Nonprofit Data: How to Make Impact Measurement a Tool That Empowers Your Team

‍Podcast episode transcript ↓

Josh:

Impact measurement is supposed to help nonprofits do better work, but for many teams, it ends up feeling like a reporting burden.

Something done for funders, not for the people actually running programs.

What would it look like if your data actually worked for you?

If it helped your team make clear decisions, stay aligned, and tell a more compelling story about your impact?

And how can nonprofits turn measurement into something that empowers their team instead of overwhelming them?

I'm Josh with Anedot and welcome to Nonprofit Pulse, where we explore trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission.

On this episode, we're joined by Stephen Minix on how to make impact measurement a tool that truly empowers your team.

Stephen is the Vice President of Community at UpMetrics, where he helps investors, funders, and nonprofits move beyond transactional engagement towards authentic partnership.

A former teacher, athletic director, and basketball coach, Stephen brings a point guard mentality to the impact ecosystem.

Reading the room, naming tension, and helping stakeholders move forward together.

He serves on multiple nonprofit boards and is an ambassador for Green Dot Public Schools.

Hey, Stephen thanks for joining us on Nonprofit Pulse.

Stephen:

Excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Making impact measurement a tool that empowers your team, not a reporting burden

Josh:

Yeah, excited for our topic today.

We're talking about nonprofit data, how to make impact measurement a tool that empowers your team.

Stephen, a lot of nonprofit leaders hear impact measurement and they really think reporting burden.

So how do you define impact measurement when it's actually working for the organization and not just for the funders?

Stephen:

It's a lot in that question, but I'll see what I can do to get there.

Look, impact data needs to be, it starts with who's doing the work and what are they trying to do? Who do you serve? What do you serve them with?

A lot of times in impact and the idea of like the annual report, folks will want to turn in a document at the end of the year that says everything worked.

That's not learning. That's not improvement. That's kind of validation.

And I think the reality is nonprofits that are closest to the work should define what success looks like with their intervention, and they should lead with who do they serve.

What do they serve them with. What's the quality of that service. Is anybody better off, and how does it relate to the greater community.

That deconstruction allows them to own their story so they can tell it to a funder, tell it to a participant, tell it to a parent who has their kid there, but it starts with them.

You need to own your own. And if what you're doing is teaching kids to have fun or exposing kids to fun, then your metrics and data strategy should speak to that too.

And I think that's the reality is. But the folks that do it should be the ones that own it.

Josh:

When you first sit down with the nonprofit, Stephen, what do you look for to understand whether their current data and reporting setup is empowering their team or just creating noise and extra work?

Stephen:

Yeah, I mean, let's be real. I represent about a group of 40 of us.

So I get to talk about this and evangelize our work.

But I get to do that because I have a team of folks that are former nonprofit foundation folks, practitioners that can, first of all, listen.

They can listen. They ask questions, what are you trying to do in your work?

What's your work about? How do you know it's working? When you close your eyes at night and you think about, is it working, what do you think about?

It's probably not the data set, right?

Like I think about as being a former high school basketball coach and athletic director, I think about those young brothers being ready to go into that executive job down the line, not their free throw percentage from 2007.

So the work we did was tying into something bigger. But it starts with what are you trying to accomplish?

And so our team sits with folks. An example would be Josh, what are you trying to do with your work?

Oh really? Okay. You're trying to do that.

How do you get there? How does data play into that? And then we can start to meet them where they're at.

Because if you don't meet people where they're at, it starts to become like college.

Starts to become like, we're teaching you something versus working with you to improve and create together.

So it starts with listening and being open.

How to move from disconnected systems to a single source of truth

Josh:

Yeah. So UpMetrics uses language around moving from disconnected systems to a single source of truth.

I want to know what does that look like in practice for a typical nonprofit? And then how does it change the day to day experience for staff?

Stephen:

Sure. Yeah. UpMetrics we’re a software as a service provider, we work with funders and nonprofits, impact investors and portcos.

