscaling.
(21:45):
Should every nonprofit scale?
So when I started writing thatchapter, my assumption was well,
yes, don't all nonprofits wantto scale?
But the more I thought about it, the more I looked at examples.
I'm like wait a minute, youknow it depends on your strategy
.
It depends, you know you may behyper local.
It just there's a lot of nuancethere, right?
So so yeah, there was a lot oflearning in the process of
(22:06):
researching and right challenge,challenging my own assumptions,
and a lot of learning andgrowth in a really good way.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I love that.
So when we talk aboutespecially innovation that leads
us to scale, I also would havesaid yes, but it's interesting
to think about.
I just read a story or anarticle not too long ago about
two organizations here inpittsburgh who do very similar
things.
One is over on the north sideof the city and one is over on
(22:36):
the east side.
On the east end and if you'veever been to pittsburgh you know
like we don't those twocommunities have nothing to do
with each other.
This bird does not like.
Just because they're maybe10-15 minutes away does not mean
they have any connection toeach other, because if you have
to go over more than two bridgesor through a tunnel, we're not
going right.
It's just how we are.
But the the article was abouthow these two organizations, in
(23:01):
an effort to scale their impact,are combining.
Instead of saying I'm going tokeep doing my thing over here,
you keep doing your thing overhere, they are combining their
efforts, merging into one groupand then launching another
location over in the south sideof the city to be able to grow
and scale that way.
And so even in that, I thinkthere's some innovation around
scaling that says I don't haveto compete with you.
(23:24):
We don't have to compete witheach other.
If there are people who aredoing what we're doing, we can
all do it to a better extent ifwe work together, and so even
that is innovative in thenonprofit space.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, there's.
I mean, so much is in thenuance.
You know like, maybe it I don'tknow their situation, but it
could be like hey, we're allreplicating our back end
services, why don't we pull ourresources together?
And now?
We can put more money into ourprogram delivery and that's
smart.
You know, I don't know ifthat's their situation.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, I think a huge thing with me if I could, you
know, change one thing about oursector.
It's silo thinking.
You know, when you run intosilos and I see it a lot I think
it's just human nature, becausewe can be really good at our
one thing and just startthinking that we have to
accomplish everything within ourfour walls.
But I have a lot of storiesabout kind of related to what
(24:16):
you're talking about.
You know, one example that comesto mind is a group called
Strive Together in Cincinnati.
So they're all working at a lotof many nonprofits, many
organizations in Cincinnati whoare kind of tangentially working
on helping at risk young peoplesolve problems and achieve
upward mobility.
And so somebody brilliantbrought all those disparate
(24:37):
groups together and said let'skind of work as a coalition here
.
We may each have our differentspecialization areas, but let's
put our heads together.
We each have our unique way ofapproaching this, but maybe we
can come up with some sharedmetrics, shared goals, and so
they're doing that reallyeffectively, working together
instead of working separately,and that can be very smart.
(24:57):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
So Leah real quick as we wrap up, if somebody wanted
to find you and connect with you, learn more about the work
you're doing or find your book.
How do we do that learn moreabout the work you're doing or
find your book?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
How do we do that?
Yeah, feel free to visit mywebsite.
It's just my name, leahkrallcom, so it's L-E-A-H-K-R-A-Lcom,
and from there you can seeinformation about my book, my
consulting services, speakingevents and so on, and I'm super
active on social media.
There's a great nonprofitcommunity on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
You can find me there as well.
So thank you, community.
On LinkedIn.
You can find me there as well.
So thank you Fantastic.
One question that I've beenasking everybody as we wrap up
the session each time is if yougive one piece of advice or
wisdom or encouragement tononprofit leaders who,
admittedly, have had a roughyear so far not that any year in
nonprofit is easy, but I feellike we've just taken a lot of
(25:47):
hits as a sector.
What would that piece of wisdom, encouragement or advice be?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that.
You know there's a lot of kindof mischaracterizations of our
sector out there.
So I was thinking of kind of atree you know a massive tree
with a huge root system and Iwas just thinking that you know
the nonprofit sector, we're notthe withered branch, we are that
root system, you know, andthat's the root system of
democracy and what we're doingis so important and I just hope
(26:13):
we see ourselves that way.
