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Sustainability in Action: A Holistic Approach to Events
Season 1 · Episode 1
Tuesday, August 27, 2024 • Duration 26:22
In our inaugural episode, recorded live at the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition in Cleveland, we hand over the hosting duties to Kiki L'Italien, host of Association Chat. Kiki engages in a lively discussion with Virginie De Visscher, executive director of business events for Destination Canada, on the crucial topic of sustainability in events. Together, they explore how sustainability spans environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions, advocating for a holistic approach. Virginie provides inspiring examples from Canada, including innovations like green roofs, urban beehives, and local food initiatives, underscoring the importance of incorporating cultural elements to enhance event experiences.
Michelle Mason 00:04
From ASAE, this is Associations NOW Presents, a podcast for association professionals tackling issues and challenges that affect our community. I'm Michelle Mason, CEO of ASAE. We hope you enjoythis episode. Now, let's tune in and hear what the experts are discussing.
Kiki L'Italien 00:22
All right, we are live. Do you hear this background noise? We are live at ASAE annual, at the Super Bowl of meetings in Cleveland, Ohio. I am Kiki L'Italien, and I am guest hosting the inaugural podcast episode of ASAE's new podcast. I usually host a podcast over Association Chat. I got a chance to jump over here. And with me is our inaugural podcast guest
Virginie De Visscher 00:53
Virginie De Visscher.
Kiki L'Italien 00:54
I wish you could say that as well as you do. With the last name, L'Italien, and you think I'd be better at this. But anyway, I'm so glad that we're here. I'm so glad that we're talking and I saw you on stage today, and can I just say you were fantastic. It looked like you were like born to do this. You just dominated the stage. You were radiant.
Virginie De Visscher 01:17
I think I was inspired by who we were introducing, Amanda Gorman.
Kiki L'Italien 01:21
I know. Weren’t we all? Amanda Gorman is not just inspirational. I do believe she's a magical being. I You though, let me tell you, you had an important message, and Team Canada has an important message. That's why you're here. Let's talk about the keyword sustainability, sustainability. We could say it together, sustainability. So I'm super excited to talk to you because for several reasons. One is because I love Canada, but the other is because this is the inaugural episode, inaugural episode of the first ASAE podcast, and they're launching it here. This is supposed to be somewhat of a different format than all of the rest. We get to be the lucky ones. And I'm looking at this list of questions, but all I can do is stare across at you right now and see that you're beaming. You're radiating. I saw you on stage this morning with Amanda Gorman also sharing the stage opening keynote. And you're up there and you're talking about sustainability and being maybe when people hear the word sustainability, they don't think of it as being particularly exciting. But at the same time, a lot of travel here was disrupted because of harsh climate conditions, right? We had these horrible storms. People had a hard time getting to ASAE Annual. Interesting that one of the big features that you're talking about for Canada is Destination Canada is doing some amazing things with sustainability. So I want to go into that. I want to open with that and talk about the fact that it is a really important topic. It is something that I think more and more event planners are finding to be increasingly important for the way that they decide where they're going to post their meetings. And I think that when people start looking for is there something meaningful behind the word sustainability that's happening? They're going to ask these questions. So sustainability, what's happening? Why is this such a focus for you and Destination Canada? And what's got you fired up about it right now?
Virginie De Visscher 03:36
I think it's a combination of things. It's a passion subject. First of all, it's a personal passion subject, but I think it's undeniable. Like you mentioned, the recent climate events that impacted Cleveland, like these are impacting all of us across the planet. In Canada, we're not immune, and things are happening and we see it. We have a beautiful country, and we want to make sure that it stays that way. So events are disruptive in an ecosystem. By just bringing large amount of species into another ecosystem, you're disrupting the environment. So what can you do to keep less of that disruption, and on the opposite side, how do you maximize the benefits that you bring into a destination with events? Sustainability is a topic that we've really taken on this Destination Canada, but as Team Canada is a whole effort countrywide through a national sustainability plan that really means a lot to us, because we want to still be there for generations coming ahead. And I'm not saying that cliche. I really mean it.
Kiki L'Italien 04:32
Yeah, I was talking with someone about the fact that we were going to have this discussion, and her association is focused on looking at how meetings use their waste. And so she said, “Are you going to ask any questions about that? Are you going to ask, like, what they're doing, how they're working with different meeting planners to figure out how to create more sustainable meetings?” And I said, that's a really great question. Let me go ahead and add that to the list. What are some of the ways that you're working with different people, different associations and organizations that are coming in to have meetings in Canada.
Virginie De Visscher 05:04
There's lots of different ways how you can approach it, but first, maybe we should define sustainability. Let's do that. Let's define it. When you say the word sustainability, there's a big assumption that it's just about environmental. Yes, but it's not just that. It's not all the green stuff and what you do in regards to saving the planet, it's all about the people and the culture as well. So when we define sustainability, we want to make sure that all three pillars are encompassed into it. So of course, environmental sustainability, but then it's the sociocultural and economic side. So you want to have an impact on local economies when you're coming to meet somewhere, but also that cultures are thriving and people are healthy and people are there for the long term. So when we really see it as all encompassing and not just environmental, that was the first thing to do. But then the realization was, everybody is a part of it. It just it's not put the blame on someone, or don't think you can't do anything about it. It belongs to everybody. We all live on this planet. We all have people that we care about around us for future generations to come. So what can we do? And that was when we started our national business event sustainability plan. And keep in mind, we're a national organization, so we're not necessarily in the city level, but it's very important that we create that leadership for people to move forward and our organizations to be more sustainable. I think COVID really impacted that way too, when meetings were all of a sudden not happening. Sure the environmental footprint was - -well, the environment benefited, right? Nobody was moving anywhere, traveling. But look at all the negative impact that happened. So many businesses shut down. People were not thriving. Knowledge was not being shared, so all these positive impacts and legacies of events were not happening, so it's all about maximizing the benefits and minimizing the negative potential environmental footprint. So then the birth of the plan was to get all destinations on board to be more sustainable for meetings.
Kiki L'Italien 06:57
Do you think that you're getting enough questions about this? Do you notice that there is an increasing amount of interest? I hear talk about it, right? I hear people say that they're interested, but I don't know if, in actuality, that the conversations have changed, have they?
Virginie De Visscher 07:14
There's more questions. It's undeniable. We've done a lot of surveys on this, and it's quite visible that right now, it is supplier driven. There's a lot of barriers still to having more sustainable meetings. Cost is one of those biggest barriers, and the second one is lack of knowledge of what you can implement. And so on the supplier side, they've really taken that on venues and hotels, even airlines, to be honest, have taken a stance and been more sustainable, offering more options, whether it's waste diversion or the way energy or electricity is fed into the building, or food and beverage options. So all of that venues and destinations have really taken a stance on how they can make that easier for associations to meet and incorporate them. So while we're not seeing as much coming from the association world and asking for sustainable practices. More and more the responses from the destinations that are bidding on these opportunities are including sustainable practices.
Kiki L'Italien 08:10
Yeah, I think everybody, when I'm looking at associations, the executive directors reporting to their boards, do we want more and more to be able to include this thing that makes everyone feel like they're doing their part. They're doing the thing that's going to make the planet better. I hate to sound a little bit cynical, but actually, from a bottom line standpoint, I think it actually ultimately is better for everybody, even from the bottom, not a standpoint, to be thinking about that bigger picture. Because if we don't have a planet, we can't have more meetings. You know, we can't continue to have associations. And so the other part that you touched on was sustainability, talking about these pillars, talking about being concerned about the cultural side of things. How is Destination Canada showing support and offering up opportunity means to support those measures?
Virginie De Visscher 08:59
So that's a really fun one, seeing that we have so many diverse communities in Canada. We're a mosaic of people that have come from all over the world, but also coming into a land where indigenous peoples were here from time immemorial. And so how do we showcase all of what Canada is made out of, and through sustaining those cultures for multiple generations to come, and so integrating them into programs for meetings is one way to do it. So I'll give you an example. For Canada night at ASAE, we're actually going to have a fashion show, and what we're doing is we're featuring an indigenous designer. So we’ve brought a Metis company called AnneMulaire, and she's an extremely environmentally and socially conscious organization and company, and she's actually going to be doing a fashion show with the pieces that she's created, telling that story.
Kiki L'Italien 09:53
Stop. I am so interested. I want to be there and see this. This is amazing. I love this.
Virginie De Visscher 10:00
So one way is we're keeping the culture alive. She can share her story through fashion, but at the same time, we're economically sustaining her business. That's one way that we're actually walking the talks. It's not just about environmental that cultural and economic aspect is so strong in all that we do.
Kiki L'Italien 10:16
So does that get frustrating when people only focus on that because it is important. But it does seem to be that everyone focuses on that one part and not all of these other things.
Virginie De Visscher 10:26
I wouldn't call it frustrating. I would say focus on the low hanging fruits first, and perhaps the environmental side is just the lower hanging fruit. It's easier to do the cultural side. You have to think it through a little bit harder and getting the help of the local host destination and what cultures they want to showcase are bringing local art. We've had workshops doing local moccasins and to bring that culture alive.
Kiki L'Italien 10:49
Oh, that's so fantastic. Okay, so sustainability has been a major theme for you at this year's ASAE meeting. What has motivated team Canada?
Virginie De Visscher 11:00
So in 2022 when we launched the National Business Event Sustainability Plan, it was comprised of three sections. So the first part was education and coaching. So what we realized is that when people are uncomfortable or don't know the terms around sustainability, they will be less likely to talk about it. So phase one was really, what does net zero mean? What does carbon neutral mean? All these terms. So we rolled out workshops and education sessions across the country, just so many different partners. Phase two was knowing where we were at. It was benchmarking. So we partner with the Global Destination Sustainability Index, the GDS, and we had 16 destinations across the entire country. We're very big. We're second largest landmass in the world. So we had 16 destinations go through that entire benchmarking process to see where are we at? Where can we improve? If you don't know where you stand, you can't go up, right? So that's what we did. And phase three is storytelling, and we're right in the midst of that. So through this whole benchmarking exercise, we collected stories, initiatives around sustainability across the country, across these three pillars, and we are launching today our storybook. So Sustainability Storybook, which has 30 stories from across the country, which are examples of what you can bring in, like a virtual delegate bag, or the indigenous Fashion Show. There's also stories about incentives into sustainability or different ways to impact the communities that you're living in or having your meeting in. And that storybook has been launched, and we also have a sustainability stories pavilion that showcases eight of these stories here live at ASAE. It's just perfect timing of where we wanted to launch these initiatives.
Kiki L'Italien 12:41
So earlier, you said that this was something that was personally important to you. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Why is sustainability particularly important to you?
Virginie De Visscher
You mean me as a person?
Kiki L'Italien
Yeah, you as a human being, an actual individual.
Virginie De Visscher 12:56
My background is in science and engineering, and I've always been close to the environment itself. I've traveled around the world, lived in Africa for many years, in Asia, and I've seen the impacts of the environment, but also on people around the world and what we can do and the changes over time. And I guess it's almost become a personal passion of mine that I have to do something I believe, very honestly, in whatever field you end up being, if it's medical or signage or entertainment or even tourism, you can do something about it. And so I'm in the tourism industry, I can do something about it. So I'm using that voice and that passion has to feel really good.
Kiki L'Italien 13:37
When you go home at night and you're winding down, you have to feel like, wow, I feel like I'm actively making a difference.
Virginie De Visscher 13:46
I wish. But it's a journey, and there's so much more to do. So I think I will continue to be on that path. I don't think we have an end point on that one.
Kiki L'Italien 13:55
Okay, we're on the journey together. So part of that journey is people are coming into the pavilion. They're experiencing that here. What's the next step that you hope that they leave that pavilion? What do you hope that they experience and walk away with from interacting with Team Canada?
Virginie De Visscher 14:11
The way the pavilion is designed is that for every story, there's a question, and it's a question that hopefully asks for reflection. So it's: Have you thought about incorporating a cultural element in your meeting? Have you thought about doing this or that? And so what we hope is that booth--by the way, is staffed by a member of Team Canada--all throughout which will be sharing those stories. So it's a way to get people engaged, and maybe if one of them, or every person that visits, goes away with one idea that they can bring back to their meetings, whether it's a local pop up market in the destination that they will be needing to support different businesses that are local, that would be just so amazing. So that's what we really hope to spur and whether they need in Canada or not. Of course, we. Want them to meet in Canada, but it's can we impact that change in all of their meetings.
Kiki L'Italien 15:04
When an association is actually going about trying to implement sustainability practices or bring that on? I think you touched on this a little bit earlier. What are the challenges that they're facing? Are they trying to bite off more than they pinch What do you hear that they're running into when they're starting to go down that path?
Virginie De Visscher 15:24
There's a variety of reasons, and it's not always the same for everyone, but here are some of the ones that I've heard quite a bit. So one is--and in no particular order--it can be an afterthought. So you know, the whole machine into sourcing next meetings is into place. RFPs out. So we're ready to look and then few months before the meeting, oh, wait a second, did we look at sustainability? Oh, that thing, yeah. So it's much harder to then put back into the meeting once you've gone so far adding it into the RFP and then your sourcing process is one way to go about it. The other challenge that we get is there's no one person to point it to, right? It's only starting now that you're going to have an organization's a sustainability person, so usually it ends up being on the side of the desk of someone for another task to ask to the meeting planner. And it becomes big, right? So if it's not the part of the mission or vision of the organization, it becomes secondary, so putting it as a priority and having a person really dedicated to it can help, and that takes time to create another one. Is definitely the cost. I mentioned cost before, but by sourcing more sustainable venues and sustainable destinations, sometimes that can be avoided because they're already incorporated in the destination. So there's ways to get around it. We're the sustainability sponsor for this event, so that sustainability stations that are around all the food stations, we support that because we believe in that.
Kiki L'Italien 16:50
I have my bottle of water over here, the reusable bottle of water that I have so that I can refill it periodically. And I do believe that I was reminded ahead of time to bring that with me, yes, so that I could fill my bottle with the water around here, so that we wouldn't produce more waste. Is that you're doing?
Virginie De Visscher 17:10
Absolutely, we're supporting that. And since you can bring your reusable water bottle to the sustainability stories pavilion and get a free entry for a free registration for next year's meeting,
Kiki L'Italien 17:20
Oh my gosh, I think I missed that part somehow. I think I missed it, but that's really amazing. And I would be so curious to see. I have seen a lot of these reusable water bottles going around. So pretty incredible. And what do you think as far as trying to get leaders to take ownership of their role in bringing that awareness into their strategy for their meetings, to think about sustainability, so it isn't an afterthought. I know that pavilion is part of that, but is there a way? Is there some sort of magic that you're weaving that it can get them to think about this stuff?
Virginie De Visscher 17:56
It's one person at a time. It really is. You get one person inspired and saying, “Yeah, I can do that.” I can bring that in. But I really hope, and maybe that's me, personally, speaking, the way I really hope to change the organization, world, association world, is understanding that no matter what field your association is focused on, sustainability is part of it, if you look at it, all encompassing. So yes, maybe you're in a medical field, and saving the environment is definitely not on your radar, but you're all about people. And so there is something that you can do to save people, and if you see it overall, as a company within sustainability, that makes sense. On our Sustainability Pavilion, we've actually aligned all the sustainability initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So when you look at the 17 UNSDGs, everybody can relate to those. It's a universal framework and blueprint. So by doing that, we can put in a language that anybody can take regardless of what field they're in.
Kiki L'Italien 18:52
I love that. I love that. And I feel like when people see the structure behind it and that alignment, it makes them feel safer to maybe do things that they'd haven't done before, right?
Virginie De Visscher 19:02
It's all about starting. You know, it's one little step at a time. Don't try to chew off the entire thing at once, because that's really hard. Yeah, it's just one small step.
Kiki L'Italien 19:09
Okay, so I'm going to ask you the hardest question ever, which is, because I know, get ready. You have so many beautiful destinations, so many beautiful cities. I'm not going to ask you to play favorites among your children, but I am going to ask you for some examples. Do you have some examples you could share with me about some of the fantastic offerings that really emphasize the sustainability efforts that Team Canada is putting forth?
Virginie De Visscher 19:36
Oh my goodness, there's so many of them. And so if I start listing them, I'm sure I will forget some and then I'm gonna have some unhappy partners.
Kiki L'Italien 19:42
Let me just disclaimer ahead of time, she loves all of you. Like, you're all loved - all the destinations.
Virginie De Visscher 19:49
I do, but there's some really fun examples out there, right? So if you look at first at venues and what some venues have done, anything from green roofs to beehives on the roofs. I'd be remiss. The Vancouver Convention Center is absolutely amazing with some of the energy.
Kiki L'Italien 20:04
I’ve been there. I was like, I actually had that experience and toured that and this was even, this is not a brand new thing, you guys. This is something that, I don't know, maybe it was 10 to eight years ago I went there, and that was a huge effort. So Team Canada's not new to this game. You guys have been trying to do this for a long time.
Virginie De Visscher 20:24
Yeah, for sure. So from the green roof fair to beehives in Toronto, to solar panels on the top of the convention center in Edmonton, to the recycling and sorting facilities at the panada conga in Montreal. There's so many amazing things, including the new BMO center in Calgary. They had a really fun initiative just recently when they did their opening. So they had listen to this one. This is really cute story. They had name badges that were made out of seed paper. And then they had a whole activity where they had a planter box where we could each plant our name tag, and so now our name tag would live as flowers forever on inside those planters.
Kiki L'Italien 21:04
What I love about that is that we've seen like the sort of seed tags, but to actually have the ritual, the actual experience of doing that.
Virginie De Visscher
Very moving.
Kiki L'Italien
It's moving. It's community building. Every time you're looking at what helps people to feel like they belong, whether it's to a meeting, to a community of association executives. It's like you're looking for that piece, and that is something that brings people to that. I love that. That's such a good example.
Virginie De Visscher 21:30
It's a beautiful example, but you have more and more. I was not so long ago at the Halifax Convention Center, and they had their food stations, and they had a sign in front explaining where the food was coming from. This food came from this particular farmer, and showed, really that locality of supporting local businesses into their food. So it was not only fresh, but it didn't have to travel miles to get there. Just more and more you're seeing those examples across the country, and that makes it super vibrant, and that's only touching the environmental side.