But for nonprofits, I'll use my hand as an example.

You probably got survey data from participants. You probably got P&L, like, where's your money at? Where's the budget at? You probably have marketing. Like, are we reaching new donors?

You know, all these things, all these things kind of do this.

But if they're disparate and they're living in different silos, they probably aren't getting leveraged correctly.

So if I take this metaphor of all these different things, and I change the metaphor to a pantry, if you're lucky enough and privileged enough to have a pantry of food.

Well, you can make a lot of different recipes from that pantry, right? You can do a lot with that food, if you know where it's at.

Well, if you take your data and you have it all here, it's hard to do this and pull it together and make that unified conversation.

So what we try to do with our software as a service and our consultative team is help organizations start to make sense of what they're trying to do.

What is your mission? What are your values? What are the issue areas you care about?

How are you doing the work, and then how do you back into that data in a way that's qualitative and quantitative, head and heart.

And so when you start there, you're never off track if you're starting with your mission and your values.

You're never off track if you start with your mission, your values, as long as your behaviors map back to the mission and values.

So if your mission is to help get capital to communities quicker, well then how do you do that?

Because then your behaviors and your actions, data wise should match to that. And so it starts there.

When you ask people, how do you tell people about your work?

Oh, we have this annual report. Great. Let's look at it.

You can start there and say were you hoping that resonated with people? How could you strengthen it?

And you start to unpack because not everybody feels confident when we're having a data conversation.

Sometimes they feel like it's going to be used against them, right? I go back to my pedigree, I'm a teacher, right?

I'm a black man teacher in America. A lot of times data and education is deficit first when it comes to that population.

It's like, oh these kids don't. And you're like, no, no, no no no no no no. These kids do.

And this is how and you can use data to tell a story or you can use data to harm.

A lot of times people in the nonprofit world have had data used against them to exclude them from funding, to exclude them from competitive opportunities, not for malicious needs, sometimes just for efficiency.

But the reality is people kind of get uncomfortable when you say, let's talk about your data, right?

Well, what happens if you talked about well, let's talk about what I'm learning.

Oh, well, I'm learning this and I'm trying this. Great. Well, what's the data that says that?

Totally different conversation versus data to validate.

And I think that's kind of the demystification we try to help folks get to.

The most common gaps between collecting data and using it to improve programs

Josh:

I love that. I love that.

So, many organizations collect lots of data, and we won't even get into data hygiene, but struggle to turn that data into insight.

What are some of the most common gaps you see between data collection and actually using that data to improve programs?

Stephen:

Yeah, well, I mean, it depends on why you're collecting it.

Why are you collecting your information? If you’re collecting everything, nothing's important, right?

Priority is a singular. If you have a bunch of priorities, you do not have a priority. It's by nature of the definition.

And so when you think about like why are you collecting all these things?

Start there. Why are you collecting demographic data on all the participants?

Oh, I hope to tell a story someday to a funder that may ask. Okay, well, that kind of in this day and age is kind of extractive, right?

If you're just asking about backgrounds and demographics and you have no plan to tether that to a strategy, then it's just kind of grasping and hoping.

And I don't think in this modern world, we should be hoping too much when it comes to how we get allowed to be a part of people's life through our nonprofit work.

You're a guest right? In these stories of these people involved in these nonprofits.

And so it's on you to be thoughtful and respectful about what you're asking for and why, and what are you planning to do with it?

So if you have a plan to do with it, then you got to also share that with your stakeholders, right?

If I'm talking to a bunch of young people in South Los Angeles about yo, the reason I'm asking, you know, free and reduced lunch information is because that's how the state decides about how much money gets allocated to these programs.

And if I don't have it, I can't tell that story. And if you don't want to give it to me, that's okay.

But that does make it harder for me to do this.

So it's that conversation about sharing with your stakeholders what you plan to do with the data.