Our work, you know we'resolving really difficult social
problems and it's so importantand, you know, don't be
discouraged.
I hope we think of ourselvesthat way and stand strong.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I love it.
Leah, thank you so much.
That was really.
That was a beautiful picture tothink about.
I love that encouragement somuch.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Thank you again for your time.
It was an honor to be heretoday.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
Again, my guest has been LeahKral, who's an author and
nonprofit consultant.
You can check her out onLinkedIn or check out her book
on her website.
Leah, thanks so much for beinghere.
We really appreciate all thewisdom that you had to share.
Thanks again.
This has been another episodeof the Nonprofit Hub Radio
Podcast.
No-transcript.
Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear,joined today by author and
nonprofit consultant, leah Krall.
We're going to be digging in toone of those buzzwords that I
feel like a lot of people talkabout but nobody really
understands.
So I'm excited for thisconversation.
I think it's really going tolevel set some things for a lot
of nonprofit leaders.
So, leah, welcome in.
(00:20):
Thanks for being here.
Thank you, it's an honor to behere, megan.
I'm so excited, absolutely.
So before we dig into the topic, tell the audience a little bit
about yourself and your kind ofnonprofit journey that brought
us to where we are having thisconversation today.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, I got kind of attracted to the nonprofit
sector from an experience 20years ago.
So I was in the Peace Corps.
I was living in Jamaica, inKingston, jamaica, for about two
years as typical Peace Corpsservice and just experiencing
extreme poverty unlike anythingI had seen in the United States
before.
I mean, of course we hadpoverty in the US, but it was
(00:54):
shocking People living in hutsthat they built by hand, dirt
floors, living in danger ofhurricanes and bulldozing, and
just kind of children scavengingin trash heaps.
And I, you know, I worked at ateacher's college and it was a
wonderful experience.
But I remember getting a touron the first day and seeing what
they called the library and itwas all I could do not to cry,
(01:15):
you know it was just so.
Those things really affected me.
So I know I just painted kindof a dark picture.
But then all these amazingnonprofit heroes who were there
like rising to the occasion andjust doing amazing things, and
it, it just really pulled myheartstrings.
And prior to the Peace CorpsI'd spent about eight years in
the business world and so Ithought, you know, if there's
(01:36):
some way that I can reshape mycareer to take the great things
that I learned from the businessworld but help these nonprofit
heroes, that's what I want to do, and so that's really what I've
been doing for these last 20years and it's been my privilege
.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's so great, I love it.
So the conversation today we'regoing to kick off around the
idea of innovation and I thinkyou know that's it's kind of
become a buzzword.
Everyone wants to be innovativeand we want to to innovate and
we want all sorts of conferencesor talking about innovation.
But I think sometimes for theaverage nonprofit leader
(02:14):
especially, you know, kind of inthe trenches running the show
from day to day, just the ideaof innovation can be really
overwhelming to even think about.
We don't tend to think ofourselves in that way.
So let's start with a verybaseline level set everybody, so
we're from the same place inthe conversation what is
innovation and what can it looklike in a nonprofit context?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Yeah, I think most people whenthey hear that word innovation,
they automatically think of thenon or the for-profit world and
cool inventions we all love,like the iPad or you know, like
now you go to the dentist'soffice and they could just print
out.
You know, use a 3D printer andprint out your crown right there
on the spot, and all these likecool inventions, right, and
(02:58):
that is innovation.
But I think you're right In thenonprofit sector, we don't call
ourselves innovators, but wereally should, because we're
innovating all the time.
You know, I think aboutinnovation simply as just
finding new and better ways ofdoing things, and of course,
we're doing that all the time.
We're wrestling with really hardproblems and to me, innovation
in our sector can be big or itcan be small.
(03:18):
You know, some big exampleswould be the American civil
rights movement.
Big examples would be theAmerican Civil Rights Movement.
I wrote a lot about them in mybook, how they were super
strategic, super creative, youknow, coming up with new ways of
solving really difficultproblems.
Or the invention of the 911emergency phone system, which is
a really cool story too, andthat came about with
philanthropy, nonprofits andfirst responders all putting
(03:41):
their heads together to come upwith this.