Kiki L'Italien 21:59
So in some of these examples that you're giving me, people can go to the pavilion and they can, like, learn more about that sort of thing, and get those ideas, and get those stories as they're thinking, maybe considering, maybe exploring what's even possible. Because just as you were sitting here explaining some of these to me, I thought, I wish I could have just a compilation of everything that you're saying to you, like all of the examples, so that could go through and just be like, this is brilliant. Let's do this.
Virginie De Visscher 22:29
So at the Pavilion, we can only showcase eight stories that are there, but in the storybook, you're going to have 30 stories. And again, that's still just scratching the surface. So when you reach out to us and even to all of our team Canada, partners, each of them can really share what they have like in depth, because everybody wants a different side of sustainability. Maybe you're not into the food part of it so much, but the cultural side's super important. So it really is a discussion with the organization about what's important to them.
Kiki L'Italien 22:57
Yeah, I think that sustainability is the key word here, but it's also about experience, and it's also about the feeling of belonging, of having a meaningful experience. When you're engaging with an event or a meeting and you're looking for something that is real.
Virginie De Visscher 23:14
It's about being inspired. For example, at one of our events recently, instead of printing menus, we use little chalkboards. And so we just put the menu on the chalkboard, and then when we were done, we erased it, and then the next day there was the other menu. So there's just a little tidbit on how you just save a lot of paper. And people thought it was really cute.
Kiki L'Italien
I love that. I think it's fantastic.
Virginie De Visscher
Little ideas like that. And what happened is a lot of the clients that were that event were like, oh, like you. I love that. I'm going to bring that back to my event. And so that's how the ideas spread.
Kiki L'Italien 23:45
I don't know if this is in the pavilion, but maybe taking ideas too like it inspires you to have ideas. You build on them, and it's, Oh, I like that. And then building on that. Let me think of this. Is there a collective area? It's an idea.
Virginie De Visscher 23:58
Absolutely. Yeah, sources of best practices and things to bring forward.
Kiki L'Italien 24:02
I love it. I love it. Is there anything that I didn't ask you to that I should?
Virginie De Visscher 24:07
One thing I want to mention is the word sustainability itself. It's almost like an over loved term, right? Overused. And what happens with overused and over loved terms is that it gets people away from them. Oh, again, another talk about sustainability. But when you look, when you think about it, sustainability is sustaining something. It's maintaining status quo. And so is that really what we want? And so our thinking now, what's next for us is looking towards regenerative tourism. How can we actually do better, rather than staying where we're at?
Kiki L'Italien 24:41
Ooh, so I'm very intrigued. I like, I love this idea of building on it, and like growing and it's like generating these new ideas. I think that's fantastic. I love that.
Virginie De Visscher 24:54
A 2030, Destination Canada strategy is aiming towards that, and maybe we'll have another chat in a little while.
Kiki L'Italien 25:01
I would love to have another chat about that. I like this idea of like the Oh, I'm getting inspired already. I love it. I love it. Okay. I am excited that we got a chance to be able to do this. We are so lucky. High five. You guys are hearing this clap, I hope in the background, because we just high fived for real, in person. It's unbelievable. The magic was here. ASAE Annual. Doing this inaugural episode of ASAE Podcast. I'm so glad we got to do this together.
Virginie De Visscher 25:32
Thank you so much.
Michelle Mason 25:36
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope the insights and stories shared today were valuable and inspiring. We look forward to having you join us again for our next episode, but until then, be sure to check out the latest from Associations NOW at associationsnow.com. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast so you never miss an episode. Until the next time, I am Michelle Mason, and this has been Associations NOW presents.
Associations NOW Presents Trailer
Monday, August 5, 2024 • Duration 01:08
The American Society of Association Executives presents the all-new Associations NOW Presents – an original podcast series featuring prominent podcast hosts from within the association community, engaging in candid and in-depth conversations with industry experts. Each episode explores key topics relevant to association professionals, discussing the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlighting the significant impact associations have on the economy, the U.S., and the world. The podcast complements the existing Associations NOW publication, providing a well-rounded resource for association professionals.
Workforce Development in Associations: AI, Adaptability, and the Power of DEI
Season 1 · Episode 2
Monday, September 30, 2024 • Duration 33:50
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Lowell Aplebaum, EdD, FASAE, CAE, CPF, from Association Rockstars, leads a conversation with Haley Jones, director of member engagement at the American Staffing Association, and Joe Lindhal, CEO of Mission MSA. Together, they explore the evolving landscape of workforce development in the association sector, discussing the influence of AI, the importance of adaptability, and the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The conversation highlights how DEI drives organizational success, urging associations to lead by example, embrace inclusive practices, and nurture a culture of acceptance and continuous learning.
Check out the video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwM9JWpnOWM
This episode is sponsored by Visit Omaha.
Transcript
Lowell Aplebaum 00:05
Welcome everybody to episode two of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. And we'd like to thank our episode sponsor today Visit Omaha for the support of this podcast. My name is Lowell Aplebaum. I'm the CEO of Vista Cova, typically hosting the Association Rockstars podcast, but really excited and overjoyed to have the opportunity today to facilitate a meaningful conversation around workforce development with two brilliant minds in our community. And rather than read a speaker bio, which probably would not have you still tuning in, we're going to have the opportunity to hear a little bit about the own professional journey from our two panelists today. So for each of you, I'll ask you one at a time, if you could please tell us a little bit about who you are and where you work, as we're thinking about workforce development and professional journeys that have led you to places of the association community. Tell us a little bit about your journey. Haley, do you want to go first?
Haley Jones 01:07
Sure. So I'm Haley Jones. I'm the director of member engagement at the American staffing Association in Alexandria, Virginia. I spent my entire career in the association space, but I got started through being placed at my first association from a staffing firm, ironically, X amount of years later, so I don't necessarily age myself. I now work at the trade association that represents the person who was once a member who got me into associations to begin with. I started in associations through member care, was answering the 800 line processing applications. Moved into the membership department. I spent the first half of my career in membership. The latter half has been in governance and volunteer management, leadership development. And then the last almost five years now has been also in the DEI space. I oversee a team of four people who run all of the, basically eight of the nine engagement programs that ASA has. My main focus is our DEI initiatives. I think where I've gotten to where I'm at now, I attribute a lot of it to being a DELP Scholar. I'm in the 2019 to 2021 class, and got access to mentoring and executive coaching and just education opportunities that I ordinarily wouldn't have thanks to Visit Detroit that sponsored everything, and that was a turning point for me and my career and finding my voice and just putting me in a leadership position, where I still work on this now, but where people see me as a leader and I also finally see myself as one too.
Associations NOW Presents is produced by .
Fostering Inclusion and Growth: Mentorship, Networking, and Workforce Development in Associations
Season 1 · Episode 3
Thursday, October 24, 2024 • Duration 36:32
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Lowell Aplebaum, EdD, FASAE, CAE, CPF, from Association Rockstars, continues the conversation on workforce development in the association space. He speaks with Eduardo Arabu, CEO of the National Hispanic Corporate Council, and Justin Bradley Reyes, membership manager at the Latino Corporate Directors Association. They discuss the importance of creating safe, inclusive spaces, the value of mentorship and sponsorship, and the role of proactive networking in fostering equitable professional growth through associations.
Lowell Aplebaum 0:03
Greetings everyone. Welcome to episode three of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. It's my pleasure to be with you. My name is Lowell Aplebaum. Typically, you'll catch me as host of Association Rockstars. It is my pleasure and my honor to be the host of this episode today, which is a part two, as we look into workforce development as our theme. We'd like to thank our episode sponsor Visit Omaha for their support of this podcast. And if you've not yet listened to part one of this two part series on workforce development, we'll be right here.
Lowell Aplebaum 0:39
So go on, take a listen and come on back for our conversation today. And we are excited to have two wise, wise individuals from our community for our conversation today. For each of you all, just give a brief introduction, a sentence about certainly your name and your organization, but I'd love for to hear each of you introduce yourselves, if you will, with a little bit about your own professional journey, right? So we think about workforce development, what developed you in the workforce? And today's conversation is going to have a large focus on network and community and relationships. So feel free to put into your own journey story, any critical relationships that were really important to your own journey along the way. And so let's first start Eduardo Arabu is the CEO the National Hispanic Corporate Council and the Latino DEI Collective. Eduardo. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your own journey?
Navigating Tax Reform: Advocacy for Associations and Nonprofits
Season 1 · Episode 5
Thursday, December 19, 2024 • Duration 40:05
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest hosts Steven Stout, CAE, FASAE, and Katy Markert from Better By Association lead a timely discussion with Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE, Chief Public and Governance Officer at ASAE, and Jarrod Clabaugh, CAE, President and CEO of the Ohio Society of Association Professionals. They explore the potential impacts of upcoming tax reforms on associations and nonprofits, including the expiration of the 2017 Jobs Act provisions and new threats under UBIT. The conversation emphasizes the critical role of coalition-building, advocacy, and grassroots efforts to protect the sector. They also discuss strategies for engaging lawmakers and preview ASAE's upcoming fly-in event, focused on lobbying against adverse tax policies.
Steven Stout 0:04
Welcome everyone to Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast produced by the American Society of Association Executives. Today, sitting in front of the mic is myself, Steven Stout with the Texas Society of Association Executives, alongside my colleague and friend Katy Markert, who will be serving as your guest co-hosts for today's episode.
Katy Markert 0:22
Hi everyone. I'm Katy Markert, also with TSAE, and we are so thrilled to be here with you today. Usually, Steven and I are on our own podcast, as he mentioned, Better by Association, produced by TSAE. And on our podcast, we refer to our listeners as "100-Percenters," because, as you probably know, association executives give 100% of themselves all the time. So you might hear us refer to that today. And I want everyone to know.
Steven Stout 0:49
Absolutely. So all those listeners hearing us for the first time, welcome to the 100- Percenter family. And for those who found us here from our other podcast, welcome back.
Authentic Leadership in Action: Women’s Voices, Mentorship, and Community Building
Season 1 · Episode 4
Tuesday, November 26, 2024 • Duration 46:22
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host KiKi L'Italien, host of Association Chat, leads a conversation with award-winning leaders Lori Anderson, President and CEO of the International Sign Association, and Debra BenAvram, CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies. The conversation delves into authentic leadership, highlighting the importance of amplifying women’s voices and fostering community within the association world. Lori and Debra share their personal leadership journeys, reflecting on pivotal moments, influential mentors, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Topics include overcoming challenges, the value of mentorship and peer networks, and the significance of foresight in navigating leadership complexities. They also discuss strategies for maintaining personal growth and resilience, with practical insights on mindfulness and intentional time management.
KiKi L'Italien 00:00
Welcome to the Associations NOW Presents podcast, I'm your guest host, KiKi L'Italien, and if you're thinking, "Hey, I know that name or I know that voice," you're right. It's because you usually hear me over at Association Chat. But today, I'm excited to be hosting this special episode of Associations NOW Presents, because we're continuing this powerful conversation that really started at what's called ASAE's The Exchange. And this is a women's leadership event that is really special, and our focus today to continue on this discussion is authentic leadership. We're talking about authentic leadership, the power of women's voices, and how we can build a supportive community in the association space. So joining me are two inspiring, award winning leaders, Lori Anderson, President and CEO of the International Sign Association, and Debra BenAvram, CEO of Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies. So I want to just do this, and start out at the very start, to just say congratulations, because, as I understand it, even though you've both won awards before, you have just recently been recognized, Lori as 2025 Trade Association Executive of the Year, and Debra, you were recognized as a 2025 Professional Society Association Executive of the Year. Congratulations to both of you.
Building Better Governance: Strengthening Boards and Leadership in Associations
Season 1 · Episode 6
Thursday, January 23, 2025 • Duration 40:00
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host David Coriale of the Reboot IT podcast sits down with Mark Graham, vice president of Association Solutions at ASAE, and Paul Pomerantz, FACHE, FASAE, managing director of the Association Governance Institute (AGI) and former CEO of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. They discuss AGI’s mission to streamline resources, build a robust content library, and develop educational courses to elevate governance in associations. Topics include CEO-board relationships, executive transitions, board operations, strategic oversight, and governance structures. They also explore assessments for CEOs and boards, the pivotal role of organizational culture, and how technology and cybersecurity play into effective governance. The episode wraps with actionable advice for fostering a healthy governance culture and navigating the evolving needs of associations.
Dave Coriale 0:03
Hello everyone. I'm Dave Coriale, president of DelCor and host of another podcast, Reboot IT, where we talk about all things technology for the association and 501 C community. Today I am guest hosting this podcast, and I am very excited about our two guests. One of them is Mark Graham, who is the vice president of association solutions at ASAE, at the Center for Association Leadership. And the other is a leader I've been a fan of for a long time, Paul Pomerantz. He has been a CEO of several health and medical associations before this, and he is currently the managing director of the Association Governance Institute. Let's get going. Let's listen in on the conversation. I think there is plenty to gain from hearing what they have to say, and here we are having the conversation I've been looking forward to for weeks now, ever since this was scheduled. Paul, Mark, thank you for taking your time. I know you're both very busy to talk about something that's coming up and very important, the Association Governance Institute, that is one of the main topics. I'm sure we'll weave and bob through a couple others along the way. But like always, I like to start my podcast with what are we talking about? So let's talk a little bit about the Association Government Institute, what it is, etc. Mark, I think you'd be great to lead that part of the conversation. So why don't you give us a little bit of background and where we're headed here?
Bringing AI to Life: Practical Steps for Associations
Season 1 · Episode 7
Thursday, February 27, 2025 • Duration 37:18
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Joanna Pineda of the Associations Thrive podcast chats with Rob Wenger, CEO of Higher Logic, and Amanda DeLuke, senior privacy analyst at Higher Logic. The conversation unpacks Higher Logic's own AI adoption journey, starting in October 2023, and the strategies they used to engage employees with AI tools. Rob and Amanda share practical insights on how associations can begin their AI journey, create policies, and leverage AI tools while prioritizing data privacy. Whether you're just getting started or looking to expand your AI capabilities, this episode offers actionable advice on using AI to enhance operations, improve member engagement, and drive innovation.
Joanna Pineda: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, I'm Joanna Pineda, CEO and Chief Troublemaker at Matrix Group International and host of the Associations Thrive podcast. Each week I interview and association our non profit CEO about their personal journey and the things their organization is doing to thrive. But today, I am thrilled to be a guest host for the ASAE podcast for Associations Now.
And I am absolutely honored because I'm going to be interviewing Rob Wenger. CEO of HigherLogic and Amanda DeLuke, Senior Privacy Analyst. We'd like to thank our episode sponsor, HigherLogic, for their support of this podcast. Rob and Amanda, welcome to the show.
Rob Wenger: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Joanna Pineda: Hey Rob, there's probably two people out there in the universe that don't know HigherLogic, and for those two people, tell us about HigherLogic.
Sustainable Events: How Associations and DMOs Are Leading the Charge
Season 1 · Episode 8
Monday, March 31, 2025 • Duration 29:06
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Teri Carden chats with Virginie De Visscher, executive director of business events for Destination Canada, and Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE, vice president of international affairs at ASAE, to explore the role of DMOs in driving sustainability efforts. They discuss the economic and reputational benefits of sustainable event planning, innovative strategies in transportation and local sourcing, and the power of collaboration in designing impactful, eco-friendly gatherings. Tune in to learn how associations and DMOs can work together to make a lasting difference for both the environment and local communities.
[00:00:00] Teri Carden: Welcome to episode eight of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Teri Cardin. You may have seen me around the association world as founder of non-A Palooza, AMS Fest and Review My AMS , but these days I'm sidekick it with co-founder of Higher Logic, Andy Steggles with his newest product called Insight Guide.
Some days I feel like a chicken with my head cut off as we manage our 20 plus clients. Yes, I'm throwing ASAE in the mix as one of our newest clients and all the implementations we have going on, but my real. Title is VP of Marketing and Client Success. Folks, I can tell you right now, it's a lot of fun to be me these days helping associations invent and deliver new tools to help their members make smart buying decisions.
Bridging the Gaps: Career Development in Associations
Season 1 · Episode 9
Thursday, April 24, 2025 • Duration 23:33
In this episode of Associations NOW Presents, guest host Christine Shaw of The Association Adviser Podcast sits down with Mike Moss, CAE, president of the Society for College and University Planning, for an insightful conversation on the shifting dynamics of career development in the association space. They explore the growing demand for purpose-driven work, the realities of hybrid and remote models, and how associations can foster meaningful engagement in a digital world. Mike shares strategies for building intentional connections, promoting continuous learning, and creating psychologically safe workplaces. The discussion also touches on transparent hiring, value-based leadership, and how associations can remain agile by rethinking professional development and evolving their strategic plans to meet today’s challenges.
Christine Shaw: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode nine of Associations NOW Presents, an original podcast series from the American Society of Association Executives. I'm Christine Shaw, CEO of Naylor Association Solutions. You probably heard me on my podcast, the Association Advisor. However, today I'm honored to host this episode for the ASAE.
Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to thank our episode sponsor, visit Omaha. For today's episode, we're excited to talk to Mike Moss, president of the Society for College and University, planning about the evolving landscape of career development within the association space, and what professionals can expect in the year ahead.
Lowell Aplebaum 02:48
I love that. Hopefully, as we were able to go into a discussion around workforce development, that sort of transformational journey from an employee to a profession to a leader, hopefully we can dig in a little more on those stages as well as we think about that, Joe, please.
Joe Lindhal 03:03
Yeah, so I'm Joe Lindahl. I serve as the CEO for Mission MSA, which is a nonprofit organization for patient advocates and research around multiple system atrophy, which is a rare neurodegenerative disease closely aligned with Parkinson's, but has the size and progression of it. I am with MCI USA, which is a management company, so I think I share many similar stories and journey as Haley. I was placed through a temp staff firm with the Association Management Center right after I graduated with a degree in journalism from DePaul. Go Blue Demons! In front of the recession where newspapers were failing, no one wanted to read or at least pay for it. The whole industry was turned upside down. So I was placed in this firm and I ended up really loving the world. This, I think, is a very common story for us, association professionals. Starting in marketing, really, after the first two years of more operations and governance, moved out to DC, where I got to work for the Child Life Council, and then also worked at the American Staffing Association, where Haley is now, where I had my "association, full circle moment." Like, I get to support an industry that really has done so much for me to where I am now. And then I moved back to Chicago, worked for AMC again, serving as a senior ops for specialty nursing groups, and eventually as an executive director and to where I am now. So it has been a rapid journey. You open your eyes and like, oh my gosh, what has happened? But it's been a lot of fun, and I'm really excited to talk about the workforce journey and workforce development.