That's what's been gapped for a long time. And it's because people don't always know what they're trying to do when they're trying to do it.

They're like, if I have it, I can do something with it eventually, right?

You're like, yeah, or you can just not worry about that at this moment and start with why and what and baseline there.

Because it's easy to grow. It's hard to take all this stuff and make sense of it, but it's easy to add to it over time as you get smarter about your behavior.

And if you use your program data to inform your strategic plan, well, then your team internally will understand because they helped accumulate that program data, they pour it into it, they see themselves in it.

If you see yourself in the information or the process to get it, you're a lot more likely to participate in it getting better or improving.

But you're informed you're not just getting a report.

You've done the sweat equity to get here, right? So you really do understand it.

I think that's a really important delineation when you're thinking about how to use the data for what to justify why you're asking for.

Why blending metrics with stories motivates teams instead of demoralizing them

Josh:

That's so helpful. And such a great segue into my next question, something you mentioned earlier around quantitative and qualitative and hearts and minds.

So your platform blends both quantitative metrics and qualitative stories, photos, and narrative.

Why is that combination so important? If you want data to actually motivate teams instead of demoralize them.

Stephen:

It's almost the answers in the way you asked it, right? Demoralizing.

It could be demoralizing if you put in front of me a P&L about young people in a mentorship program, like this is how much profit we got for our fee of service, and this is how much it costs us to get it.

I'm going to roll my eyes in the board meeting because I can read and write.

You can send me that ahead of time. Like you should have if you're following Robert’s Rules of Order and board management, ten days beforehand.

So let me consume it that way. But I need to be inspired to be inspiring.

I need to see who I'm working with. Why? The story matters.

Sometimes the anonymity that comes from big data is you don't have to be intimate to the causes, right?

But now if you tell me about this one young man, if I tell you about Michael from Locke High School, class of 08, with a poor left attack to the right, but a real confident mid-range jumper, all of a sudden you're in with me.

Now, I can talk to you about how that brother ended up being at one of the biggest foundations in Los Angeles, and is helping redirect out money to his community based on lived experience, knowledge, and passion.

You're in my zone right now because of the story I'm telling you.

Now if I gave you the data set on Michael's academic performance and how he got to American University and did, you might lose it, right?

The story brings you in, the data keeps you there. You can't have a story without numbers and the numbers without a story, because otherwise it's dehumanizing. And in social impact work, collaboration, these are people. These aren't just processes.

And so that story that marrying the head and the heart is important because when's the last time you did a real investment or a real purchase and you didn't look at referrals, get someone's opinion, double check, ask.

Those are all qualitative. Then there's the quantitative how much it costs, is it successful?

What's the you know how many times these returned or problem.

You marry those things when you make big decisions.

Well why wouldn't you do that in philanthropic investment? Why wouldn't you do that in nonprofit proliferation and work? It's the same thing, head and heart.

And if you look at a boardroom, nonprofit, I bet you got some analytical folk, I bet you got some some social folk, I bet you got some parents in there.

All of them care, but they care a different way, and you need to meet them where they're at.

You need to provide the analytical information. You need to provide the qualitative story, and then you need to be able to tie it together.

And that allows for the most people in that room to be able to be a part of the discussion.

That's growing the influence, that's growing the tent of people that can participate because you're feeding them what they need so that they can digest it and be critical in their examination of it, but also feel like they can help because you got them there because of their talent, time, treasure, etc. well, give them the information to help them do that.

I think that's important.

What shared impact frameworks look like when nonprofits and funders align

Josh:

Yeah, and I want to lean into that with our next question, which is impact measurement is often driven by funder requirements.

We talked about that earlier.

What does it look like when nonprofits and funders are aligned around a shared impact framework, instead of each grant having its own spreadsheet?

Stephen:

Yeah, I mean, that's it talks about a relationship, right?