Or you know, the XPRIZEFoundation working on the global
water crisis.
Those are big, right, bigbreakthroughs that they're
trying to do.
But, you know, innovation canbe really small too.
If we're just talking findingnew and better ways of doing
things.
Um, I think of a small examplebeing like um, say, you're
working at a legal aid clinicand you're, you know, you've got
(04:02):
a lot of people coming into thereception area taking in a lot
of information, and maybe theyall have clipboards and lots of
pieces of paper and handwritingthings.
And maybe, as a person at thefront desk, you come up with the
idea of well, what if we justswitch to an iPad where people
are just entering theirinformation directly?
And that might seem small andhumble, but you probably just
shaved off five minutes perperson every single day, and now
(04:25):
those are resources that can beput to better use elsewhere.
You don't have to have someonedouble-inchering, right, it's
just going.
So that's small right, but thatmatters too, and we want both.
So I just think it's.
But then the question is well,how do we encourage that in our
everyday practices andnonprofits?
And that's really what my bookis all about.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So something that struck me as you were explaining
that, and I was thinking abouthow a conversation that I have
heard a lot in these, innonprofit circles in general,
but just in the greater space ofthe business world even is
around the idea of AI andeveryone's like again sounds
good, Don't know what to do withit, Not sure how to get started
.
(05:09):
And I think one of the thingsthat innovation takes, whether
that's around AI or using theexample that you just had from
the legal clinic, is an opennessto rethink what people are
capable of, Because I wasworking with an organization not
too long ago in a very similarthing to what you described and
they said but that's Kathy's job.
(05:29):
Kathy's job is to take theforms and input all of the data
into the computer, and that isKathy's job.
But what could Kathy do?
Right, If people were using aniPad like that to put it in,
what could Kathy do?
And so just even having thewillingness to be open to say I
want to think about it and thinkwhat could be instead of what
(05:52):
we've always done, can be areally hard shift.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah yeah, my yoga instructor talks about being
comfortable isn't always theright thing.
That may not be all that funsometimes, you know.
Maybe the status quo can becomfortable, but I think in the
nonprofit world, the peoplewe're serving are counting on us
to be asking hard questions,and you know our donors who are
very generously donating tocauses and that they care deeply
(06:19):
about.
You know it's just not good tobe too comfortable with the
status quo if we can constantlybe finding better ways of doing
things and I share a lot ofthose examples and stories in my
book.
Just to show like this is whatit looks like and it happens all
the time I just I really don'tthink we give ourselves enough
credit for being innovative inour sector about innovation.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
That can be as easy as what you said moving to an
iPad instead of paper forms.
Are there other areas?
Obviously, when it comes to anonprofit, you've got program,
you've got fundraising, you'vegot all of the different
administrative pieces.
You've got new challenges thatcould arise, that could need new
(07:01):
programs.
But what are the?
Some of the ways where you feellike we miss thinking about it?
Is there an area of nonprofitwhere we really miss it the most
and kind of get stuck in the?
That's the way we've alwaysdone it.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
That's a great question.
I really, since my background ismostly focused on social impact
and the program side of things,and so that was, you know,
that's mostly where I focus.
And, yeah, I think, yeah, maybeother people think of tech or
something more than they thinkof program interventions, you
know.
So, yeah, I think it happensall the time and as I was doing
(07:34):
research for my book, I gatheredjust so many stories, story
after story, from across theboard different nonprofits, you
know, finding new ways ofbreaking through, whether it was
, you know, mayo Clinic or theCivil Rights Movement or Habitat
for Humanity, like some ofthese really big nonprofits
we've all heard of, like Habitatall have these humble origin
(07:54):
stories.
Right, and I think that'sexciting that, you know, if
you're a small nonprofit with asmall budget and hearing the
word innovation maybe freaks youout a little bit, you know, I
think these stories are reallyencouraging.
No, this is something we allcan do with.
Maybe just a wild idea and afew volunteers and maybe a
non-existent budget.
These are things that any of uscan do.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
As you were talking to folks and gathering these
stories for your book, is thereone that really stood out to you
as the most inspiring or themost encouraging?
Let's see, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I have a lot of favorites, but I think one
really important.