Lowell Aplebaum 04:43
I hope that you will continue, both of you, to insert sort of personal reflections of your own stages of your professional progression as we talk about the larger workforce development. What's interesting, I think about both of your backgrounds - besides, it's amazing that both of you found sssociations by being placed in them; I'd be interested in a research study of what that percentage looks like as we now go into a discussion on workforce development - there's really a duality that we're discussing. One is the place of workforce development within the association community itself, and then the larger societal challenges or opportunities of workforce development across many industries. And I imagine from an American Staffing Association, you're looking many different lenses. We all, of course, are well matched in the association industry. So I welcome either of those paths that you want to explore with the top I'll start thinking broad, which is just as you think about workforce development in general, from what you've experienced and from your insights, what trends do you see? What would you identify as some of the big markers of challenge, opportunity or the way things are go? Haley, do you want to go first?
Haley Jones 05:52
Yeah, so this is something we do talk about a lot with our members, and especially in hearing what they're seeing as they're putting people to work, and one of the biggest ones is probably the emergence of AI and the fact that people really need to learn it. And there are people who think that AI is going to remove other people from the workforce, and then that probably will happen in some instances. But there's also a way to use AI as more of a partner and not much for a replacement to your responsibilities, and being able to learn how to use it to help with maybe administrative tasks. Or several of us have used it for writer's block, and then going back in and using it to going through it with a to read, for comprehension, to make sure that what it does dump out is, one it's accurate, or you make it accurate, and also that it makes sense. But it gives you the opportunity, if you are using it, to be able to focus on higher level work and higher value things. But I just had a conversation about two weeks ago about this, where everyone's starting to learn AI now. I had an owner the other day say, "I'm going to become obsolete. So I'm learning how to do all of this now." He's, I think, in his 60s, and has been in the business for over 30 years, but is also trying to keep his business relevant. It's just been interesting to see the different facets of it. There's also a bias issue when it comes to AI that we can get into later, but because that definitely can hurt minority communities in certain ways. But yeah, we've been talking a lot about AI and just also really upskilling to learn that or learn other skills to help further your career.
Lowell Aplebaum 07:34
Joe?
Joe Lindhal 07:35
The general workforce piece, I think some of the trends that when we look for talent, at least from an employer standpoint, is, we are looking for a kind of willingness to adapt, having some comfortability with technology. And how we operate as a workplace is we are almost completely remote, so our team is everywhere. There has to be the level of comfort of having these video conversations, having to use SharePoint, how to do video calls, how to be comfortable doing some of these things that are really important. And from piggybacking on what Haley's saying is as small staff especially, AI presents a lot of opportunity. I think it's not going to replace a lot of what we do yet individually, but it certainly can act as an accelerator or simplifier in a lot of our processes. For example, we have a support line that is open where you can speak with a social worker if you have any questions about your diagnosis. No one really generally knows about multiple system atrophy until they have to know about multiple system atrophy. And in that context, you're dealing with folks that want everything they want to literally swallow the ocean, and it's a really hard thing to do. And so what we do have a social worker that's available to talk on the phone answer emails, but we're exploring like we know what the common questions are. We know where people need to go to where can I find a movement disorder specialist? Where can I find a clinical trial? How do I manage my symptoms? We can create a chatbot based on our documents that will answer 75 to 90% of those questions immediately. Our helpline is only open from nine to five, but we deal with a global audience. So someone from Australia has a question they want an answer. We think we can create a resource that's going to be really useful in that regard. So I have a person that is a licensed social worker, that has a level of comfortability with the technology. Might not have walked in as a coder or developer, but is willing to learn and ask the questions to those that can do it. How do we train it? How do we make sure it's transparent? What biases? How do we make sure it takes these two outputs that's really important from a workforce place, because that way, I'm not training two skills they have a level of comfort they're walking in with.
Lowell Aplebaum 09:57
I love that we've started in terms of discussing workforce development with really front and center, the role of how AI is impacting workforce development today and for the future. What's interesting, I think, is if we look at historical trends of where workforce development issues and discussions have been, it's really been that, like your career journey has been defined by being able to demonstrate the skills and experience that you have, right? That's what your resume shows. Does the skill and experience align to the position you're looking for? But what you two are discussing is actually this intersect that's not, perhaps not, about rate interested to hear about the skills you have. It's about how much you're able to demonstrate an ability to adapt to the skills that you will need.
Haley Jones 10:41
It kind of reminds me of 2020 and obviously we all had to go virtual, and suddenly everyone was learning how to use Zoom. And I remember for myself and what we were doing. We used Zoom already however, we didn't use it as often as we do now. And everyone laughs about I remember when I had to just make a phone call, and now if someone calls you on the phone, it's weird. And I became the resident Zoom expert. There's two of us on staff who all of a sudden it was like they know how to do this. So let's have them run this virtual conference on Zoom. And when we have breakout sessions, even now, for one of our virtual conferences, I get the one that's the most difficult to set up, because I know how to do it. I saw one of my chapters ran, I forget what the platform was, but she ran virtual conference, and then started offering her services to others because she had already paid for the platform. So she offered it to other chapters and other organizations, and she would run logistics in production of their entire virtual conference. That became another stream of income. She just adapted and learned how to use it and became this expert at it. But I feel like AI is about to become that same situation where you're figuring out how it works best for you, how you can use it to move your either yourself or even your organization, forward, but we ought to adapt to it.
Lowell Aplebaum 12:02
So I think the question I would ask based off of that really tangible, excellent example is, as you think about workforce development, both for those seeking positions and those seeking positions, what is your perspective of what that looks like in a different context, when it's about, as you're saying, finding someone who has the agility to adapt to what we're going to need. Right? From your perspective in workforce development, either, how does a candidate display or demonstrate that agility, or from your perspective, how do employers seek that agility that's not just based off of "give me your resume of all the things you've done," because that doesn't display that, right? I'm wondering if either of you have perspectives about from either side of that. We've talked about AI, this would have been a very different conversation 24 months ago.
Joe Lindhal 12:48
Yeah,I think it's a tough thing to get at times like, it's not you're like, you're it's not on a resume, it's not in chronological order of how my past experiences would be a perfect fit for this role, this opportunity in your company. For, I would say, like, entry level folks, they don't have that. They're an intern, maybe. But asking the questions around some more than interpersonal like, how have you been a chameleon? And then also asking, here you have the job description, I'm happy to walk you through it in more human terms, because sometimes these jobs because they already read like they've been written by robots at times. But how do you just say, "Hey, this is what I need. Give me an example from your perspective. How do you make this work? What would you do differently?" I even give them like test scenarios, saying, "This is the issues the opportunity with what when the landscape of tools or processing. What would you do?" It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't know like the disease per se, but I just want to give a general sense of how does your mind work? How does it adapt? And can take things that aren't necessarily crystallized, but absolutely can be flexible, and put them into work that advances whatever industry, or that's how like as an employer, that's what and from a talent perspective, that's what I look for, especially for folks that are coming into a small staff organization. We have titles, but the reality is, we're doing what's best for the patient and the care partners, and we want to find a cure. That's it. That's the North Star. So if it comes outside your job description, and if you're really good at zoom, or you're really good at implementing X, Y or Z, I think you'd be willing to do it, it, be it in research or advocacy or awareness, that's what we look for. Yeah,
Lowell Aplebaum 14:32
I doubt that if an association executive actually had a business card that was the title of everything they did that would fit on a business card. What you just shared, Joe, in terms of the idea that I love...the "how have you been a chameleon?" That the demonstration through application of how someone would say that they would deal with a situation and adapt, is really interesting. We all are really enmeshed in the association world, part of which the mission of many. Organizations is to support individuals on their professional journeys. Do you have any perspectives from a place of how we help the individuals that belong to our organizations get better at demonstration of this adaptability? How are organizations that are supposed to be your partners in supporting your professional success actually helping people learn how to be adaptable in the skill sets they need for the future.
Haley Jones 15:24
I honestly get an opportunity with a lot of the programs that we do. The majority of our members are small businesses. Many of them are jacks of all trades, and they're putting people to work. I say, I don't, Joe, I don't know if you ever said this too is, having worked at ASA, that the staffing industry, to me, always reminded me of the association industry, and that there's an association for everything. There's a staffing firm for literally any job that you can think about and what we do a lot of our programming, in some cases, it's to help strengthen their own internal workforce, but also to help them guide the candidates that they're placing, or the clients that are accepting the candidates and working with them, and different ways to hopefully either adapt to what they're about to hire or be higher into and succeed. But we have one member in particular who I always love hearing about them, their focus is skills first, and so they're taking these great skills that their employees or candidates have. And they're finding the best fit for them in the workplace. I think of one story where a person is actually someone who had special needs and he was not doing well at a job site. He was also non-verbal, so he couldn't necessarily express what he didn't like about the job. But they knew that he liked something down the street, because he was always going to a car watch, and was an amazement at these cars. So they thought, why don't we focus on what he likes and see if we can get him a job down there? He still works there, and he dries off the cars in a car wash, watches them go through. But he's succeeding in this role because it's something that fit him, and they focus on his skills and interests.
Lowell Aplebaum 17:03
First, I love that the people-center approach to that, that how do you balance the needs of an organization or a company, and what they think they need is a skill set by recognizing the strengths and interests and potential in the individuals that work for that company, and have that be something that can be, hopefully something in harmony. That's a really nice picture of what ideally a workforce could look like.
Lowell Aplebaum 17:27
We'd like to take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor, Visit Omaha.
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Lowell Aplebaum 18:26
I want to shift, if I can, a little bit, just to recognize that while there are sort of general workforce challenges out there, I'm curious, as we go into a D&I lens, what roles do you see the associations playing in the future of workforce development when it pertains to diversity and inclusion? Do you think there's a role for our professional organizations as we think about workforce development paths and have a lens towards minority communities or the need for a more diverse workforce?
Haley Jones 18:56
It's an unfortunate reality that we have to put it this way sometimes, but it's also effective. DEI affects your bottom line positively, if done correctly, and that's something that I work for my I'm the staff liaison to our IDEA group, which is inclusion, diversity and equity advocacy. And we are just promoting the business case to our members and to understand why these inclusive practices essentially help your bottom line, help your retention, with your employees or candidates, for that matter, but also just make it a better place and environment to work. But I think that one of the ways that we can play a role in this is just at least setting not a standard per se, but maybe a good example, I always hesitate to say best practices, and I try to say effective instead, but showing effective ways that you can incorporate dei into what your workforce and by helping them succeed, I just think that that's where associations can help and having things that they can model after. Even for other orgs who are modeling DELP-like programs for their respective organizations, that's where ASAE, I think, has played a huge role. We've all seen the success of the DELP program, and we're starting to see other organizations do something similar to try to have that same success for whatever that population is.
Joe Lindhal 20:17
I totally agree. I think there's a lot of different responsibilities associations and nonprofits have when they represent a whole industry or profession. You have so much access, in theory, to thought leaders staff that can help elevate communities that haven't been seen or heard from in a really meaningful way. There's systemic issues I think that associations can certainly play a role in. I also think that there's an opportunity and a responsibility for groups like ours to elevate, purposefully and intentionally provide invitations and access of almost a see it, and you can be it kind of situation like I think ASAE has done a pretty good job of that from a personal perspective. As an association management professional coming into the industry, I'm a member of the AANHPI group that we recently formed three years ago, and one of the first things I said of why I even want to be a part of this--shout out again to DELP because this is where this conversation starts--is my barrier has been, I have never seen anyone that looks like me be in a CEO position of a large association. One person I knew that was the name only, and now I think I can call him my mentor is Richard Yep, who was with the American Counseling Association. That was it. And for me, I think we have a responsibility to ask that question of, "Why aren't there more folks that are actually reflective of the country and the world that we live in places of influence?" Because we shouldn't be. And I do think there's a responsibility for associations to be reflective of their industry, and there are underrepresented people and communities that have the ability to be elevated, not because of tokenism, but because they're really good at their jobs, and they have to do it. And eventually you want to get to a place where it isn't a big deal, but it is. I notice every time, as an Asian American, is elevated to senior level position, or when there's a Fellow at ASAE, and I think it's really important that see it, you can be it, so it really supports the next generation, the workforce development, saying, that's cool. I never saw an Asian American male in this capacity, and that is an actual viable place for me, because I won't be the only one. I do think that there's a responsibility there for groups like ours, of why we exist as nonprofits and associations.
Lowell Aplebaum 22:45
How do you think associations can prepare themselves for these evolving workforce needs, thinking back to where we started, right like adaptability and what we need to demonstrate in the future for successful career journeys. How do associations prepare themselves to be able to address those workforce needs, while also, as you're saying, meaningfully maintaining a focus on minority communities, knowing that it creates a better whole community, a better industry, a better bottom line. Haley, as you said, right, all the benefits of doing so. Any thoughts or examples you've seen about how associations prepare themselves or take action on that?
Haley Jones 23:21
I think you have to be prepared and also forward thinking. I was on a program, I guess, last month, and we were talking about the legislation against DEI or the threats that are coming out, one of which is from the other VP candidate, and they're trying to flip the acronym on its head and make it negative. And someone said, we have to be ready. I challenge you all to be ready for this and prepared for something like this so it doesn't throw you off when it comes because what you see now are people not necessarily walking back their initiatives, but they're changing names of it, so that they're not under, kind of falling under this category. But I think it's just being able to really have some foresight and being ready for it, but also leaning in and not walking it back the way that people seem to have started doing right now.
Joe Lindhal 24:16
I don't have terribly much to add. I think preparing the the wants and the need to the workforce, while keeping a focus on underrepresented or minority communities is one in the same. I just feel like what we here to see from folks that are coming up is they want to have that type of education. They want to have these discussions. This idea of bringing a whole self to work is valuable, and so how do we as employers or supervisors or whatnot, prepare ourselves for that? How are we going to react to that? What level of conversation, what level of resources do we want to put around this? That's what I think is really an interesting conversation, because I think the conversations you might have with your managers, your directors, your admins, your coordinators, probably sound different than the CEOs. And how do we get to a closer alignment and transparency around what is valuable when we prepare the workforce for the DEIA-type of discussions and what's the expectation of the employee from the employer? Is it an email celebrating a AANHPI Heritage Month and then nothing happens? I don't know. And how are these questions being asked earnestly and honestly? So I see this as one of the key needs for workforce development and consideration moving forward.
Lowell Aplebaum 25:41
I know we talked about a number of questions beforehand, but both of your responses makes me want to ask one last one, which is not on the list, which is...I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts about the implications and needs of culture within an organization as we think about minority community involvement, commitments, implicit or explicit, to diversity, inclusion, or in general, a shifting workforce trends like, what are the those cultural pieces internally that are going to lead to better organizational success in workforce development. As I heard in elements of both of what you said, not just process, but culture. Do you have any reflections on sort of insights of cultural commitment or direction organizations need to embrace to see more workforce development success. I'd love to hear any of those cultural reflections.
Haley Jones 26:30
I think for me, it mean that just not tiptoeing around it. DEI is not a bad thing, and I think sometimes people get uncomfortable with it. And it's not always meant to be comfortable conversations when you're talking about certain things, especially for us as minorities, who see things through a different lens, experience things completely different than others do. Because sometimes people do just look at us differently because of the color of our skin or because someone who might have a disability or whatever it is. But I think that just having open discussions about it, having awareness around certain things, giving time and space for people to be able to celebrate certain things. In our office, we either have a monthly activity, or we have training, or we have some kind of celebration around food, because that brings people in the doo. But a lot of it is usually ways to just teach people about things they might not know. You know, in February we did a we called it Bagels and Black History Month. But our the whole kitchen was filled with fun facts about black history that some you would think people knew. And there are others, like one of them, which was a hot topic, was about Reading Rainbow, the theme song being sung by Chaka Khan. A lot of people didn't know that. I can't tell by your face if you know what I can, but it was such it was a fun fact that it was something that everyone was talking about for a week, but it was a space for people to learn things about my culture, and we've done it for a couple of other celebration and awareness months as well. But I think having space for people to do that makes a big change, and also, I would hope, even with some of the trainings, just helps people maybe take a beat before they say something that might be deemed offensive, or it might change their perspective moving forward. Yeah,
Joe Lindhal 28:24
I think that the culture is...we always I think we all ask that question if we're interviewing or doing the interview. It's a hard one to answer and when and someone asked me that I was I say to me, culture is walk into a room and you basically already know what the expectations are of you and the people in the room, what are you committed to? And so I think culture can be viewed a lot of different ways from different lenses, and that's part of it is being okay with people will experience and perceive things differently based on their own perspectives, but we're all pushing towards this one goal. Here's what's acceptable, here is what's not. But I think it has to be the culture of acceptance and learning and being willing to say, "Hey, I don't know." I think it's a good idea to ask employers and employees of what their expectations are around some of these things, because they like Haley said, they can be hot buttony, but they don't have to be like, I'm just like, I just want you to bring your whole self. And if I don't know something or like, I'm of the age where pronouns are still new to me, but I will ask now, like, I've learned a lot as a older-ish millennial, at this point, I want to learn except the whole person, and I think there's strengths in that
Lowell Aplebaum 29:41
time goes by very quickly, and I have at least 20 more questions I wanted to ask, but we'll wrap up our time with this last one, which is, just as you think about the range of our conversation today and the intersects of adaptability and AI into really building a stronger workforce, towards embracing that priority of diversity, inclusion, and how that can help strengthen workforce and providing those opportunities and aligning culture the borrowings we've gone through. For those who are listening in, if you were to share with them a closing thought, a one-piece-of-advice or one takeaway that you're walking away with, what would be the one piece that you would hope people would remember from this or start from our conversation today. And I had Haley introduce herself first. So Joe, I'm gonna go to you first for a conclusion.