Like if you're funding me as a funder, if you’ve believed in what I've talked to you about, pitched you on, showed you, etc. if you fund that and I tell you as a nonprofit leader that I need to use the dollars to buy more paper so that I can do these workshop things, you telling me that that kind of expense isn't justified doesn't really map, right?

Because I'm the person that you believed in to fund.

So I should be able to spend the resources unrestricted, hopefully the ways that I think to run the enterprise.

But oftentimes what happens is funders will fund a program. It's about risk, right?

I can fund a program. Well, I'm not stuck funding a program every year if I don't want to.

Program works, I fund it again. If it doesn't work, I don't fund it. But the problem is, how does that help a nonprofit learn?

If a nonprofit is trying to learn about how to do this work correctly, what happens if they along the way say, you know, Josh, you funded me, and I've been collecting data on social emotional learning for my young people.

And it looks like actually, I need to do this. Are you okay if I pivot?

Well, you can do that if you have your data under you.

And if you're tracking information correctly and you start, you anchor this relationship in the conversation about what am I trying to do, who am I serving and what am I serving with?

So I show you my framework of that as the nonprofit, you as the funder agree and fund me.

Well, then we got to be human and allow for change along the way as needed, because we're not going to go the entire year.

If social emotional learning growth is one of our goals, and we find out mid-year that actually we're causing harm, for example, or kids aren't enjoying it or aren’t showing up.

So you want me to keep bull dogging through that?

Or do you want me to have a conversation with you about why we should pivot and why you're going to see that change and some of what I'm going to report to you, not to get you a data point, but to actually do the community work that we agreed to do when we partnered.

So when you fund unrestricted organizations versus programs and then have data that maps to how that's going to be leveraged and used, now you start to give people the liberation with the funding to make decisions based on best on their social enterprise, but that they can actually own and talk about.

And so if you don't do that, it's real easy to force someone to dance the jig.

It's real easy to say, Josh, don't you want that additional funding? Because if you do, I need to see a data point that says this.

That's performance, that's not partnership. And that's been done a long time.

And I've never been in the position to give away millions and millions of dollars. Maybe one day I will and I hope this is a problem I get to navigate.

But there is some understanding of like your work, your lived experience as a social entrepreneur, nonprofit leader is genius, and I have to trust you and you have to show me and we have to have a relationship.

I think that's the way we back into that, to get it to be driven by the nonprofit.

And then the funder can say, these are the themes that I care about. These are the issues I care about workforce development, gainful employment, whatever it could be.

But then these nonprofits that fit that, now we have to do the work.

And data always lags behind the lived experience. So you're not going to get a data set that says kids can read yesterday, right?

If you're funding literacy, you got to stick around. Let me put the intervention in and show the growth over time and stick around.

But that data will allow you to stick it out. And I think that's important.

One nonprofit's shift from ad-hoc reporting to disciplined impact measurement

Josh:

So thinking of examples and outcomes, can you share a concrete example of a nonprofit that shifted from ad hoc reporting to a more disciplined impact measurement approach, and what changed for their staff, programs, and fundraising?

Stephen:

Yeah, I think we're still kind of nascent in how many groups have been working with us on this, and we see a lot of folks.

But I'll give an example. A couple, February 17th to be exact, Michael Jordan's birthday. I'm just an old basketball guy, that’s what I remember.

We hosted an event with our partners, the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, at Dodger Stadium.

Nonprofits and funders in the room. That's a big room. That's intense. Could be intense.

But we wanted folks to understand that, like, impact can happen in a baseball stadium or impact can happen here.

The tenor of the conversation was about the Dodgers Dream Team work, which is really cool work.

I encourage y’all to click on their website and check it out. Really rad stuff.

Well, I'm familiar with that work because I was a high school baseball coach in Watts too, the home of Eddie Murray and Ozzie Smith.

That's six and a half miles down the street from Dodger Stadium. So a bunch of my kids were kids that wanted to go play there, all that kind of stuff.