Let me see, I just I want tomake sure that I tell the story
well.
So I think of experimentationbeing really important, and I
love the story of World Reader.
So World Reader was you know.
(08:46):
So why is experimentationimportant?
You know, when we think ofinnovation, finding, you know,
trial and error and even failureis really important for
innovating, and so I have achapter on what does
experimentation look like in thenonprofit sector.
I think people hearexperimentation, they think, oh,
science lab beakers, you know,they don't think of maybe a
nonprofit program, right?
(09:07):
So when we have a good idea andwe have to find out, will that
idea work?
So one of my favorite examplesis World Reader.
It's a nonprofit with a missionto bring digital books to
disadvantaged children and theirfamilies, and when they
launched in 2010, they startedseveral experiments at the same
time.
So in one experiment, they gavethese Amazon Kindle e-reader
(09:28):
machines or tablets toelementary students in Ghana.
But what they found?
And they were so excited theythought this was going to work
but what they found was thatwhen children were playing
during recess, the devices keptbreaking.
So they were surprised by that,but because they were doing
experiments at the same timethey were running a separate
experiment with a mobile app,which they learned from
observation that the young usersactually much preferred.
(09:50):
And so today, almost 200,000users a month are reading books
on the mobile platform, and Ithink there's really good
lessons in this story.
They spread their bets.
They were really smart aboutexperimenting.
If they would have gone all inon those Kindle e-reader
machines that they were soexcited about, they never would
have discovered the far bettersolution of the mobile app.
(10:10):
So to me, that lesson fromWorld Reader is it's far better
to fail fast and fail smallbefore investing too big, and
experimentation can really helpus learn and innovate.
But a key part of that is wehave to be able to have some
tolerance for risk and failure,and that can be kind of hard for
us in the nonprofit world.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, we actually just had Matt Lombardi from
Share Media on the podcast nottoo long ago and he was talking
about some of the examples thatwe can learn from in the
for-profit world, from startups,specifically about failing fast
, like test small, fail fast andregroup and move forward.
But to your point, we are, Ithink, a little scared of it
because of some of the pressuresfrom donors.
Right, the idea that we mightnot hit the mark on the head or
(10:58):
that people are going to view usas not being good stewards of
their resources.
There's so many pieces that gointo that.
So how do we get over the fear?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, I think some of this does really need to come
from the top, from our boardsand from our executive directors
, and hopefully they're havingsome of these conversations with
donors.
But you know, it's so importantto have that right attitude
toward risk and failure and areally quick story that I love.
So the Hewlett Foundation theydo this cool thing it's a fun
thing where they offer kind of asilly door prize to their
(11:30):
grants officers and it's whatthey call the worst grant from
which you learned the most, andso they get together as a team.
They, you know, are justencouraging each other to be
really honest about their flopsand failures and just, you know,
share with each other and laughabout it a little bit and that
takes the pressure off.
I think that's brilliant, youknow, because then you are going
(11:51):
to surface those stories oflearning.
And I know one of my clientshas a really great board of
directors where they set theexpectation you know, when you
come in with your annual boardreport and you're ready to tell
us your stories, you better bebringing stories of failure.
We expect it, and if you comein and just give us a glossy,
everything's great, we're goingto have problems with that right
.
So they set that tone rightfrom the top that we expect
(12:13):
innovation and experimentationand some, you know, smart
risk-taking, and that's going toinclude some failure and we
want to hear about it, you know.
So I think it really helps tocome from the top like that.
And then another quick thing.
I'll say I could talk aboutthis all day.
So, yeah, that was great.
One last quick thing so I thinkpart of it too can just be
treating things you'd normallydo as an experiment.
(12:34):
So quick story on that anonprofit client I work with.
So one of the staff membersproposed a new podcast to the
executive director and theexecutive director had seen a
lot of their podcasts kind offail, so he was kind of
skeptical.
When this person was allenthusiastic, I want to launch
this.
But rather than micromanaging,he heard him out and he's like
(12:56):
okay, well, what if we treatthis as an experiment?
You know we have someparameters, we set some
guardrails, set some metrics ofwhat we're going to monitor and
at the three-month point,six-month point, we're going to
be checking in.