Joe Lindhal 30:28
Advice usually comes from a wise person, and I'm trying to think how wise I am. It's just my perspective, but I guess my one piece of advice is wherever you want to work, and when you think about workforce development, just think about the whole person. You don't spend any more time with a group of people or in a place than you do at work. I don't spend as much time my wife, my kids. This is it. This is where you spend a bulk of your time. So you can be professional. You can obviously not bring your full 1,000% authentic self. I don't think we do that other than maybe in front of a mirror every once in a while, but understand that like they're bringing a wide range of background and experiences to the table, and be ready to embrace that. I think it's positive.
Lowell Aplebaum 31:15
Haley?
Haley Jones 31:15
So I'm also going to offer advice, and this comes from the lens of...I was a college basketball coach, so I tend to operate with my team the way I would operate with my players, especially in terms of development. So I would say just as far as development of your employees, it's finding out what motivates them; finding out what interests they have and maybe where they see themselves going in their career. But not necessarily long term, but at least in the next few years. I've done that every year I ask why--one person on my team has actually been with me for over a year--and every year since I've become her supervisor, I say, tell me what you want to work on this year. Tell me where you want to go, where you see yourself going, as far as your career, because she's decided she really likes associations. She finally started referring to herself as a component relations professional. And so I said, "Tell me what things you want to work on so that I can help you get there. Because in my eyes, I'm developing you either for a promotion where we're currently at or for whatever your next role is, whether it's at our association or not." And I enjoy coaching people, and so that's the approach that I take, but it's really finding out what gets them going so that you can encourage that and cultivate it moving forward.
Lowell Aplebaum 31:23
I love that. We can't thank you enough, both of you, for your time today, for being willing to bring your wisdom and your insights and your experience you've all benefited from it, and really good thoughts on the workforce ahead and how we need to be chameleons for success in there, in the skills that we develop and bring forward. Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope you'll join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discussing the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlighting the significant impact that associations have on the economy the US and the world. Again, we'd like to thank our sponsor Visit Omaha. For more information about them, you can check out visit omaha.com/meetings. We hope that you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For more information on workforce development in the association space, visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com We hope you'll join us next month, where we'll have part two of our discussion on workforce development. We hope to see you there. Thanks so much for tuning in.
Eduardo Arabu 1:38
Yes, absolutely. Thank you Lowell for that wonderful introduction. I'm thrilled to be here and be a part of this conversation with my colleague Justin Reyes as well. A little bit about myself. Yes, I am the CEO at the National Hispanic Corporate Council, that organization focused on helping Fortune companies on their competitiveness and corporate performance around workplace and marketplace strategy. And so we work with major Fortune 1000 companies are under Hispanic and Latino strategy for talent, customer, supplier, community relations and their employee resource group as well. The Latino DEI Collective focuses on amplifying, cultivating and elevating Latino DEI practitioner. So Chief Diversity Officer, Vice President of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, not only in Fortune company, but government, nonprofit, sports and many other sectors as well. I'm based in Chicago. My background is Venezuelan. I consider myself bicultural. So was born in Venezuela, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. I spent about seven years in Washington, D.C., as well. I think my career trajectory to where I'm at is a little bit unorthodox. Many of you in the association space, we didn't sign up for it. We were voluntold to put you into it, and here we are. My background consisted of corporate functions, HR and government affairs, public policy. I have my time in Washington, D.C., and so more of a business public policy background also works in sports and Government Affairs and many other functions as well. One unique opportunity that I had was to complete a fellowship with the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, where I had a chance to go to Washington, D.C., working corporate affairs and government affairs as well. As we mentioned, relationship, the executive director of the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute, when I did my fellowship forward several years, was the executive director at the National Hispanic Corporate Council. So we're emphasizing on relationship. My time as a fellow in that program, go on to go to work in force and go to pursue a Master's Degree in Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. End up back in Washington, D.C., and I get a phone call from then executive director at CHLI now executive director at NHCC, and he taught me to be the number two person, right hand person to support the National Hispanic Corporate Council. Five years later, the board promoted me to Executive Director, then CEO, and ever since then, been looking for ways to contribute, collaborate, into the association sector and give, take, learn, connect, learn, all those wonderful opportunities as well.
Lowell Aplebaum 4:21
Excellent. Thank you. And our second, no less distinguished, wise thought leader for today. Justin Bradley Reyes, is the membership manager for Latinos Corporate Directors Association. Justin, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey?
Justin Bradley Reyes 4:36
How do you Lowell or Hola, as I'm trying to implement into my vocabulary, especially in the tune of Hispanic Heritage Month. But as you mentioned, my name is Justin Bradley Reyes. I'm the membership manager at the Latino Corporate Directors Association, and have been privileged to hold this role within LCDA over the last couple of years, almost three years and everything membership, managing membership, recruiting Latino talent, developing our regional networking, engagement with our members in the field, and just ultimately, just empowering members to utilize the resources the network, the people at LCDA, to amplify their journey to corporate board. A little bit about LCDA before I dive into myself. LCDA has been fully functional for about 10 years, and the mission of the organization is to create a pipeline for Latino talent, Latino executives, the creme de la creme of corporate America into serving on corporate boards. There's a ton of data out there. Feel free to visit latinocorporatedirectors.org. But just a little snippet is the fact of the matter is with the US population of Latinos, at about 20% of the US population. Latino representation on corporate boards, specifically within Fortune 1000 companies, is at about 5% and so our mission is typically to create a pipeline so that we can reach parity and ultimately support corporate organizations to create a network where they may not have a Latino executive in hopes to elevate the deep pool of Latino talent that does exist, unfortunately they may not have the network to get to that point again as a membership manager, day in, day out, it's been a privilege to be a part of an ecosystem of highly accomplished Latinos, first NASA astronaut and later director of NASA, Dr Ellen Ochoa, a powerhouse attorney, Roel Campos. You have individuals like Marty Chavez who are on the alphabet board. It's just phenomenal that I have the chance to work in support of these individuals. Although I'm not a corporate America expert, through my role as a membership manager, I'm able to contribute to the machine that is LCDA. Now, over the last nine years, I've made a career in association management, or as I tell some folks, I'm in the acronym business. So whether it's the national association home builders, NHB, ABC, NASDA, now, LCDA, I've had the opportunity to be a part of something much larger than who I am. It allows me to scale the impact of my work beyond where I call home, and it's really because I have an inborn fondness for associations that merge public and private partnerships to uncover solutions for whatever industry that they serve. And so that's just been a phenomenal journey, and it all started with an organization called NASDA, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture shortly after graduating from college, with the intention to teach in the classroom, which I did. But just before that, I had a brief sit in DC where I had the opportunity to attend congressional meetings and just interact with these senior policy officials around agriculture. A few months before that, I was working in the fields of South Texas wearing boots and jeans and a cowboy hat and just working my butt off, just lots of manual labor, and then shifting to a setting with suits and policy, it just really transformed my outlook in life and expanded the horizon that I have in terms of what can I do, not just in education, but professionally. And it was so infectious that two years later, I decided, let's make this a full time gig. So after working two years in the classroom, started with NHB, and been all downhill since then. I am Latino, a Mexican-American distend. But of course, being from Texas, being proud Texan, I am Tejano, which for the audience, if you don't know what that is, it's an individual of Mexican-American descent, born in Texas. So thought to be a little extra there. But anyway, small town in Texas. My family is multi-generational American but really the back load of my family is we're ranchers, we're farmers, we're cowboys, and so it was really a great to be a part of that. But again, fast forward today. I now call Charlotte, North Carolina home with my wife, a government affairs professional with Lowe's, who used to be a trade association professional, as well as my niece Raylene, and, of course, my two fur babies, Bailey and Begonia.
Lowell Aplebaum 9:12
Thank you. In both of your journeys, there is this aspect and this element of network and community. And so as we're thinking about workforce development, I want to talk about that for a little bit. I want to talk about from two or three angles. So the first let's talk about for the responsibility of associations and organizations that often are the organizers right of these critical places where professionals come together, where the opportunity is should be in the room for those relationships to be made that can then lead to career journeys, to those opportunities that nordo You said someone to tap you on the shoulder, to say, No, you need to come to to my organization and work here. We need to have you. I'm just curious about either of your perspectives, about what role you think associations, the organizations themselves, and leaders can play in facilitating more equitable networking opportunities, whether that's live at conferences or remote or hybrid ways. Right? How should associations create the spaces so more of those critical connections can be made?
Eduardo Arabu 10:17
I would say, to answer your question, the responsibility falls on two sides of the coin, right? One is individual. As leaders in that space, whether entry level or more senior role, have a responsibility to make sure that they find the most opportunities that they can program, get involved, volunteer, all that good stuff from an individual perspective. But I also think that the organization also has to be intentional, and part of that process, and so in terms of creating equitable networking space and so forth, is to evaluate their own principles: DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging, or as ASAE called it, conscious inclusion. And to evaluate organizationally, top down, bottom up, where can they be more inclusive and offer those opportunities? And so whether it's at the organization, board of director, the executive staff, the middle management, entry level intern, all the way internally, from a workplace perspective and also from a marketplace perspective, your customer, your stakeholders, your members, also community relations effort and supply chain supplier diversity, and also granting opportunity from external perspective as well. But I think if the organization can be intentional on what they want to do and provide those opportunity to make those connection, right? The networking, I think it's really important to create capacity building, to create access to senior leader, to create assets or pathways of career mobility, career navigating, and even just offering safe space and ways to feel inclusive and belonging, right? Those employee resource group or affinity groups, or a ways where you can be other at your level or of your background, and have that space to have conversation, whether it's work related or career development or many other opportunities. So organizations that are intentional, and I keep bringing that up there, they want to make that conscious effort to provide networking platforms, I think, really add to the inclusivity and engagement of the associate at the organization
Lowell Aplebaum 12:32
On either of your journeys, both of you sound like you've had meaningful moments where you've connected with key individuals that have Been accelerants along your own journey along the way. Do you feel like that? Either of you are naturally inclined, like you walk in the room and you just feel comfortable talking to anyone, right? Or there are those that perhaps walk in the room and feel like, who am I supposed to talk to? The obligation you started with there Eduardo, which is the individual obligation for building the professional community that you need. And I just want to leave it open as you think about the experiences you've had or the experience that you would impart in terms of advice or insight to those listening in, how do you go about building that community? How do you walk in the room and figure out who to talk to or actually talk to anyone?
Justin Bradley Reyes 13:17
Yeah, I'll chime in here. So I think I'm a little bit of an outlier, but it's because of my mother's upbringing. She was a very social person. Unfortunately, she did not have the opportunity to finish her high school education, but that didn't limit her career outlook. First Center of Excellence was doing the work that she did and commanding the respect of the community that we served in, whether it was ironing or cleaning. My mom in the community, small town, Cotulla, she would clean the homes of the judges, the county sheriff, these just influential individuals in the community. And because of that, it exposed me to a network that was just non traditional. And so with that said, I'm like I said a little different. When I walk into a room, I just I'm inquisitive. I'm very curious about how things work. I love to learn how other people's stories, to borrow lessons that I can apply to myself. But more than that, it's about I'm a sponge, and whatever I learn or whatever experiences that I'm able to have, whether or not their mind. You know, I try to share that with other young Latino professionals, other young professionals who may not have the opportunity to sit in the same spaces that I do, and just to impart just these antidotes of interactions that I have and and I think ultimately, what it falls on is just to get to that point, it's creating these safe, intentional spaces for these individuals with untraditional pathways in terms of careers and supporting them, instilling self efficacy, instilling opportunities to develop strong, soft skills so that we're better able to communicate. I think that's really what. It is at the end of the day, is communicating, but more than that, it's about executive presence. How do you advocate for yourself, asking the right questions and following up on interactions? You have this moment where you're in a room, virtually, you're in person, where you meet these folks, but what's the follow up? What are these? I say simple, but best practice this so that you're able to develop a much more authentic relationship from rapport, because then it's almost like an interview. You're checking each other out and seeing, do we vibe with each other? And if we do, how do we intentionally continue this relationship? Where one I can borrow from? Maybe it's your platform, your access. Maybe you're a hiring manager or influential in that space. And likewise, I think Eduardo had mentioned this earlier. It's a two way street. So one I learned from you, but likewise, in interacting with me, you learn a little bit about me. Now, I'm only one part of the greater Latino ecosystem of 20 plus countries, but that little sliver of interaction, I would hope, would educate you and teach you a little bit more about a culture that's just different than what you're used to.
Eduardo Arabu 16:10
I think, just to keep you very humble, actually, a phenomenal networker is an individual that really goes out there and make it happen, even if it's just a simple introduction or simple hello or so forth. They want to give them a shout out for that. He's always challenging me and saying, Hey, do you know so? And do you know so? And I'm like, No, I don't. How do you know them? ABC, and he's always make those connections. Super excited to be with him. I think we're on a different spectrum of being introverted, extroverted, and somewhere in there, we would manage accordingly how we want to engage in the reception and a conference and a meeting and so forth. And I think for most multicultural people of color and folks, we tend to be very inclusive and welcoming, right? We want to build community. We want to break bread together, right those type of scenarios. And when we go to the quote-unquote "corporate world" or association or professional world, we tend to be a little bit more introverted, not sure how our culture or how we interact, mix them well with more of a professional trick type of environment and so forth. It's looking for ways to build those relationships, make those connections be meaningful, follow up and things like that, but you never know who you can meet in the room. And I really think it takes practice. It takes a little bit of preparation. It takes a little bit of best practices in terms of how to network, how to introduce yourself. People love to talk a lot about themselves. So how do you pose question? Then let that person take the burden of the pressure and let you be more of a listening and looking for ways to make that connection. Oh, you were in DC, so was I? Oh, you're from Chicago. When they right, you start to build those common trades, common skill, common goals and things like that. That nothing the burden, the pressure. But it's not easy, and it all depends on the person level of confidence to do that, and over time, practice, make perfect.
Lowell Aplebaum 18:11
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Lowell Aplebaum 19:10
Most of you had a overlap of talking about creating spaces. Justin, you refer to it around the idea of forming a network happens best in that safe and intentional space. Eduardo, you were talking about an inclusive space that you feel like you belong. I was wondering if either of you could just reflect on moments that you've walked into these spaces and you have felt that the space has been designed to be inclusive and safe and intentional, right, like when that has been done. Well, is there anything you can describe so that those listening that want to create those spaces, right? What would you say when you walked into those spaces? What had been done that you experienced that? So maybe there's something there to learn from.
Justin Bradley Reyes 19:56
I guess. Can I go ahead and chime in here? So as I mentioned. I'm about nine years into association management professionally, but as a member, a volunteer, an advocate, a leader, I've been a part of an association since I was 14, so almost 20 years. It is at 20 years. But when you bring that up, the first thing that pops in my head FFA, which used to stand for Future Farmers of America. But what was phenomenal about this association was that I grew up in a predominantly Latino community, but in the greater ecosystem FFA, it's pretty diverse. Not once did I ever feel like I was less than in terms of being Latino, we would wear these blue corduroy jackets with our names and where we're from in the back, and that's what united us. And what was phenomenal about it was just the the culture, the ecosystem of support, passing it back, if you will. Here's the FFA model, learning to do, doing to learn, learning to live, and living serve. I'm in my 30s, and I still live by this day in, day out, and it's because of the positive experiences that I had there that had it not been for the FFA, I would have never joined agricultural Teachers Association of Texas when I was a teacher, or the American rabbit Breeders Association when I was trying to figure out, how am I going to select the appropriate rabbit project for my students, and then later on their life, ASAE, Association Forum. These are organizations that that one had a culture where I could be my best authentic self, but likewise allowed me to expand my knowledge, to seek assistance, mentors, and ultimately, to this day, sponsorship from peers like Eduardo, who are able to elevate my profile to a much wider audience, so people know that I'm here, and if there's an opportunity for me to connect and help, reach out and I'm there, when you talk about that, it all started very early on with that student organization.
Eduardo Arabu 22:00
For me, I've been officially involved with Association space for the past 10 years - first five years as the deputy at NHCC, and now a CEO. So it's been a collective of 10 years. But from a formal professional development, career development and things along those nature, maybe for the past two years, mostly, so to the ASAE, which have been a phenomenal platform. I've never seen anything where leaders of different organization come together to support each other, from A to Z and creating all the different spaces, whether it for us, by us in a certain demographic or culture, into intersectionality, into allyship and to bringing others to the room and so forth. So I never experienced anything. And so shout out to ASAE for what they do and the work that they do with conscious inclusion and many other aspects of their programming. And so I think it's important to not only create those spaces, but also seek it out. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know. So if you're trying to be on a corporate director, the LCDA is a space for that. If you're trying to advance your career in accounting, there's the so-and-so association of accounting or engineering or law or medical, whatever it may be that there are many organizations that support that development within those organization, we need to make sure that they're inclusive and not just one particular group, one particular demographic. And what we spoke earlier about creating those spaces allow for inclusivity, belonging workforce development and many other areas, but then also having inclusive intentional programming. And I benefit a lot of this by going to program that our bridge program to grad school, bridge program to working on Capitol Hill, Bridge Program to Corporate America. These are not only safe spaces, but they're intentional and they're inclusive and promote that certain community to advance whatever sector, whatever field organization that they want to participate in.
Lowell Aplebaum 24:04
Time always goes by quickly on these conversations. I want to ask one more question, I think, and then we'll start to wrap up. We've been talking about on the journey about creating spaces and creating connections, and the critical nature of relationships and support of workforce development within the minority environment, but also in the general funnel. We live in a day and age where, as much as people love to be together, time is a challenge, and the cost and distance to being in person can be just wondering in your experience, either of you, as you think about a more hybrid or mobile or virtual opportunities for professional community connection, creating that inclusive space that could elevate the voices we need to see shine and learn. Do you have any reflections on how that aspect of virtual right, that aspect of distance, comes to play in terms of workforce development, building a career, seeing strong minority voices be part of our leadership?