Well, what we did was host a session where we had philanthropic leaders in the room, but they were listening to nonprofits talk about the realities of trying to tell data driven stories or the realities of owning their impact journey.

And then we put them into breakout rooms later in the day, where they had a chance to dive into data driven storytelling.

Or how do you create your own impact framework so that you can stand up in a room like this and boom, when you need to, or fall back because you're so dang confident in who you are, what you're doing, and how you serve people.

If you start pulling into people with this yo, the movement changes.

It's no longer can I meet some funders or funders, can I meet some nonprofits? It's like, yo, this is the learning, this is rad.

And there's some links and videos and stuff that you can check out online that'll show you some of that.

But the example is Affirmative Athletics was one of those panelists.

Affirmative Athletics, Rob Thelusma, was doing phenomenal work working with young people experiencing incarceration in Los Angeles, and created an athletic league with literacy to work with young people to show them that the perseverance, resiliency, and grit associated with fitness, athletics, team, all these things that we want our young people to work through, especially those experiencing incarceration.

Well, they just had their version of a Super Bowl. Some of the biggest funders in all of Los Angeles in the state showed up because they saw him talk about it first, right?

Then they went and saw the work, the amount of anecdote I'm getting back of like, thank you for connecting us. Thank you for getting my story elevated and what Rob doesn't know and I tell him all the time is, brother, you did the work.

Sometimes you just need to create the space for people to be elevated.

He didn't hit him with a data set first. He hit him with a story.

‍This is who I am. This is why I do this. Come see it. Please come see it. And then they met him in a conversation around data.

Well, now they can build their relationship rooted in, I saw you, and I saw your program. I want to talk to you more about this.

Well, that's one of the things nonprofits are always struggling with is how do they get real relationships with folks that can buy into their work and believe in them and fund them.

So Rob now is in a position of offense, not on his back foot.

He's on his front foot thinking about where do I spend my time as an executive director of this organization that is valuable to our community?

Well, that empowerment play changes the game. I'm a high school PE teacher. I'm going to talk to you about coaching sports.

You talked about sports in the front end of this conversation with me. Like, yo, there's some training and some stuff as a coach that you can bring into this space.

And I've just see it like, oh, we just don't know how to move together. Oh, okay.

And then we can get in the weeds and get as nerdy and I think nerds in affectionate language. Nerdy as we want, and examine the data and get curious and figure out what next and where else.

You can't start with data. You got to start with people. And if you start with people, they'll go with you into the data and they'll be curious, and now you got something.

Building data confidence when your team says they're not data people

Josh:

I love that.

And just following up, for leaders who feel their team are not data people, how do you help build data confidence and make dashboards and metrics feel like a support and not a as you mentioned earlier, a surveillance tool or performance trap?

Stephen:

Absolutely. It's like whack a mole, right?

Like I remember having to go into what we call data day in my old organization, a school district in Los Angeles, and I ran after school and athletics.

But I had to go in and defend a data project quarterly, just like the Ed team.

Other people on the Ed team the math, the college design, all the different groups had to defend.

And I was inadequate in that room because I felt inadequate, not because I am as a person, I just didn't, I'm not a spreadsheet person.

I'm not a data person. I'm a story person.

But when I changed my mindset, shouts out to Carol Dweck and the growth mindset.

When I changed my mindset, because as a coach, you're looking at data all the time.

I'm looking at film, I'm looking at shot percentages, I'm looking at deflections. I'm looking at all these.

I'm a real data guy when I was coaching, right. Film. But I'm not. Oh, I'm not a data person when it comes to, yes you are. You just haven't believed in it.

So part of my story is telling people you ever lost $8 million in grant funds overnight?

Have you? If you have, I can feel you because I have too.

And that money was representing young people and you know why I lost it?

Because I lacked an effective data strategy to articulate the outcomes I aspired to have with that after school funding.

It’s exactly what I was told in the denial letter. Devastating.