So by treating it kind of notas a forever project, but a lot
of nonprofits might have justtreated it that way by just
calling it an experiment.
(13:17):
You know, and having thatmindset, that's something anyone
can do.
I think that can be reallysmart.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, I think that's great.
I think you're right, I thinkwe can.
I've seen so many organizationsthat have programs that worked
well 20, 30, 40 years ago butmaybe have not kept up with the
times, and even just beingwilling to say nothing we do is
forever.
It's okay to change that, butthat takes some humility and
(13:48):
some vulnerability that I think,as leaders, we struggle with.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
yes, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, there's some mindsetshifts that need to happen as
part of having an innovationculture, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, so okay.
So let's talk about that,because I'm sure that there were
some traits that you saw as youwere kind of working on the
book and listening to all ofthese stories.
I'm sure that there were sometraits of leaders that emerged
as common traits for folks whoare being innovative.
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah.
So when I finished putting thebook together, it took me about
two years, two and a half yearsof research.
And so when I finally finishedthe manuscript as a whole and I
was thinking how do I kind ofsum this up, what I found were
there were kind of six keyprinciples, that sort of bubbled
up of what innovators look likein the nonprofit sector.
So I'll just share those reallybriefly.
(14:42):
The first is like a detective,be a fearless problem solver,
because it's all aboutuncovering hidden needs.
And you know, I think of thatHenry Ford quote if I would have
asked my customers what theywanted, they would have said a
faster horse, you know.
So it takes some digging toreally figure out what is this
problem we're trying to solveand that we don't accept how
(15:03):
things are and that we challengethe status quo.
And I think of Aravind EyeClinic in India, where cataract
surgery was out of reach formost of India's poor and they
really wanted to revolutionizeeye care for the poor and they
found a way to do it.
They kind of McDonaldized theprocess and made it really
affordable.
But it was by asking thosequestions and doing a little
(15:25):
detective work.
The second ask courageousquestions, ideate.
We can start small but dreambig.
And I think you know, as Imentioned in good news for us,
so many successful nonprofits ormovements started so small and
humble.
You know just the seed of anidea, so lack of resources is
not necessarily an obstacle toachieving impact.
The third is that when peopleon the front lines are empowered
(15:47):
to speak up and collaborate,breakthroughs will happen.
A great story in my book isabout how the night staff at
Mayo Clinic found ways forpatients to get a better night's
sleep.
The fourth is to, as we talkedabout with World Reader, leave
room for experiments, playrisk-taking and even that big,
scary word failure.
The fifth is to embracecontinuous learning by asking
(16:07):
ourselves hard questions, and soI have a chapter on metrics,
and I know that can be kind of apain point in nonprofits
because it can be done verypoorly, but when done right it
can be very powerful and reallysupport innovation.
And I share a story in my bookfrom LifeWorks, a youth foster
care nonprofit that began askingthemselves those hard questions
and transformed their metricsand then really transformed
(16:30):
their services in a great way.
And then the last is bepersuasive.
We have to be really good atthis, and as I was looking for
stories and examples, I kind oflaughed when I discovered that
both Mother Teresa and FredRogers of Mr Rogers'
Neighborhood had doors closed ontheir faces all the time and
people telling them no when theyfirst started out.
And you know it happens to thebest of us.
(16:52):
And you know, even the mostsuccessful social entrepreneurs
have to knock on those closeddoors and field tough questions
from skeptics and kind of bracethemselves for hearing no, but
then still, you know, make ourargument better, right?
So to me all those things worktogether as traits and in good
news, you know, we don't have tobe born with any of it.
These things we can learn andget better at.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
As a as a Pittsburgh girl, I am all for any Mr Rogers
reference.
I appreciate that call out.
It's great, but it'sinteresting I it's interesting
to think about Mr Rogers andMother Teresa in the same vein
as hearing no, because I thinkyou just automatically assume
that people at that level aregoing to get whatever they want.
(17:36):
Whatever I ask for is going tohappen and whatever I want to do
.
But they in and of themselveswere innovative in their time
for how they were going aboutdoing their work and caring for
people Very much.