Justin Bradley Reyes 25:00
So, I've had the opportunity to work remotely over the last nine years, spending seven years in Kansas City and now Charlotte, North Carolina. But one of the most significant challenges in working for an organization like LCDA that's completely remote is staying top of mind within networks. So what does that mean? Without the ability to walk in a room and be seen day in day out. I think, especially for minority professionals who work remotely like myself, we just have to work a little extra harder to ensure that we're noticed and that we're again top of mind, whether it's for career volunteering or simply contributing to projects with that said, what can be done. And I think a lot of that for me within ASAE, for example, is showing up to the ASAE Annual Meeting, showing up for micro-volunteering opportunities. One, I'm giving back to the community. But two, I'm able to interact with other individuals who hold values like myself and forging genuine relationships, or at least for me, finding new role models that I can follow on LinkedIn and on the Internet of Things, and borrow themes of their leadership that I can apply to in my home and community. But with that said, it can be challenging, it can be cost prohibitive. I think organizations like ASAE, with their DELP program, with the CAE scholarship, with the USAE/ASAE travel scholarship, those types of programs help minority professionals overcome these cost barriers. These individuals are wanting to show up, but sometimes, as it may cost a significant amount of dollars and investment just to get to the location and to register and all that. So I think that's really important for organizations and associations to keep in mind, how are we creating an equitable space, and if it doesn't exist, what are some resources that we can allocate so that communities like remote working minority professionals can utilize, so that can share the space, contribute to that culture and ultimately grow professionally. But I think, again, those are just some of the things that that I think have helped me, personally in my own journey,
Eduardo Arabu 27:20
I've had the opportunity to work remote for about 10 years before it was cool or necessary. However you want to look at it, some people adjust differently for that. Some people like it. Some people don't. And there's lots of challenges around that space of hybrid remote. Return back to office strategy. There are some opportunities and challenges for our conversation in terms of professional development and workforce development as well. I think if we look at it from an internal perspective, that visibility, it's harder when you're working remote or hybrid, especially if you're onboarded virtually, if you have a remote team, if you are 100% hybrid, 100% remote, you may not have those traditional water cooler conversation or some other opportunities of senior leadership seeing you, and I think that's very important to have that visibility that you consider for project or promotion, mentorship and many other opportunities. So you have to take it upon yourself again, personal responsibility. Think out, connect, reach out, identify if it's not available, then start it or start that conversation with some colleagues and so forth. Your career growth is tied to the network that you're able to build, because that is capacity building. Part of that leads to mentorship, opportunity, and, more importantly, sponsorship opportunity. The difference between that mentors help you grow and advise you and coach you the sponsorship. They talk about you when you're not in the room. They are intentionally saying that after I leave or after this project is done, so and so if pipeline for the next level or the next opportunity, or what it might be, I think it's important for you to challenge yourself. If it's a two, three days work week in the office, try to make it three or four, try to do the best you can. And I always adjust it and become accustomed to certain liberties of working from home, but make sure that you are navigating that part correctly, that you are showing up to at many meetings. You're on campus as much as you can, and then when you're there, you're strategically reaching out to mentor sponsors, senior leaders, asking for project networking, hosting a happy hour, whatever it may be, all of those opportunities, and then also externally, if the other part of the conversation is, where can you externally get with ASAE volunteer opportunity, your society, community volunteer leadership position, and many other ways and not wait? For the day, that you need your next job or your next role, that you are actively building a network. You're actively branding yourself, promoting yourself as a thought leader, as a strategist, someone who is competent, someone who's accomplished and have the confidence to lead and manage the next phase of their career and an opportunity for that, an organization as a whole. How can they offer everything that I just mentioned? How are they intentionally creating the state space, the inclusive programming, allowing for development when you're in person, team, development, capacity, building, asset to network, all of that, not only waiting for someone to ask for it, but as an organization offering it, and at least listening to what are the needs of the associate and how can they play a role in that integrated workforce development.
Lowell Aplebaum 30:52
Love it. All right. I have at least five thoughts that pulled from our conversation today, but I'll let you two go first. Just as we're winding down from our conversation or from your own life experience, as you think about workforce development--the roles and the place that you have had in your own journey, and those that are looking and listening to this conversation to be a guidepost, a partner along the way of their own journey--what is one piece of advice or one insight that you would take and share if someone is looking to take the next step on their professional journey?
Eduardo Arabu 31:29
I would say one piece of advice is maybe a couple of pieces of advice we don't want this to end. I would say one is to be unapologetically yourself and be bold. It is who you are and ask for things. Raise your hand, speak up, let others know your career path. Take an assignment. Just being very vocal of who you are and what you want and the expectation, and hopefully the organization is able to create those pathways. If not, you may have to seek opportunities elsewhere, but at least you are true to yourself to your goal, and hopefully that leads to the objective that you have.
Justin Bradley Reyes 32:08
Well, man, so many thoughts here as well. The first thing that gets in my mind is this term that I've been using for a couple years that learned from a mentor the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Gomez, get your hands in the matzah. What does that mean? Get in the kitchen. It's one thing to see the cook making these exquisite meals, but it's another when you lend a hand. So with that said, whether you're a minority professional or not, I think it's really important for us. Eduardo mentioned the allyship aspect of it, right? There's an association for everything, especially when you talk about minority serving organizations that their mission statement or their mission objectives, just like Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, is you don't have to be the premier expert, but you can augment your understanding. You can augment your efforts by partnering with organizations like the one Eduardo leads at NHCC; ALPFA, the Association of Latino Professionals for America. If you're talking about public policy, if you're trying to recruit government affairs professional, guess what? The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute has a program that brings in interns to work in Capitol Hill who work around public policies. There are organizations out there doing great work to serve different parts of lack of parity on X, Y and Z, but be uncomfortable in getting comfortable with getting involved with contributing to that point, mentorship, sponsorship, hiring. That's another thing too. Is what are your organization's hiring best practices? Are you regionally attracting talent beyond a 50 mile radius of your organization's located? Are you targeting HBCUs? Are you targeting HSI? Like I said, we can go on and on. Of course I would have to throw in. But you have organizations like SACNAS, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans and Sciences led by my mentor, Juan Amador. I have to give him a shout out there, because he's really what got me into the scene and where I'm at currently. But again, there are these organizations led by passionate people who are committed to the mission statements, and if it's a daunting task, just reach out and ask questions. You might uncover opportunities for formal partnerships, but at the very least, if that's not the outcome, it's at least learning a little bit more. Not just about learning more, but it's about ignoring less. And so that's what I challenge, not only minority professionals, but our allies in the community, is get involved within these ecosystems. You never know who you're going to meet. You never know what you're going to learn that's really going to create a significant impact in the organization, and ultimately, the industries that you serve. When you think about workforce development,
Lowell Aplebaum 34:55
Love it. I'll just say two or three of the questions I'm walking away with from the. The brilliance you all have shared today. I love the question of, how do you stay top of mind in your network, right, especially when we're at distance? How do we do that? How can our organizations create the opportunity for meaningful visibility so that those who could benefit from mentorship and sponsorship find those opportunities to do how do you come to professional relationship development opportunities with questions and curiosity you become top of mind by learning about others. And then the one I took near the end, how do organizations create safe space and inclusive proactively and not wait for someone to ask for it? Just a few of the questions I captured from you all. Eduardo and Justin, thank you both so much for spending time with us and for sharing your perspectives as we talk about this critical topic.
Eduardo Arabu 35:42
My pleasure.
Lowell Aplebaum 35:44
Thank you to everyone who is listening in to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope you'll join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals. We discuss the challenges opportunities in the field today and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy the US and the world. We'd like to thank our episode sponsor Visit Omaha once again for more information you can check out visit omaha.com meetings and be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts for more information on workforce development in the association space, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com Until next time, stay out there. Stay leadership. We look forward to talking to you again soon.
Katy Markert 0:58
Welcome back. Normally, I know we're used to speaking to what we think is just Texans, but I'm really excited that this is a national stage Steven.
Steven Stout 1:07
Agreed. We sometimes have listeners in Australia, China and the Netherlands. So being here makes total sense. Were you nervous about being here today Katy?
Katy Markert 1:16
What's funny is I wasn't until I heard that we were going to be on camera, and then all of a sudden, I got a little bit nervous, but usually we don't do that, but I don't mind. I'm just pretending that's not happening. And I don't know. I think after this, we've completed two seasons of our podcast, and I think I started off a little more nervous, but the more we've done in it, the more I realized we just have really great conversations, and I always learn something. And it's really lowered that kind of nervousness level for me. I really don't think about it too much, but what about you? I don't know. I'm starting. I'm getting the vibe that maybe you're you feel opposite.
Steven Stout 1:51
Yeah, I was a little nervous. No, to be honest with you, I changed my shirt three times. I did the teenager thing in the closet, like I went through things and was like, "I have nothing to wear. I hate all my clothes." I was nervous. But now we think you said we've done this so much that it it feels like home when we get to do stuff like this. But the point of all this is that we are happy to be with you today, and thanks for having us.
Katy Markert 2:11
Yes, absolutely. Now, Steven, we are recording this the second week of December, right before the holidays in 2024 and we all just came out of Thanksgiving with our families and loved ones. Yes, and typically, at Thanksgiving, I just, I love my family. I just want to say that about how to say there is that one question that I get a little nervous is going to come up. Do you know the question I'm talking about?
Steven Stout 2:37
Why can't you be more like your sister, Sharon? Is that the one?
Katy Markert 2:43
It probably should be. But no, the question I'm thinking of has a lot more to do with politics, as we know should never bring that up in the holidays, and in particular this year, I was worried about the who did you vote for question?
Steven Stout 2:55
Oh yeah, that is a sticky one at family gatherings.
Katy Markert 2:58
It can be now, perhaps we can sidestep that question here, but there are some more important issues tied to politics that we should all be keeping a close eye on in the association space, no matter who you voted for.
Steven Stout 3:10
That's right. And today we are diving into one of those topics, and that is tax reform.
Katy Markert 3:15
That's right. And luckily, we get to ask the questions and not answer them, because this is actually going to be complex in 2025 today, we are speaking with Mary Kate Cunningham, CAE, Chief Public and Governance Officer with ASAE.
Steven Stout 3:29
Alongside my colleague and bestie from Ohio, Jared Clabaugh, CAE, president and CEO with the Ohio Society of Association Professionals. Welcome guys.
Mary Kate Cunningham 3:40
Thanks for having us.
Steven Stout 3:41
Yeah, thanks for joining us today as we guest co host this podcast. Now, on our podcast, we always ask the same question to our guests, and we're taking the opportunity the same here. So our first question, it's an easy one, I promise. What is your fall-in story? How did you fall into the industry? As we all know, a lot of us did not go to school for this. We found this industry and fell in love with it and stayed so we'd love to hear your fallen stories and how you came across our space.
Mary Kate Cunningham 4:07
I can share that I worked on the Hill, and then I was at a think tank and struggling with kind of the lack of action sometimes that you have at think tanks. And my roommate from college, Beth Palmisano, worked in marketing at ASAE, and that is how I found ASAE, 12 and a half years ago.
Steven Stout 4:22
Oh my gosh, wow. So you have your college roommate to thank for all this.
Mary Kate Cunningham 4:26
Absolutely, yes.
Steven Stout 4:27
I'm not sure I've ever thanked my college roommate for anything. So that's nice that your college roommate did something nice for you. And Jared, what about you?
Jarrod Clabaugh 4:34
A buddy of mine actually worked for a newspaper here in Columbus, and he heard about a job offering with the Ohio Restaurant Association. They were looking for a communications director. In my life, I've only eaten in restaurants, never worked in one. So I thought, "What could I bring to that role? "And another college friend said to me, it's basically a PR job for an association, and that was almost 15 years ago, and that led to service on the Ohio Society of Association Professionals board, which led to me running the show here nine years later.
Steven Stout 5:07
So you both have your college roommates to thank for your introduction to the space.
Jarrod Clabaugh 5:11
Mine is a fellow RA and I'm not sure if he made the offer to help me out or to just give me a different perspective on going from real estate to something as sexy and as exciting as association management.
Katy Markert 5:24
That's wonderful. We love that you guys made it into this industry, and we get to talk to you today. Now that we've got the softball question out of the way, it's time to get into what we're here to talk about. I just want to dive right in. So how will the expiration of the 2017 Jobs Act provision impact associations, particularly concerning UBIT compliance and potential new tax liabilities.
Steven Stout 5:48
A real soft want to get us started.
Jarrod Clabaugh 5:50
Yeah, speaking of those sexy questions, yeah.
Katy Markert 5:55
Mary Kate, can you kick us off?
Mary Kate Cunningham 5:57
Sure, yeah. So I'm happy to talk about how much is at stake next year and why associations need to be at the table. There are a few bills that have major provisions that are expiring and well, the tax cuts and Jobs Act is one of them. There is, let's see, almost 10 trillion in proposed policies on the table, but there are a huge number of tax exemptions that are expiring at the end of next year. So that's why Congress has to act. We say Congress only acts when there's a deadline, and sometimes not even when there's a deadline, and this is going to be next year, the Super Bowl of tax there is the individual rates and the corporate rates that may change. And Congress is looking for a lot of revenue, and they're looking in every sector and profession, and that's why we're really concerned about the assistance community and not being a pay for this type of legislation.
Steven Stout 6:47
And then why did they suddenly start focusing on associations, or the 501, C community? I should say
Mary Kate Cunningham 6:54
So, there was two tax policy reports that came out in the summer, one from the Tax Foundation and one from Cato, and they are listing out all the different ways that associations are exempt, and they're advocating for taxing the entire 501, C community at the corporate rate. So it is really concerning. One is Tax Foundation, and one is from Cato, and we knew we were going to be prepared for a tax site next year, along with everyone else, but we didn't know that we were going to be specifically targeted to really have all non donation revenue be taxed at the corporate rate, which is right now, 21% that could change. So it's probably the biggest threat to associations in 30 years.
Jarrod Clabaugh 7:37
There's also a threat, possibly, to what it could look like in regard to endowments, some of the lawmakers have mentioned that endowment should be taxed at the 35% rate as well, and that would obviously impact a lot of nonprofit organizations.
Mary Kate Cunningham 7:51
Absolutely
Steven Stout 7:53
Jared you as a state group, you see this as a concern for you as well, obviously.
Jarrod Clabaugh 7:58
We do, and we're trying to educate members about the fact that, as of right now, everyone is on the table. So a lot of associations have heard about this, but they've heard specifically that right now, it looks like Cato and the Tax Foundation are interested most at looking at 501 C threes. And from what Mary Kate and our colleagues on the Hill have been able to gather and share with us, if you have a 501, C designation of any type, there definitely needs to be some concern, and the fact that everything but donations are being looked at for taxation is a real threat.
Steven Stout 8:33
Yeah, that could change the life of a lot of groups, not or even maybe make groups some stop existing.
Jarrod Clabaugh 8:40
I agree with you, and I also think we're gonna see a lot more mergers and acquisitions. We saw a lot of that during the days after COVID and during the first couple years of the pandemic, but I think that something like this will pose a significant threat to a lot of our a lot of our entities.
Steven Stout 8:55
Mary Kate, you mentioned think tanks, and I know think tanks like the Tax Foundation have proposed significant changes to ubit, including eliminating nonprofit exemptions for some activities, including new revenue sources subject to taxation, such as royalties and credentialing. How should associations prepare to counter these types of narratives?
Mary Kate Cunningham 9:13
Great question, and yeah, it's really wild. We were preparing just to stop the expansion of ubit unrelated income tax. In the past, in tax reform, we've had to defeat provisions to tax, royalties, sponsorships, things like that. But this is really much bigger and across the board, taxing associations. So the question how can we go about defending against it? ASAE is launching a coalition of all 501 C organizations to speak for one song she and advocate to Congress why associations and nonprofits are exempt. Congress seems to understand they're expected to know every policy issue under the sun, and so they seem to understand for profit versus charity, but they don't really understand the associations, the other 501, C organizations. Why we're tax exempt, that we don't enrich our shareholders. We put that money back into the community, and we train the workforce, drive the economy, things like that. So we really have to be at the table to tell our story. There's going to be a ton of new faces next year, and there's a lot of work to do, as they say in Washington, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu, and that's why it's really important for associations to be part of the conversation.
Jarrod Clabaugh 10:25
Just to piggyback off what Mary Kate said, it's also important to remember that nonprofits provide the most education of any group in the post secondary sector. We're providing services to the industry, to the world, the communities in which we operate that are often services that the government would have to subsidize if they're going to go away from allowing us to have access to the minimal tax exempt dollars we do have to enrich our communities. It's likely that government is going to have to get more involved and spend more money, which they claim is never what they want to do.
Steven Stout 10:57
Jared, how do you combat folks who aren't in the DC area that are like "This is a DC issue. It doesn't matter. We're in the state and we're fine. They'll sort it out up there, and we'll just keep our heads down here and just keep moving forward."What would you say to someone who said something like that to you?.
Jarrod Clabaugh 11:11
I think I just tell them to look back at the last 10 years. If they look at how legislation in DC has impacted state organizations, regional and national organizations, it's very rare that something can happen anywhere in our 50 states that doesn't end up impacting us. And I also remind people about the old adage of as Ohio goes, so goes the rest of the country. I think many Ohioans we're lucky that we're headquartered here in the capital of Ohio, but you're right, Steven, there are organizations that are outliers, or that maybe have been their own islands for many years, and think it's not going to impact them. I just remind them of different changes in legislation that have impacted them, and the fact that they're the boots on the ground while DC is off making decisions that many of us don't agree with. If we put our hands in our pockets and don't say anything, we're allowing that change to happen. Yeah, we're trying to work with ASAE to make sure we can develop messages that allow our members to have a true grassroots focus, that they can elevate their message and get it in front of their lawmakers. The reality is, a lot of them know their lawmakers better than any of our state organizations or even the federal because they're right down the street because their constituents, which is a word I always want to remind our lawmakers of their constituents are involved with associations. One in five Americans is either employed by or part of an association during the span of their career. And if we remind people of that, I think it's a very strong message that we have a lot of force behind us. And as Mary Kate said, the economic drivers are essential to many communities. What might be a huge windfall for the federal government might shut down an organization that feeds the homeless, that that helps children have access to clothing that educates veterans. So that's a key aspect. I also think it's important to remember that most associations are two to five employees. They have smaller budgets than most for profit companies, and that makes them small businesses. And one thing that so many lawmakers campaign on is the idea that small business is the heart of America. So if they want to change the way that nonprofits operate, they're going to directly impact the success of small business.