So for me, paying the progress, I'm a competitor.

I'm not going to sit back and say, dang, all you 12,000 kids across Los Angeles, I can't pay for HBCU trips or driver's ed or all these things, these enrichment things that a lot of schools have that round out the education opportunity for young people because I lacked an effective data strategy.

I think that was malarkey. It actually was the budget crisis of 08 happened and some other things were part of it.

But what I remember the metaphorical tattoo I have on the inside of my forehead that I never forget, is if you don't have your information together and to be palliative and understood when the time is right, you're never going to have the opportunity to tell that story, to get people to buy into it.

So for your direct question, how do I get people that are not necessarily data people to buy into it?

You got to kind of get them to understand you are. You just maybe don't see it or what other data can you feel confident in?

And when you tell people things like, I would never play gotcha with you, I'm not trying to embarrass you, but I can help you feel better in that room.

Not to sanitize or validate or clean, but like, what do you want to own?

What do you want to tell people about your work? And then how does the data say that?

And if the data doesn't say that, how do you then speak to it doesn't say this now, but here's my plan.

So the next time I talk to you what you can expect from me, so you're going to bet on yourself.

I'm going to examine this differently. And so you help them and give them scaffolding to get there.

Because you want to build people up. You don't want to be like, Josh, you can't do it. See you.

But usually in business, like things go up, things go down. There's learning, there's changes, there's market changes. All this stuff happens.

Marcus Strother, MENTOR California talks about life data matters too. The things that happen in your life matter just as much as what we were tracking, right?

Like, you got to look at the life data. Somebody hungry when they took that test? Well, that's going to impact their ability to perform, anecdote tied to school.

But the same thing exists, like in partnership and everywhere. And so you got to meet people where they are.

You've got to make sure people know that there's tools that can help you get there.

But also a line I use a lot is this ain't Mensa work. Data doesn't mean genius. It doesn't mean that. It's information, right? It's information.

And like you got to decide how do you want to leverage the data to do what you want to do, which is tell the story, learn, refine whatever it is.

But don't get into performance because performance will change, will have you mission drifting, will have you chasing the thing versus owning your thing, and then talking about it with all your bones and soul about why it matters.

People buy into authenticity. People buy into transparency and honesty. And data? If underneath you, allows you to put bass in your voice when you're speaking.

And that's the way I always try to get people to believe.

Define what you're trying to do before you shop for a platform

Josh:

Love that, love that so much.

So just kind of closing out the podcast, Stephen, if one of our listeners right now wants to make impact measurement a tool that it really, truly empowers their team over the next year.

You've inspired them. They're ready to inspire others.

What are the first 2 or 3 steps you'd have them take before they ever shop for a platform?

Stephen:

Oh yeah. Starts with in the mirror. Starts in the mirror. What are you trying to do?

And does whatever you're telling people externally map to that?

It's a simple exercise. Pull the thumb. I am trying to do blank. I put people through workshops in Mad Libs all the time.

What are you trying to do? Like fill it out? I exist to do blank. I do that by blank. I know it's working by blank.

I don't know this, but you just go back to being a kid, right?

Go back to those things that used to make you think like, am I doing the right thing? Or am I saying buzzwords? Get off the buzzwords.

Because when you start doing that, then you can talk to that person on your team that's closest to you in the work and say, are we aligned on what we're doing?

Are we? Yes. Cool. Because if there's alignment, from there, then we can move forward.

But to go out and get a tool, let's just take it to building a home.

If I'm not trying to build a home, I might not need all the carpentry work and all these other things that come with building at home.

But if I go out and buy the tools to build a home and my job is to build a planter box for my garden, I'm not going to align the effort with what I'm trying to do.

And so you got to start there before you go to tool.

Who do you serve? Do you know that? Great. Write it down. What do you serve them with? Do you know that? Write it down. Great.

Because then you can go say, well, I know these things and I know why we exist, but I'm struggling to do X.