So yeah, I laughed so much,because at some point like Mr
Rogers wasn't always the famousMr Rogers, at the beginning he
was just starting out with anidea of I want to change
(17:58):
children's television, correct.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, yeah, super innovative.
I write more about him in mybook and different ways that
he's innovative with findingbreakthroughs for just how we
talk with children.
You know he kind of inventedthis language that folks in his
expertise area call speakingfrettish.
So I write about how he kind ofinnovated that.
And, yeah, I laugh so much atthe Mother Teresa and her story.
(18:22):
You know, can you imagine beingthe person getting to the
pearly gates and saying, oh yeah, that's me.
I'm the one who told MotherTeresa her ideas were bad?
Yeah, but it's true, and that'sgoing to happen to all of us
because, you know, challengingthe status quo, coming up with
some kind of creative off thewall, you know idea for doing
something better in thenonprofit sector, you're going
(18:42):
to absolutely going to run intoobstacles and skeptics and we
have to be ready for that.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Well, and I think, too, you have to not compare
yourself to the end of Mr Rogersand the end of Mother Teresa,
right?
I think we tend to look atthese people who we would say
have been successful, whetherthat's as a nonprofit leader or
in their space or serving theway that those two did, and we
tend to compare our currentsituation to their highlight
reel, right?
(19:11):
Because I think we'd all argue,at the end of their lives they
had achieved a lot of success,but that didn't come overnight,
and so I think sometimes, atleast for myself, I can get
paralyzed in the well, I'm nevergoing to be that good, but they
started where we started.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I think we have to keep that comparison out of our
brains, yeah 100% and let me seeif I can tell this story very,
very quickly.
So yeah, alcoholics Anonymoussame sort of story, you know it
kind of formed accidentally.
The two founders were bothalcoholics.
I think this was in the 1930sor so, where there just were not
any good treatments.
(19:48):
I mean they did lobotomiesright or lock people away.
These were two professional menone in New York, one in Ohio, I
think one was a doctor, one wasa salesman who were both
struggling.
It was affecting their lives.
They randomly met and just hadthis.
You know, they were kind ofhitting these rock bottom
moments in their lives.
They had this very honestconversation with each other
(20:13):
that ended up being very healing.
And so just through accident,they realized the power of one
alcoholic talking to one anotherand they're like oh gee, you
know, maybe we're on tosomething, maybe we should
gather a few other folks andjust see if we can help them too
.
And so it was kind of trial anderror, experimental.
They learned things the hardway, like they didn't know right
away that members should beanonymous.
So to your point, yeah, we allvery well know Alcoholics
Anonymous today and their12-step model and there's
(20:34):
copycats all over the nonprofitsector, kind of taking that
12-step model.
So wildly successful today, butdidn't start that way.
So yeah, I love what you'resaying about don't hold
ourselves to that standard,especially if you're a startup.
Think about it.
I think those origin storiescan be really inspiring.
That's so good.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So I'm curious in the book process full disclosure I
also have a book out.
It has nothing to do with thenonprofit sector, but something
I learned about myself in thewriting and editing and
publishing process was how muchI really enjoyed that work.
And I'm wondering for you whatwas your biggest learning moment
(21:16):
in that process of the book,either about the topic or about
you as an author yourself?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I would say, you know , I'm kind of an introvert and
writing the book was just a joyto me, I would say.
Once I realized I had to be outmarketing the book as an
introvert, that was far morestressful, but I learned.
But yeah, there were thingsthat surprised me, some chapters
that I ended up rewriting.
You know probably the I justposted about this this morning
on LinkedIn the question ofscaling.
(21:45):
Should every nonprofit scale?
So when I started writing thatchapter, my assumption was well,
yes, don't all nonprofits wantto scale?
But the more I thought about it, the more I looked at examples.
I'm like wait a minute, youknow it depends on your strategy
.
It depends, you know you may behyper local.
It just there's a lot of nuancethere, right?
So so yeah, there was a lot oflearning in the process of
(22:06):
researching and right challenge,challenging my own assumptions,
and a lot of learning andgrowth in a really good way.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I love that.
So when we talk aboutespecially innovation that leads
us to scale, I also would havesaid yes, but it's interesting
to think about.
I just read a story or anarticle not too long ago about
two organizations here inpittsburgh who do very similar
things.