Steven Stout 13:23
Yeah, I love that analogy. "Save the heart of America!" That's your campaign slogan, Mary Kate. you're welcome.
Mary Kate Cunningham 13:29
We'll get the buttons for our flying I do want to, since we mentioned the fly in, talk about ASAE's fly in is open for registration. Our dates are March 25 and 26th and you come to DC, we teach you about policy and asaes advocacy issues, including tax reform. And then you go to the Hill the next day in small groups with your states. Jared has been a state leader for many years, and it's really important, because every year there are new congressional staff and members of Congress, and when they meet someone face to face and learn about what associations do in their community, then it really changes hearts and minds. So that's what we're looking to do, and it's going to be really perfect timing for this fly in. It's going to be a period of tense legislation next March, so we're really excited to bring people to DC for that conference.
Steven Stout 14:17
So thoughts some support, Mary Kate say the dates one more time.
Mary Kate Cunningham 14:20
March 25 and 26th ASAE fly in, we're going to be in DC, and we're really excited about it, and we will certainly have buttons to wear to go to the Hill and make our message known.
Steven Stout 14:30
Love it.
Katy Markert 14:31
No that's really great, and that's that kind of leads me to my next question. As we're talking about this 10 trillion in tax policies, my question is, how can associations advocate for the value that they provide that you've been talking about so they're not disproportionately taxed?
Mary Kate Cunningham 14:46
I think there's many different ways joining our coalition, the Community Impact Coalition, where also we have a tax reform action list that you can join for ASAE, so you can get the latest on our issues. If you're not able to join the coalition. We will have ways to be involved the good and the bad part of the this tax threat is coming from think tanks. It's not currently bill text. We never want it to be bill text. We're trying to stop it in its tracks. Make this radioactive, but it means there's a lack of specifics about what it would actually cover, and we've just got to defend against everything, as Jared said, especially trade show income, investment income, things like that, are really concerning for associations. There are different ways to be involved that will share, join the coalition, joining ASAE's grassroots network, are two big ones,
Katy Markert 15:35
And how do they do that? How can they join the Coalition? And how can they join the grassroot network?
Mary Kate Cunningham 15:40
We will share the links to join that will be in this podcast description. How does that sound?
Steven Stout 15:45
So convenient? We'll put it right in front of you.
Jarrod Clabaugh 15:47
I would say one thing that Mary Kate and I have been messaging this a lot, but the stories on the ground are going to be what matters. What does the 21% tax look like on an organization that, again, feeds those in need. They're saying that there's 3.6 trillion I believe that they can get from our sector in the first year, what's that going to look like the second year, when half of our sector is gone? Yeah, and the people who know me on this podcast know I like to develop a one liner or two, but I can passionately say that I'm tired of nonprofits continuing to fix for profit problems, and we're really relied upon in our communities to ensure that those in need get help. And we're being asked again to not only continue to finance maybe some wasteful spending, but we're also being told that the work we're doing isn't enough, and so I think that it's getting that message out from those communities that are local. I'm a part of my local Kiwanis, this would vastly impact the work we do to feed our community's children and to offer scholarships that are truly the definitive difference between someone going to be college or university or not. So I think Katie to expound about what Mary Kate said. It's just merely reminding people that this isn't a segment, or that they're just looking at the quote, unquote wealthy associations. This will impact all of us, and that will ultimately impact every community in our country.
Mary Kate Cunningham 17:16
Jared, you're so right.
Jarrod Clabaugh 17:17
Can you repeat that? Yeah, exactly. That on recording one more time. I never hear that enough.
Mary Kate Cunningham 17:23
How can we get our bullet points ready for here's the one top line message to the hill. And what would your association have to stop doing if you're paying a 21% tax on your net so we had a dental association say, here are the Mission of Mercy clinics we would not be able to put on for veterans, things like that. If you can get that ready so that when we call upon you to tell your story, you have it that is going to be the most impactful for sharing the real world impact with Congress.
Steven Stout 17:49
Yeah.
Jarrod Clabaugh 17:50
A lot of this is just education. Yeah, I've spoken to a lot of groups now that don't even know about this, or they say it's somebody else's problem. They'll fix that for me. And we've all seen where not taking action has ended up hurting our communities in the long run.
Katy Markert 18:05
I love both of y'all talking about just like the stories that each association has, because truthfully, I wholeheartedly believe in storytelling, and that's how people remember us and how we can really impact people and connect through their emotions and the stories that we tell. So just hearing you talk about those specifics and how it will impact the communities, I think, is such a huge impact.
Jarrod Clabaugh 18:27
Yeah, now is not a time to be humble.
Mary Kate Cunningham 18:30
Yeah, absolutely. And I think ASAE--the AC board--sees what a big threat this is, and they've invested up to a million dollars in from our reserves in this effort, and now we've raised over $300,000 for the coalition itself. So there's a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and we know there are smaller organizations that will be able to find it in their budget, but there's other ways they can definitely help. So definitely be thinking about what's your one liner? What would happen in your community if your associations didn't exist.
Jarrod Clabaugh 19:01
Mary Kate, how many organizations are involved with the tax coalition reform group right now?
Mary Kate Cunningham 19:06
We are at over 40 now.
Steven Stout 19:08
That's great.
Mary Kate Cunningham 19:09
Yeah, we're in our soft launch phase, but it's just really growing quickly, and we are excited to tell the story. There's going to be such a competitive environment, and because of all the legislation that'll happen next year. That's why we really need the support to be able to break through the noise
Jarrod Clabaugh 19:26
And correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the new administration said they want to put together some type of tax plan within the first 100 days?
Mary Kate Cunningham 19:34
Yes, there's so much pressure to move quickly on this, both from the administration, the kind of pressure to continue their the legacy of the tax cuts and Jobs Act, and then in Congress, they know there's the first 100 days are where the most action happens. They have the most momentum. There's some debate about, if they're between the House and Senate, of course, on what the actual strategy will be. The House wants to go first with tax reform. I think the Senate's more interested in some other policy first, but it will be regardless, intense policy making period, and we really need to be at the table there.
Jarrod Clabaugh 20:08
That times the fly in at a great point in this discussion.
Steven Stout 20:11
I was going to say that sounds like the first part of the year is going to be very important for this fight that we ahead of us.
Jarrod Clabaugh 20:16
And as all things political, there's a good chance that this will not have a stamp on it by the end of 2025 that does not reduce the concern, but we have those wonderful midterm elections that will start, I think, on day 101 of the next administration. So I think it's important that we realize that this may be a battle that no from both the federal level and state and regional that we have to keep our eye on in the long term? Yeah, I've also been trying to remind groups that are mainly state based that whenever the federal government finds money somewhere, it isn't long before state and local start looking at that as well. If this doesn't get defeated at the federal level, we need to realize that the states will likely start coming for revenue as well.
Steven Stout 20:58
Yeah, that's a great point. Jared, I think people forget about that piece of it. And I like that you pointed out that this fight may not have an expiration date. It might be a while, a long fight, which makes sense. Mary Kate, why the ASAE executive board put so much faith in you and money behind the fight.
Mary Kate Cunningham 21:14
Yes, having something like a laundry list in the Tax Foundation report of all the different ways to tax organizations is really concerning because it just exists for tax policy staffers to go back and look at so it's very concerning.
Steven Stout 21:28
Yeah, many new members of Congress, we talked a little bit about that. There's a lot of those now lack historical context on the tax cuts and Jobs Act. You talked a little about the fly-in Mary Kate, but how can associations educate policy makers to protect the sector's interests?
Mary Kate Cunningham 21:43
Absolutely, yes, there are going to be a lot of new faces, and we're going to have sign on letters where we'll ask your association to join. And the way we divide the sign on letter when it goes to the hill is by state elected official can pull it open and see, I'm from Arkansas. Here are all the Arkansas associations. So really, every voice counts there. I think that will be really important, and it will be certainly a tough road for because the margin is so thin in the house, and some of those elected officials are going to join the administration. They're going to have elections to replace them. It's going to be, I think, a really interesting but tough path ahead to get this legislation through the house, in a situation where almost every member of Congress has a veto, in a sense, in the house, because there's such a just a few vote majority, then I think it's really means that every voice is important to be educated on this issue. Yes, it'll definitely be an interesting time the new Congress, yeah.
Jarrod Clabaugh 22:41
And I know one thing Mary Kate and I have talked about is, you know, maybe there's a lawmaker or a legislator that's within our own organizations, or maybe we have a connection to those folks. Let's find those voices. Let's elevate those voices in a way that helps others realize that the impact of our industries and the work that we do, because let's face it, it comes down to friendship, no matter where you are in your career and in your role. Yeah. So if you fellow lawmakers in DC who maybe are in your caucus that can share the value of association management and the great work that nonprofits do, they're automatically going to trust their voices more. So that's something that I've been trying to work with my membership to do is finding those wonderful voices and finding those strong advocates, because we need as many people to talk about the great work that we're doing as possible.
Mary Kate Cunningham 23:30
That's so true. And if you have a connection to a member of Congress, we are mapping that. So if you can email publicpolicy@ASAEcenter.org and we're working on the map of all the members of Congress who's received awards from associations, who's a member of an association, exactly what Jarrod said there. If you have a connection like that, you're a trusted voice within them, and that's super helpful. And we have one member of Congress who is on the Ways and Means Committee, who is an ASAE member might carry, and it's just so great to have someone who understands association management. He said association management is similar to being in Congress. It's like juggling jello or we can have those connections. I think the better. So it's public policy at ASAE center.org and send us who you're connected to. We just had a member over the weekend tell us that they're connected with Billy long who's going to be nominated to run the IRS. So things like that can always be super helpful to us.
Steven Stout 24:25
Yeah. So you pointed out you get your talking point ready of what your priority is, and then if you have a connection, make sure you inform you guys you have that as in your arsenal as you take on this fight.
Mary Kate Cunningham 24:36
Absolutely. And we're looking for also, we're looking at charities to join the coalition, and we're looking at the charities that are both connected to members of Congress and to the incoming administration. All the different ways to be connected are great.
Jarrod Clabaugh 24:49
Yeah, and I would just indicate that the leadership at ASAE has been very engaged with the state leaders. They are working very closely to support the work that the SAEs do. And they want to make sure that we have a place at the table. And ultimately, I think that's something we need to remember, that we can't let this be a deep sea issue. This has to be something states are delivering. I've had some members tell me that we're not worried about this, and what I tell them is, I'd rather blow out a candle than try to put down a forest fire. So at this point, we know it's out there. We don't know what's going to be in a bill, or if there will even be a bill, but it's better to be educated about it than to be surprised.
Mary Kate Cunningham 25:27
Absolutely, it's so much harder to defeat something when there's already bill text so absolutely Jarrod.
Jarrod Clabaugh 25:32
And Mary, Kate and I were both saying many prayers that it would not be a trifecta. We knew that if one party won a segment of the government we had a better chance at this, but the way things came out up until just last week, they were still calling races. But the way this came out is Congress is controlled in both houses by the Republicans, and obviously the administration is Republican, so we need to be on top of this.
Mary Kate Cunningham 25:56
Yeah, it just adds to the sense of urgency when one party is able to move forward because they can use reconciliation, which is the process to get something through the Senate, without having to get the 60-vote majority. So they'll be able to use that. There are some quirks within it, but they'll be able to use that to pass tax before Democrats use it to pass the Affordable Care Act. Republicans use it to pass the tax cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 so it reduces the hurdles that they have to get to. It's still immensely complicated to find that many votes. And if you might remember, the Republicans lost 22 votes on the budget resolution to start reconciliation for tax reform last time, and they lost 12 votes on the actual tax reform. So it'll be a tough road to make everyone happy in order, they don't have 12 votes to lose this time, unless they find enough Democrats. So it will be really interesting to see how that all unfolds.
Jarrod Clabaugh 26:46
And just as a reminder, this would have been a threat no matter which party won, I've been encouraging all of my members to dust off their copies of the West Wing and remind themselves how we can all be a voice and all be a part of this fight
Steven Stout 27:00
Practice, walking and talking and like the doing the West Wing.
Jarrod Clabaugh 27:04
Correct, Aaron Sorkin is yet to financially support any of my commitment to the West Wing, but I would say that it's a good reminder that we have a voice and we can get involved. And Mary Kate and her team are doing so many positive things for the industry in DC, but this is just a reminder of how we can all come together. One message I've been really thankful that I can deliver to my members is, no matter what your role in the association spectrum is, if you're a CVB, if you're a hotelier, if you're a financial services firm, this will impact the work associations and nonprofits are doing in your communities, and it will impact what you're doing. And as a has been phenomenal at bringing together the many various stakeholders in this to make sure we're all a part of the conversation and to make sure that the messaging that's being delivered to our lawmakers and to our members is not beltway heavy. It's how people talk where they are, it's understandable, it's applicable. And that's, I think, why these grassroots messages are going to be so important to winning this fight.
Katy Markert 28:09
Yeah, I love hearing the breakdown the house and how close it's going to be. And you mentioned that there's not bills written, there's not current language yet, but are there some specific legislative items that associations should be keeping an eye on.
Mary Kate Cunningham 28:24
Outside of tax reform, I have to take the time to talk about our we've got really exciting legislation that is positive, that might pass a tax reform next year. So the freedom to invest in tomorrow's workforce Act is the legislation, and it would open up 529 savings accounts that are tax favored to be able to be used for certification and licensure. So we have 149 co-sponsors in the house and 25 in the Senate. It's one of the most bipartisan bills in Congress, and it was actually passed through the Ways and Means Committee in July. So our plan is to reintroduce in January and do our best to make sure this legislation is included in tax reform, it has a really low score, about 85 million over 10 years from the joint tax that means it's more of a possibility to be included, and it's really an offensive measure as well, because every office that we meet with, we explain all the certifications that associations provide, how we train the workforce. We frankly, lean on a lot of the blue collar certifications, because every legislator wants a stronger workforce, and the people that can transition to a great career really thrilled about the work. We have a coalition, the tomorrow's workforce coalition, to try to help get this passed, with over 900 organizations that have joined on that is a free coalition next year, because it's a Super Bowl of tax we're doing everything possible to try to get that included in the tax bill. That's one positive. And then
Jarrod Clabaugh 29:46
I just want to interrupt here real quick and say that part of that 529, the success forward, has been ASAE working with lawmakers and their members to get that message across. I think we've at least two years, maybe three. We've been in DC during the fly-in talking about the importance of this piece of legislation and how it would expand accreditations to various parts of our communities. As Mary Kate said, this helps every level of your society. So it's not geared at just as of right now, 529s can only be used for colleges and universities, and there are a lot of younger people in today's workforce that they don't want to go that route. So what better way than expanding those offerings without a huge hit to their investment? And the success of this is related to as a ease work through the fly in and obviously their ongoing campaign.
Katy Markert 30:37
Yeah, that's great.
Mary Kate Cunningham 30:39
Oh yes. And obviously, Ohio, your society, has been really helpful as well. Jared and yeah, the fly in every year that helps us get co-sponsors. It's just that type of shoe leather lobbying is really useful for sharing the message on the hill.
Jarrod Clabaugh 30:54
It's easy to ask a lawmaker, do you not want to help more of your constituents work and make better careers and spend more money and stay in your communities.
Mary Kate Cunningham 31:02
Absolutely, it's such a bipartisan piece of legislation, it's really exciting to work on.
Steven Stout 31:07
Yeah, so that's a win. Mary Kate, any other wins we should know about?
Mary Kate Cunningham 31:11
I think that something to put on the radar that I've had a lot of members ask me about is there is more, I think, of a concern about telling our story, especially in the house, Ways and Means Committee, I think there's a little more skepticism about associations and a need to do that education. And I just want to highlight a bill that passed the stop terror financing and tax penalties on American hostages act that sounds like something we can all be in favor of stopping to American hostages paying taxes. But within that legislation, it's HR, 9495 a lot of members have asked about it, because it would allow the Treasury Department to revoke the tax exempt status of a nonprofit deems to be supporting terrorism. Our concern is that any kind of unilateral power that it's giving to remove tax exempt status. So it's something just to be aware of, and it's a reminder of how we need to show Congress how associations are the incredibly strong governance that we have. I think we are not the target of this legislation, but just something to consider as Congress looks to provide more oversight on tax exempt organizations. There's really a strong need to explain who associations are, how we benefit the society. And I'm really thrilled we have new economic impact research that Oxford Economics did for ASAE, and we have a map on our power of associations website that we'll share the link to, where you can look at every state and see the number of associations, the number of employees employed by associations, the taxes that we pay for State and Local and that's really helpful for quantifying the power of associations to Congress, and something that we'll continue to do next year.
Steven Stout 32:54
Yeah, that's so powerful, too here in Texas, that helps those types of data points really help us here to make the case here in Texas for our existence. So thank you for all the work you do with that piece. It's very important to us. I will tell you guys, you got me a little fired up. I'm ready to, like, I need, like, a boxing montage with Eye of the Tiger, like, I'm ready to knock some stuff out. But before Katy gets to her last question, I wanted to ask Mary Kate, if people are listening, and they've never been to the fly-in before, and they want to get involved. They hear your passion. They hear Jarrod's passion. Can you give people a sort of little snippet of what a fly ins like if they've never done one before? Because I think it sounds like we need everybody that can come this year, whether you've been coming for years, or this will be your very first time. We need everybody, as you said, to help us with that shoe leather, lobbying, lawmaking, explain the fly in a few one more time for those folks who have never, ever been.
Mary Kate Cunningham 33:43
Absolutely. So it's March 25 and 26th we have every type of folks attend, from association lobbyists to CEOs to people who are in association management but have never gone to the hill before. So we will teach you everything you need to know. It comes with a lot of CAE credit hours. We're finding out the exact amount now, but we will do a 90 minute prep webinar in February to teach you the basics of a hill meeting, how to request them, how to join your state groups, and the top level on our policy issues, which are going to be taxed in our five to nine bill. And then when you come to the fly in on the first day, we will have a special first timer session that kicks off at 11, and we'll do more practicing Hill meetings in small groups. And then we will have speakers from the hill and then teach you the policy issues. And then we also provide some general government relations kind of education, because we know people need to help justify their attendance and registration. Sure, this year we're gonna have an ethics credit, which is very exciting. We get help people with doing CAE renewal, and then we'll do a short session on political communications. We're gonna have some great experts join us. It's more important than ever to try to break through the noise. So excited about that session. So we'll give you all the education, and we'll put you. Into state groups, and then you will go to the Hill the next day, and we will have a lunch on the hill, and then you'll do your meetings in individual groups, and we'll give you the packets that you bring to the Hill show you how to do it. And it's a really great way to learn about advocacy from if you're new. And then we have seasoned professionals go and help share the message with Congress, and I would say, if you haven't done Hill meetings before, don't be intimidated. You're often meeting with someone who's 25 they want to hear about your industry. So just explaining what your association is and the benefit you provide to the society is super helpful. And then ASA, staff can always follow up that there are specific policy questions in our lobbying team.