One thing that I encourage people to do is think about the jobs that need to be done.

What is the job you need to be done? There's a framework book, jobs that need to be done. What is the job that you need to do?

Well, executive director needs to keep the organization open, needs to keep the direction, the strategic direction, driven, funded, etc.

Well, they don't exist to fundraise, but it’s a job that needs to be done, right?

So then if you think about all these things and think about what you need to get done, what you're trying to do, then you can reverse engineer into is there a tool out there that can help that?

But if you start with looking for a tool to be a panacea for all ills, then any salesman can sell you the tool.

And I don't think and no disrespect to salespeople out there, I do not mean that, but I mean that their job is to get you to buy something.

I think the reality is to align on value. What do you need help with?

And if you go out looking for tools, you got to ask yourself, do I know what I'm trying to do before I need to get this tool?

Start there. Always start there. So I'm not going to give you three. Start there.

Because in there will be the examination opportunity to say okay, is there a solution that exists?

And then usually what you can do is when you get there, then you can go find peers of yours and say, how did you solve this problem? How did you solve it?

Did you solve it? Because your friends are going to know some other resources too.

Closing thoughts

Josh:

Speaking of resources, any resources you would recommend to our audience on today's topic?

Stephen:

Oh yeah, well, check UpMetrics, of course. Check out us at UpMetric that always be cool.

I think I'm a wonderful resource for you on LinkedIn. Ping me on LinkedIn. I'm active.

I'm a point guard by trade. I connect folks to resources.

The anecdote I told you earlier is exactly about it, and not for me to extract, but because I exist to connect.

I would shout out Nonprofit Finance Fund doing crazy cool work, helping nonprofits really understand true cost as a parallel to what you're up to in your world, the fundraising side of things.

A lot of times people fundraise, but they don't actually understand what it costs to run their own enterprise.

The true bandwidth burn, the cost of benefits, all these things.

So I always shout out the Nonprofit Finance Fund because they do some illuminating work that helps people see, right, that like, oh, I wasn't even thinking about that.

So I think that and also just there's a lot of communities out there that are trying to do some cool stuff.

Raise for Good is another one that does some really cool stuff, but drop me a line on LinkedIn. I'll connect you to a lot of them.

Josh:

Awesome, awesome. And yeah, check out Nonprofitpulse.com to see the show notes.

There, you can connect with Stephen and get all the links that he just mentioned as well as like I said, the transcript as well as the Nonprofit Pulse Newsletter, where every month we send you the latest trends, insights, and resources from around the web.

Stephen, this has been such a great episode.

We are at our last question.

My favorite question of every episode, which is, if you are standing on stage today in front of a thousand nonprofit leaders and can share one thing, one sentence about today's topic, which is how to make measurement a tool that empowers your team, what would you say to the audience?

Stephen:

I'd say it starts with owning your own story, folks.

That your belief in who you are, what you do, and why you do it will resonate for any audience if you believe it, and you can have data and mindset to back it.

So it starts with you. It is not to be externalized.

Pull the thumb. What are we doing? Why are we doing it?

Get people to believe in it through your own authenticity, back into the data, you got an opportunity to be successful.

Josh:

Love it, love it. I hope everyone listening will go connect with Stephen.

Man, just so motivated and inspired in this episode. Stephen. So, thanks for bringing that.

And yeah, the world is changing so quickly, and I think everyone is going to increasingly be yearning for everything that is human, right?

People are going to demand stories before getting involved.

And these are authentic stories, right? Not PR copy. This is not go hire a PR agency to get your story right.

It's exactly what you said, Stephen, spending a lot of time in the mirror and starting with first getting your own story correct.

Stephen:

Spot on. Look, Josh, I appreciate the opportunity to be here, man.

Being able to tell these stories and support people in their journey is what it's about.

So just appreciate you letting me be a part of it today.

Josh:

Awesome. Thanks, Stephen.

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