One is over on the north sideof the city and one is over on
(22:36):
the east side.
On the east end and if you'veever been to pittsburgh you know
like we don't those twocommunities have nothing to do
with each other.
This bird does not like.
Just because they're maybe10-15 minutes away does not mean
they have any connection toeach other, because if you have
to go over more than two bridgesor through a tunnel, we're not
going right.
It's just how we are.
But the the article was abouthow these two organizations, in
(23:01):
an effort to scale their impact,are combining.
Instead of saying I'm going tokeep doing my thing over here,
you keep doing your thing overhere, they are combining their
efforts, merging into one groupand then launching another
location over in the south sideof the city to be able to grow
and scale that way.
And so even in that, I thinkthere's some innovation around
scaling that says I don't haveto compete with you.
(23:24):
We don't have to compete witheach other.
If there are people who aredoing what we're doing, we can
all do it to a better extent ifwe work together, and so even
that is innovative in thenonprofit space.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, there's.
I mean, so much is in thenuance.
You know like, maybe it I don'tknow their situation, but it
could be like hey, we're allreplicating our back end
services, why don't we pull ourresources together?
And now?
We can put more money into ourprogram delivery and that's
smart.
You know, I don't know ifthat's their situation.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, I think a huge thing with me if I could, you
know, change one thing about oursector.
It's silo thinking.
You know, when you run intosilos and I see it a lot I think
it's just human nature, becausewe can be really good at our
one thing and just startthinking that we have to
accomplish everything within ourfour walls.
But I have a lot of storiesabout kind of related to what
(24:16):
you're talking about.
You know, one example that comesto mind is a group called
Strive Together in Cincinnati.
So they're all working at a lotof many nonprofits, many
organizations in Cincinnati whoare kind of tangentially working
on helping at risk young peoplesolve problems and achieve
upward mobility.
And so somebody brilliantbrought all those disparate
(24:37):
groups together and said let'skind of work as a coalition here
.
We may each have our differentspecialization areas, but let's
put our heads together.
We each have our unique way ofapproaching this, but maybe we
can come up with some sharedmetrics, shared goals, and so
they're doing that reallyeffectively, working together
instead of working separately,and that can be very smart.
(24:57):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
So Leah real quick as we wrap up, if somebody wanted
to find you and connect with you, learn more about the work
you're doing or find your book.
How do we do that learn moreabout the work you're doing or
find your book?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
How do we do that?
Yeah, feel free to visit mywebsite.
It's just my name, leahkrallcom, so it's L-E-A-H-K-R-A-Lcom,
and from there you can seeinformation about my book, my
consulting services, speakingevents and so on, and I'm super
active on social media.
There's a great nonprofitcommunity on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
You can find me there as well.
So thank you, community.
On LinkedIn.
You can find me there as well.
So thank you Fantastic.
One question that I've beenasking everybody as we wrap up
the session each time is if yougive one piece of advice or
wisdom or encouragement tononprofit leaders who,
admittedly, have had a roughyear so far not that any year in
nonprofit is easy, but I feellike we've just taken a lot of
(25:47):
hits as a sector.
What would that piece of wisdom, encouragement or advice be?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that.
You know there's a lot of kindof mischaracterizations of our
sector out there.
So I was thinking of kind of atree you know a massive tree
with a huge root system and Iwas just thinking that you know
the nonprofit sector, we're notthe withered branch, we are that
root system, you know, andthat's the root system of
democracy and what we're doingis so important and I just hope
(26:13):
we see ourselves that way.
Our work, you know we'resolving really difficult social
problems and it's so importantand, you know, don't be
discouraged.
I hope we think of ourselvesthat way and stand strong.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I love it.
Leah, thank you so much.
That was really.
That was a beautiful picture tothink about.
I love that encouragement somuch.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Thank you again for your time.
It was an honor to be heretoday.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
Again, my guest has been LeahKral, who's an author and
nonprofit consultant.
You can check her out onLinkedIn or check out her book
on her website.
Leah, thanks so much for beinghere.
We really appreciate all thewisdom that you had to share.
Thanks again.
This has been another episodeof the Nonprofit Hub Radio
Podcast.
No-transcript.
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