Jarrod Clabaugh 35:38
They also provide digital copies of everything that you'll share. Last year, I went on one of the meetings I was in. I handed them the paper copy, and they looked at it paper. So it's nice, because you literally can sit right there and say the PDF is in your inbox. So they've got that information. It's easily shareable. It's easily understood. It is written in layman's terms. They do a great job of making, you know, the fly in simple and understandable. And like Mary Kate said, there's no reason to be intimidated at the end of the day, these people, they want the same things we do. So sitting down with them and trying to better our society is what all of us are doing. It's just trying to bring everyone to that same point. Great, all great stuff. Yeah,
Katy Markert 36:19
Thank you all for breaking that down. I really it's really helpful to know that you prepare and it's not as intimidating as one might be with that. You guys, thank you all so much for chatting with us today and sharing this hugely important information. We do have one last question. We asked the same question as we mentioned at the beginning of the podcast to all of the people we interview, and we just want to know, why do you think being engaged with organizations like ASAE, TSAE, OSAP, why is that so important?
Mary Kate Cunningham 36:52
I would say it's just the sense of community and the continual learning that it provides. I think that's what makes life worth living. I think that joy that it brings you is super important.
Jarrod Clabaugh 37:03
And I would reiterate that. I would also say our unofficial tagline here at OSAP is we build relationships, and ultimately, that's what this is all about, relationships that benefit our communities, no matter what that community might be, no matter what role the nonprofit or the association is playing. I think that when you don't have that type of connection, it leaves you out in the cold and having these types of relationships and being able to pick up the phone and say, Hey, Steve, and I have a question about it means funny. You mentioned that we just dealt with that. We're picking up the phone and saying, Mary Kate, what do you think about x? And it helps keep those issues on one another's radar, but it also allows us to discuss them with people that understand what it is we do. Yeah, and everybody on this call works for an association. And how many times in your life have you had someone say to you, is that really a thing? So it's nice to know and to network with people who understand what the thing is. So that's what I think the benefit of involvement with national and regional associations is
Katy Markert 38:03
thank you guys so much for everything that you do and for being with us today.
Steven Stout 38:07
For fighting the good fight, man. I wish the flying was like today. Mary Kate, I am ready. Let's go. Let's go.
Mary Kate Cunningham 38:13
Absolutely, we appreciate it. Yeah, you in the fight and
Steven Stout 38:16
We'll be there. Thanks again to Jarrod and Mary Kate for joining us today, and thank you for listening to the Associations NOW podcast. We really appreciate everyone listening. And again, thank you guys for all that you do for all of us across the country, not just in our states, but nationally as well. We are all deeply in debt to you. Thank you both.
Jarrod Clabaugh 38:32
Thank you.
Steven Stout 38:33
I find it's always best when you have a complex problem like tax reform, it's best to just throw a bunch of smart people at it to help solve it.
Katy Markert 38:39
Exactly, No kidding. So many of the issues with tax reform could really hurt associations, but with people like Mary Kate and Jarrod fighting alongside us, I really feel like we have a chance to affect a positive turnout.
Steven Stout 38:52
Here, in my head, I have this image of Mary Kate on a black horse with half her face painted blue, Braveheart style. Yeah, totally Braveheart. And she rides up and down, yelling at the association community that we need everyone to join to fight to protect association on tax reform. We don't get hyped. And he face is blue. We follow her into battle.
Katy Markert 39:10
I love it. So Mary Kate is William Wallace in this scenario I see, okay.
Steven Stout 39:14
But yeah, just go with me here. And she ends with a rallying cry. Instead of to fight English, it's to protect our 501. C status and UBIT.
Katy Markert 39:23
I love it. I'm with you.
Steven Stout 39:25
Thanks 100-Presenters for joining us today on the Associations NOW Presents podcast. Be sure to listen to this and other episodes of the podcast wherever you find your favorite podcast.
Katy Markert 39:35
And we want to thank our guests, both Mary Kate Cunningham and Jarrod Clabaugh. Also, thanks to ASAE for letting us co-host today's show.
Steven Stout 39:42
Very exciting. And if you want to continue hanging out with me and Katy, check out Better by Association, an original podcast produced by the Texas Society of Association Executives. You can also find us anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye.
01:33
Thank you so much
KiKi L'Italien 01:34
Yes, it's really amazing to be here. And I have to say, I have followed your work for many years and watched you in this space, recognized leaders. And so what I thought we could do today is just start off by talking about your personal journeys into leadership, because I know that each path is unique. Definitely in the association industry, there can be many different ways that we get to where we are, but I'm sure that there are shared experiences that have shaped both of you. So I thought what we would do is maybe start with what inspired you to step into these leadership roles. So were there pivotal moments or mentors who helped guide you along the way? So Debra, I'm starting with you. What about it? What made you decide to step into this leadership role in the first place?
Debra BenAvram 02:25
Thanks you so much, KiKi. I would love to tell you that I had this grand plan from the age of five to become a leader and to do it by this age and set all those goals. That's really never been my style. So when I was thinking about what sort of led me to this moment, I think what I might have been was not savvy enough to realize that I wasn't supposed to ask questions or ask permission, and just always threw myself into opportunities. My last organization, when there was a clear need for a new strategic plan or a new area that we needed staff leadership in, I raised my hand and but I did that by doing it, and I think that, for better or worse, led me to have lots of different experiences that I didn't know maybe I wasn't supposed to have or be asking for. And when the CEO role opened up at that organization, I had this out-of-body moment where the board was telling me that the position was now open, and I said, "I'm right here. Why don't you put me in that role?" And that was not particularly characteristic of me, but it is what ended up happening. I applied for the role and took it, and what inspired me was that I saw I could be the change. I saw what change could be. I saw what possibilities were. And I love the power of associations and bringing people together. And I think we do that with our staff, and we do that with our volunteers and our members. I just love that. It was really inspired. And I wanted the opportunity to do more, to keep throwing my hat in and keep bringing that forward and growing the business and growing the value that we were delivering to our members. And I loved what I did there, and I got to, now, get to do that at a different organization, in terms of what maybe mentors or who inspire me. A pivotal moment for me in terms of putting myself around the right colleagues was at an ASAE Annual Meeting shortly after I became CEO. So this is going back long time and Arlene Pietranton and the late John Graham led a round table for young CEOs—because I used to be a young CEO—and there were not so many of us at that time, but we sat around this table, and I got to see not only meet colleagues, some of whom today are among my very best friends, both within the association, community and personally. But I got to see what it looked like to be a giving colleague and to be around colleagues like Arlene and John, who were just freely sharing their experiences that moment in time which I can see in my head as I'm telling you this story that led me to recognize I needed to get into peer groups because I was reinventing wheels, and I was alone. No matter what level of leader you are, you're alone in some way, shape or form. And very quickly, I got myself into a few different peer groups and tried them out. And some fit, some didn't. And I learned how to build a community, a kitchen cabinet of people that I could learn from that were similar to me, that were different from me, that had more experience or less experience than me. And that gift, really, that got from what I learned from ASAE colleagues—whether I did that within the framework of ASAE or not—that is what I really credit the rest of my career journey to this day is being in this community and building peer networks within it that I can learn from with, be vulnerable with and learn from each other's experiences.
KiKi L'Italien 06:16
When you are talking about that, it resonates so much, because I think, what if we didn't have some of these important connections that we had made? And it really is, you can get so much further when you have those relationships in place, and you can ask the questions and get the information that you need, or make the connections that you need to in order to advance. How about you, Lori? What about for you? What was your story?
Lori Anderson 06:43
That's a has some similarities to Debra, when my very first career was a teacher. And I knew I didn't want to do that forever. And I quit without any plan, and that was terrifying. So I look back at the things that have helped me grow. It's that I do things that are scary, but I ask for help, and asking for help is critical. I found a career coach because I literally had no idea what I wanted to do, and I remember the restaurant we were in. I remember the table we were in, and he asked me a pivotal question that changed my life. And the question was, "What gets you hot? What gets you mad? What gets you boiling?" And at the time, it had to do with politics, whoever was in office at the time. And he said, "Why don't you do something there?" And I went, "I can't do that. I'm a former music teacher." And he goes, "Why not?" And it got me thinking, why not. And it took me nine months to convince a member of Congress to hire a former music teacher. And it was scary. Those nine months I didn't have a job, and all of a sudden I was in a position of doing something that I was just really passionate about, and people would be coming and lobbying me. And I thought maybe I could do that. So then I started looking at getting a lobbying job, and I happened to land in an association where the Vice President of Government Relations was also involved in music. So there was this music connection, I think he sang for the Kennedy Center Choir or something like that. And his wife was a music teacher, so we had that weird connection right away. And he was such a mentor, and he threw me into like Deb, gave me challenges, and just saw what was in me, that I wasn't just a former music teacher, right? I had a lot to offer, and he kept challenging me and giving me assignments that I thought I could never do, but he also encouraged me to join, and in this particular association, there was no other member of ASAE, and it was a large Association, and I joined ASAE, I joined Women in Government Relations. I joined WGR Toastmasters. I honed my speaking abilities, and those connections got me where I am. In fact, the recruiter who called me for my current position knew I was looking through WGR Toastmasters, and she recommended to the recruiter to call me. It's all about connections. It's all about finding people. And when I started at ISA, I needed new connections. I wasn't really in government affairs anymore. I was in a leadership role. I joined CEO groups. Debra and I met in a CEO group, and then we ended up on the as a board together at the same time. And so our leadership paths followed. That the importance of reaching out and connecting to other folks. And even now, there's not a question I get. What do I do with this particular problem? You have a group of people, groups of people who can help answer the question, and that's the beauty of associations, because everyone's willing to help, and the people who are willing to help. They really become your network, your support group, when things get really tough or when things are going great.
KiKi L'Italien 10:29
Okay, first of all, I know so much more about you now. This is fascinating, and I have follow up questions for when we meet up at something down the road, what type of music? What got you involved? But we're not going there today, I noticed some themes in both of your responses so far, definitely about the community and the importance of connections, but then also, it's those connections that were helping you overcome challenges. And so I wanted to ask this question about when you look back and you think about your leadership style and what you've learned over the years, what specific challenges or opportunities have influenced your leadership style within the association world.
Debra BenAvram 11:12
For me, I feel that every experience, every challenge that we each face as leaders, our leadership journeys, our philosophies, our understanding of ourselves and how to really amplify our strengths and own where we need to say it's not our bailiwick. To me, I think that I'm always doing that. So I could give you an example like COVID or a turnaround, which I've done several of. But ultimately, I think it's not always the big it feels in leadership, like it's these big, pivotal moments, but even how we respond in those big, pivotal moments is because of all of the small moments along the way that are how we build our philosophy. So my philosophies around silo lists, ideally organizations and staff empowerment and volunteer empowerment and transformation of culture that came from not one experience. It came from so many different things. Yeah,
KiKi L'Italien 12:19
I think that those challenges, they're what makes us, hopefully, stronger when we make it through it, when we get on the other side of it. But I think that it's not hard to say that. I'd say over the past five years, being an association leader has maybe had more than its fair share of challenges compared to just taking a look around the world and what's happening maybe a little bit more challenging. It's definitely, I think, for both of you to have been going through this leadership journey together, to be learning alongside each other, and then also to be winning these awards together. It's amazing that there are these sort of milestone moments that you've shared in leadership along the way. Lori, have you thought of a challenge that maybe, I don't know, helped you hone your leadership style or figure out who you are as a leader today?
Lori Anderson 13:11
That is continually evolving, right? It's not stagnant. I remember hearing things and those may be the start of a switch, right? You just hear even somebody ask you one question, like the career counselor back when I was very young, "What gets you mad?" The question that changed my life. The things I hear a top executive of the company, Freeman, I was at an event, and she asked to write down on a piece of paper to describe my organization's culture, and I was "oh my gosh. I don't know if I can." I know what I think it is, but I don't know what my team is that led a whole multi year journey into creating a culture statement that one little question. When I first started at ISA, there was a hesitancy of the board. The governance was pretty broken, and the board was not willing at the time to learn how to be a better board. There was one chair who I suggested, how about we go to a CEO symposium and just see if we can learn how to be better? And we sat in that room, and the light bulbs went off for him, that there is a better way to function as an organization, and that opened the window just a little. And I think about the big transformations I've done is when the window opens a little and you say that breeze is coming through, I want to bring on the wind, right? And you take little steps, and it results in that big transformation. I've heard other people say you should never be in an organization more than five years because you stagnate. At first, I listened to that and thought I was doing something wrong, and then I realized I need to listen to myself if I'm continually challenged. You. If I'm continually finding new growth, and I love who I work with, and I enjoy their company every day, and I appreciate and have the support of my board, Why limit myself to five years? It's been 20 years with the organization, and I'm never bored, and I always have challenges, and so I keep looking for these little windows. Now, if the window is constantly shut, then maybe I should look somewhere else, or that someone should look somewhere else. But if you always have that opportunity for a new breeze to come through and to ride on that breeze a little bit, then go for it.
KiKi L'Italien 15:39
That's really fascinating. I'm thinking about how we're hearing you should be listening to others. You should be talking with others and learning from others, but maybe also knowing when you shouldn't listen to others and to listen to yourself too, not to forget that part. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you both had to do more about mentorship, and especially for young professionals, people who are maybe early in their careers, who are trying to figure out, yeah, this mentor, how do I find the right people? How do I find my group, my kitchen cabinet, and when they begin to seek out building that sort of that connection and that network. How would you advise them to go about fostering meaningful connections that can truly help them? Because I think at least in my situation, I would say in my experience, I've had to learn right because not everyone should be a part of that group, but you shouldn't listen to all of the voices. So Debra, I know you had shared a little bit earlier about how you found these different groups. So do you have any thoughts on this?
Debra BenAvram 16:50
Yeah, I have definitely have thoughts around how to approach finding mentors. To me, the first place it starts with is introspection. What are you looking for yourself? So you're looking for an advisor who can tell you what to do when you don't know how. I'm not sure that always exists, but that might be more of a coach, an executive coach. Are you looking for someone to prop you up and help you develop? Are you looking for shared experiences, which is different from advice, but we can glean ideas which is really important. And you may be looking for all of those things, but your journey around them is really different. And Lori said, with her example, everyone's looking for your career journey, your mentorship path. It's yours, just because people talk all the time about aspiring CEOs and get a mentor to help you be CEO Well, you know, this job is for some people, not for everyone. You need to think about what you want to do and what are the things you need to build in your toolkit. And then, okay, so then who are the right types of people to be around to do that? And by the way, that's multi-directional. You have people reporting to you or within your organization who are different levels, who are amazing mentors, who you learn from all the time. You don't have to call someone and say, will you be my mentor? And let's match on an app here. There's lots of ways to engage and be mentor. I think that when we think about what that looks like, what we want from each group, each person, I would encourage emerging leaders to then prioritize, right? So for me, I really liked peer groups because I got a lot out of that. And I tell my team all the time, you have all the power put a note on ASAE Collaborate, and you will have more people than you know what to do with for a new peer group. But that is doable. Talk to people and ask them to find one or two. But the more clarity you have around what you're looking to learn, what experiences you're trying to be around, the types of leaders you want to be around that, frankly, are really different from you. When I call Lori with a problem, which I certainly do, I do not want her to tell me that I'm brilliant. I want her to give me some actual feedback. And I need that from my mentor. If that's what you want from your mentor? Get clarity if you call someone to be a one on one mentor for you, you meet someone a leader you admire that maybe shares a career path that you would like to explore, or has grown their position and stayed in the same position for a long time. What are you asking of them? Are you asking them to meet with you once a month and push you on something? What does that mean to you when that word needs something different to everyone? I think that whatever you do, get around people, one on one groups get around people where the interaction. That leaves you feeling like your bucket is fuller than when you arrived, and so is theirs, because those are the relationships that you're going to foster and invest your time in those experiences, and when it isn't right, I've been in peer groups where they're great people, but it's okay to say I got what I needed out of this experience from a mentorship perspective, and now I need to move on. I think as you do that, you'll build this cabinet of experts, of thought partners that you'll learn to count on over your career when you have different challenges. But it's not all things. To say, it's, I don't think one size fits all. And what leadership?
Lori Anderson 20:46
Yeah, I agreed with Debra completely on this. And just to add on to that, you need to go into a peer group or a relationship, even if it's a one on one mentorship role, I tend to gear more toward peer groups. I don't know if one person would have everything I needed any given moment. So I have hundreds of mentors, because I can look around the room and say, I wish I had more of that, or that would be great to explore this way of leading. But very important, you need to give as much as you get. Because if you were in a peer group or a relationship, and you are just sucking out answers, and you're not stopping everything to help someone else. There's a level of trust that doesn't happen. I really try every time in my many groups, when a question comes by, I don't know the answer, but I know someone who may, and I connect them, because the true value of being in an association is that village, and it's unique. I don't know if many other professions that have this type of supported atmosphere, maybe because most of us aren't direct competitors, therefore we aren't at each other competitively. Deb's members are nothing like my members at all, and so we can share more, but I stop everything, and that includes with former employees who have reached out to me and say, I need a new change. I drop everything. I connect them with recruiters. I get my ear to the ground. I put things out to help them. And you have to give as much or even more than you take from any experience with a peer group.
KiKi L'Italien 22:26
So in hearing this again, I'm it's very affirming, because I think that anyone who's listening to this that says it's great, it's maybe they looked into having the right people around them. What I'm hearing is you evolve. You figure out what works. So don't fall in love with the idea of perfection, like you're gonna land with just the perfect five people that are going you're and you're all gonna elevate together. Maybe you do, but most of the time it's probably something more, like you try different things and you figure out your group that maybe ends up working, and it depends on what you're looking for. But help; help others too. Don't just focus on what you can get out of it. So that sounds like good relationship building advice too, not just for mentorship, but for life in general, right?
Lori Anderson 23:15
100%. And sometimes, see, you're in a your group, and you're thinking, I'm not getting any value of this. Or you go to a conference and you're not getting any value. Sometimes that one sentence, that one little idea, can snowball when you get back to the office and your time away could be exponentially enhanced just by that one little germ of an ace of an idea.
KiKi L'Italien 23:40
I love this because you're talking about the crack in the window, and you're talking about the one little idea I get, the idea that you're paying a lot of attention for that moment of inspiration to hit, where you're able to take that and learn and grow. And I think that we can all learn something from that. That's a great approach. I want to shift gears and maybe talk a little bit about foresight. That's one of the things that it's a discipline that's become more and more important today, I think, because it's such an unpredictable environment and so Lori and Debra, how has practicing foresight impacted your approach to leadership, especially during moments of uncertainty?
Lori Anderson 24:23
We've developed at ISA a leadership meeting, which involves a board and three other elected steering committees. We call them, and we have an annual event in a January of every year that isn't about the current year. And I did that as purpose, because the budget's already set, the organizational plan, all of that set for that calendar year. Now we're meeting in January to do what to talk about, what next, not even the next year, but even two or three years from now. And sometimes there's themes to this meeting, this event, which started, oh, back in 2013 I guess, was the first one we did. It was just the hints being said about struggles finding workers that led to developing an entire workforce development program. And each of these events starts to germinate some thoughts on what are the next challenges that could be coming down the pike. We have used ASAE foresight works in this exercise. We have sometimes focused on particular themes. We bring in some keynote speakers that can help facilitate the long term. But I think it's the mindset that the meeting is not about the here and now. It's all about the future. We're in the next one in January of 25 we're talking about demographics, or maybe the importance of adding value graphics instead of demographics. And we're looking at trying to understand the values that are inherent in our stakeholders. We don't know what that's going to end up, but that will be long term. Like, what does that mean for 26, 27 and 29 and beyond? And that's how we've employed foresight. How it changes my leadership again, I think it's back to the same thing we've talked about. It's those little, teeny things, listening for the nuances and what I can do to challenge myself and to challenge the organization.
KiKi L'Italien 26:27
So for people who and Debra, I'm going to go to you next. For people who are listening to this and not watching it, you should just know that I was back here like clapping visibly. You can't hear it, but you could see it because I was so excited about hearing about the value graphics. There's some really great work out there by David Allison. He's the one that coming to our event. Yeah, he's remarkable. You want to follow up on that? Pick up that thread and Debra, let's talk about it. What is the roll of foresight for you?
Debra BenAvram 26:58
I'll pick up from where Lori left off. She gave some really great and I'll add from a leadership perspective, and one thing I think is really important is to remember that it is not your job to have all of the foresight. It is not your role. It is your role to make sure that the organization and the right people are having that conversation, and that can be very hard as we continue on our leadership journeys, to remember that our superpower isn't knowing how to do everything or about everything, it's knowing how to create the environments where the right things end up happening, and making sure that that's also the expectation of you for whoever it is that you report to that you're having that conversation. What are the expectations that might be for you with foresight, if you have deep subject matter expertise, that's going to be different than if you don't, but that conversation is really important. And then how you're leveraging your board. What's the board culture? Some boards don't love to have really big picture, pie in the sky conversations, and then your role in that leadership development journey for them is very different than if you are working with a board that has been doing that for a long time. For me, a tactic that I always employ, no matter what role I'm in, is sort of setting some North Stars like, what are the things that are for me really always going to be true, transparency, risk taking, possibilities, growth mindset, when I can bring those into the foresight conversation as a leader, those are my tools. I use those tools to hopefully open possibilities up for others. So an example for me would be as AABB explored the new frontier of bio therapies, which we're really positioning AABB in the same thread from lorries of workforce development, we were able to problem spot what's a problem in the industry that's no one's going to have solved in three years, when we would come out with a solution, and we ended up delivering the first in field credential. We stood up an entire credentialing program and delivered that, but we wouldn't have done that if we weren't talking about what's coming down the pike. We have to be able to see around corners, and that's a skill set that we don't all have, and that our teams, our staff and our leaders don't always have. So focusing on how we develop that create environments for people to learn those skills and ASAE foresight works is a really fantastic tool.
KiKi L'Italien 29:45
Speaking of looking around corners and all of that, what I'm hearing is that you both have expressed that being adaptable, I'm paraphrasing, but being adaptable, being flexible. So recognizing where your resources are that may not originate with you, that you don't have to have all of the answers yourself, but to look around for those opportunities or those insights that you can take to help guide and lead and maybe open up those conversations that will help to get the organization into the direction it needs to go in. We can't have a conversation about women and leadership without addressing this Glass Cliff phenomenon. And for those who aren't familiar with that, many women find themselves promoted to these high stakes roles during times of crisis, and this is called the Glass Cliff phenomenon, where it's like, oh, you're thrust into this position of authority, and now you need to solve all of these problems. And for many women, when they find themselves in this role, it's shocking. I don't know anyone who is just thank you for giving me this chance to feel like I'm in a precarious situation. Have either of you felt this or faced this challenge?
Lori Anderson 31:04
I was by my first boss in the association world, who I admire greatly, and he was the first person I invited to come to the awards ceremony. He's long retired and doesn't live around here anymore, but he meant so much to me because he really supported me. He also welcomed my inquiries into how to improve myself. For example, it was a light bulb moment when I was told we need an international program Lori, create one. I'm simplifying it. And this is a pretty big industry. What? But I realized that I didn't need to have the answers. But if I could help a committee succeed, then all of a sudden, everything grows. And so I asked my boss, I went, I would like to take meeting facilitation training, and here's a course, can you send me up to Boston for a week? And he said, Yes. And from that moment, it was like this sliding door moment, because I was struggling. I didn't know how to keep things going, I didn't know what to do, and I gained skills into learning that it wasn't me who needs the answers, but I could learn how to ask the right questions to get a group to figure it out, and all of a sudden, the groups I was now assigned more and more groups to lead, that they were succeeding, and that not only helped the organization succeed, it helped My career succeed. And I still employ that same philosophy to where I am. Now it's I don't have the answers, but if I can help in any way to ask the right questions to get to an answer, then we're all in a better place.
KiKi L'Italien 32:55
That's so interesting. Something you said, it made me think about an issue that I just came across with the organization that I work with, and that is that I think that something that you did there, not only did you recognize that you didn't need to have all the answers yourself and that you could explore, but a committee could help, but you also sought training. You looked for training, and you proactively went out and said, Ah, here is the training I could use. And then you went about figuring out if you could get it. And it's fascinating, because the organization I work with just recently, the CEO came up and said, we have this budget for training, but no one's asking for additional training like they people weren't coming, proactively going and saying, we need this. And I think it's really interesting that here you have listeners, here you have someone who is an award winning leader, who is saying, I realized that I needed this additional training, and you weren't afraid, she wasn't afraid to go after it. So that's something that I thought was interesting, that you shared there, that I think is a differentiator, maybe for some people who been asked to do this thing, and I don't know how to do it, it's maybe looking around, yeah, to see what's around you. But also, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do?
Lori Anderson 34:21
And I still do this, KiKi. In 2023 I was stuck. I didn't know how to get out of my rut. I sought an executive coach, and I sought one that could basically slap me a little bit get me out of my rut, not somebody who is warm and fuzzy, but somebody who could really push my comfort zones. And I've used coaches throughout my career in various parts of my career, and I just needed one. So yes, back way ages ago, I sought out help in learning how to be a better meeting facilitator, but I still do that to this day.
KiKi L'Italien 34:56
Oh, good. That's so good. How about you, Debra? Have you worked with coaches? Have you gone out and gone after those additional training moments?
Debra BenAvram 35:05
Absolutely, I've worked with coaches for a long time, and knowing what you want out of that relationship, and Lori said she want to kick in the pants, so that's going to help you find the right coach for me as well. Training for me, one of the things more recently that I've been working on is getting exposure to the business world outside of association. So I joined an organization called YPO, which is a young professional organization, CEOs, global CEO organization, very few non profits and associations. That's giving me a completely different opportunity to develop new skills and exposure to new types of businesses, because we all know associations are businesses. It's our tax status that we benefit from, but the end of the day, the numbers do have to add up. So I knew that was exposure that I need, because I know the association space. Where do I take it next in this very fast changing world? I think when we're put into a new opportunity, there's a crisis happening, and we feel this weight as leaders, that someone has trusted us, an organization has trusted us, our boss has trusted us to solve the problem or to find the solution, and we fall into this trap. And I think a lot of female leaders definitely fall into this trap of thinking that being the champion for the solution means being alone and being the only one who can do and to both strategically think and do and be the answer. And sometimes we put that on ourselves. Sometimes it's put upon us, to be honest, but sometimes we put that on ourselves. When I think about those moments when I've asked someone in a crisis to take something on, and when it's been a part of my own experience, I'm thinking about building transparency, which I share is one of my North Stars of transparency and being clear on communication along the way, celebrating small wins. Don't wait until the end to find out. Like your one ends like glory. Just shared how she was talking along the way. Can I do this? Can I you're sharing your thought pattern, so your leadership, your excellence, what you bring, don't wait till the end, the end and outcome of the New International Strategy, which was what you were asked to do in the example you gave Lori, make sure that you're exposing whoever you're talking to with your thinking, How do you think? How are you showing that you're expanding? What are the questions you're asking to look outside the particular area of your portfolio, to connect the dots to other areas of the business and to other aspects of how the business connects to the broader world around you. When you give people the opportunity to see have a window into your brain that lets them engage, that brings intellectual curiosity from them, and you're having conversations along the way. Something I'm not strong in is making sure to celebrate strong wins. I know about myself I'm like, three years from now already, I'm excited about the win, but my brain's moved on, so making sure that I'm communicating those small wins, and making sure that you're adjusting your plans, your experience based on your new knowledge, the skills you're developing, but also the feedback that you're getting. In other words, don't put it on yourself to be alone. Let somebody tell you're alone, but until they tell you're alone, figure out how to engage others communicate really effectively and share what you need to share, to highlight what you're doing, and highlight where you need others to plug in.
KiKi L'Italien 38:57
Wow. This is like a master class in leadership, because Debra, that is a growing edge for me that I have to work on. This celebrating the wins, but showing that thinking along the way so other people can learn, celebrate, understand and believe in and be part of your parade, versus like watching from the side and It being some big mystery, this window into your brain approach so important to be able to communicate like that, so that other people can buy in along the way. And I think that's such a great point. I think of it is showing your work. I was always getting in trouble in school for not showing my work. I had to, and I'm like, oh, but they have to write it out. And I think that's something that, even to this day, it's, yeah, show your work, let other people in on it, because, hey, guess what? Maybe they can contribute, or maybe they can join your parade and get excited about the things that you're doing. It's not something to be fearful of, which I think is what holds me back. Sometimes, some. Pick apart my ideas and all of this, but it's something where it's an opportunity, right? And it's only something that can help build trust. So that's a great point. I have one more question. I could really, honestly, I think, talk to you both for a long time, but I have one more question that has to do with just being a leader. It has its own set of demands. I think we've all decided a long time ago that there is no balance with life, right? You're just always trying to figure out your best, but it's challenging when you're trying to do all of these things beyond the career skills, what areas of personal growth for you have been essential to your success and your resilience as leaders. Are there other areas of your life where it's not just going out and getting say that training and facilitation or working with committees or what have you, or learning about what it's like to be entrepreneurial and that kind of thing, but is there something in your own personal growth outside of those things, directly impacting your skills at work, that you look at, that helps you, that you find, that is essential to your success.
Lori Anderson 41:09
It's a mindfulness journey for me. I have gone to mindful retreats. I started meditating many years ago. I'm grateful to say it's many years ago now, and 2007 I went through a cancer journey. So I'm a breast cancer survivor, and what they don't tell you when you go through it is the hardest part mentally, is after you go through all the treatments, because then you imagine that every hangnail and every thing is possibly another round of it, right? And in this process, I discovered the importance of mine. I read books I had Tolle's "Power of Now," and some other books by various monks, etc, that more appreciate the present moment and not constantly imagine what's next, because what you imagine is that it's imagination. It's not real, and that's a continuous process, and that is a journey we are all on to various degree, and you never complete it. You never win it. And being comfortable with the moment at hand is maybe the biggest challenge we could ever face.
Debra BenAvram 42:25
Beautiful. I wish I could tell you I had the kind of mindfulness practice that Lori has developed and that I admire so much I I'm a little bit more of a work in progress that maybe I care to met, but I think that for me, over the course of my career that I've ebbed and flowed and COVID really helped me open my eyes to making good choices about how I decide to spend my time and how I decide to spend my discretionary time. And we could go to dinner with an ASAE colleague every other night. We can go to everything we get invited to, and we can, I can, I'll own the statement, then really end up not getting much out of any of those experiences. So what I've tried to do in my own practice, in my own life, is really be intentional about how I'm spending my time and how I want to show up for myself and for others. How does that translate? It translates into I've said no to some things, and I've stepped back from some things that maybe I gave to maybe I did that had run their course, and I've stepped up into other things that have really been a bigger part of what I want to do. So some of those are making sure to spend time or travel with my son, who's an international athlete. So that's one on one time when I can't always work having that special time. We have dinner as a family every night. That's hard to do, I know, but that's what happens in the BenAvram house. Our son's 21. He's a college now, but we still do that with our daughter, and then making choices around spirituality and around the things that really, from a volunteer perspective, make a difference. For me, my family supports an orphanage in eastern Uganda that helps girls who would otherwise be on the street and double down on that and a few other really important issues that for me fill my bucket, even though their time, that allow me to use the skills I have built in my career as a leader, but allow me to get something very different out of that, and then bring that back to my family. So I'm still on that journey, but I think I'm getting much better at choosing the things that from a time perspective, I both give and have a meaningful ROI in whatever it is for me that I decide that needs to be.
KiKi L'Italien 45:01
It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I can't tell you both how much I it was just such a pleasure to speak with both of you today, and I've learned something, and I know that the listeners are going to learn something too. So thank you both for sharing your wisdom and your insights.
Debra BenAvram 45:20
Thank you so much, KiKi and Lori, always a pleasure. Thank you.
Lori Anderson 45:25
I can't wait to share the stage with you in March. It's so exciting. And thank you, KiKi, for this opportunity.
KiKi L'Italien 45:31
So I just want to say to our listeners, thank you for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the associations now podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. For even more association goodness, visit associationsnow.com, ASAE, of course. And then if my voice didn't completely rattle your cage, you might want to check out my regular podcast, the Association Chat podcast, which you can find over on associationchat.com, until next time everyone, stay true to your vision, keep sharing your stories and remember every conversation offers a chance for change you.
Mark Graham 1:23
Sure. So the Association Governance Institute, AGI, the brainchild of Michelle Mason, wanted to create a brand new home for governance, for associations. ASAE has done a pretty good job at governance, but we wanted to really focus on it and really have a terrific resource library. What we did was we always created, like a brand new organization. Why we called it the Association Governance Institute, although it will be part of your ASAE membership, and what it does, it creates a library of resources that are all focused on just governance. If you search as a website now, and you search governance, you'll get a whole host of content. But what we've done is we really drill down to a bunch of categories of governance, six categories of governance and three to five subcategories of governance, because governance is quite complicated. There's an art and science to it, and we hope to address both of that with the Association Governance Institute. So let me give you a few examples of the categories. The CEO-board relationship. We're talking about. The CEO evaluation, the compensation, the contracts we get into the culture of boards. One of the major responsibilities with board is to hire and manage the CEO. So we have a whole section on executive transitions, operations. We're talking about the soup and nuts of how boards operate. We have tons of content and sub content on all these topics to round it out. We have strategy and oversight and structure, so we've really used a lot of our advisory committees of CEOs and consultants to help us devise this whole new institute and how to organize all the content. That's the content part of it. But we're also including new tools with AGI and new educational courses. Paul and I have always joked, this is like creating a brand new organization. We started last January, and we're ready to launch next month.
Paul Pomerantz 3:06
Really exciting stuff. And just to add to this part of the thinking behind this, especially as this was first being developed by Michelle and myself and some conversations. The idea was twofold. One, ASAE has a lot of resources, but they're in different places, so the idea is bring it together and really emphasize it, shine a spotlight on it, and make it easier to find, more accessible, and then give it a place to grow. So we already have a great set of tool kits. But what's missing? What needs to be developed? What other tools can we develop? So this will provide that kind of focal point for it. The other thing is that you think about the CEO job, and CEO is successful, if his governance is successful, if the CEO and the board are working in unison, they're aligned, goals are clear, resources are being allocated according to the goals and the plan of the organization, then you have a healthy organization and it functions. Things break down when governance doesn't work. And so in our view, job one for a CEO is to make sure that governing process works; that there's communication; there's transparency; there's clarity. All those types of things. And part of our goal is to really support the CEO in carrying out that part of their position, the CEO and the staff team in other industries. corporate setting. You have the National Association of Corporate Directors in the healthcare setting. You have other governance resources. Associations do not have that kind of focus, and we're bringing that kind of focus to it.
Mark Graham 4:43
Yeah. And as Paul says, this is a starting point. In January, this thing will continue to evolve and grow with the help of our advisory committees. Paul has been instrumental, my partner in crime, if you will. He's a bright star when it comes to governance knowledge. So he's helped guide this thing from the very beginning.
Dave Coriale 5:01
No better guide out there. So I do have a question. You mentioned content. Two questions. One's about content. You mentioned that you've gone through and you've curated the content. So this sounds like it's new content, and probably a mix of some existing content. And so I want to hear a little bit more about that, as well as the assessments that you mentioned. What type of assessments would one find in the AGI?
Mark Graham 5:23
Sure. So the content is divided into a couple of different categories. You have a lot of opinion and articles thought leadership on best practice and governance and all those categories that I just mentioned. We also have how-tos, checklists and case studies. These are all tools you can give people to help them do better. In governance, I'll focus on maybe one area: executive transitions. There is a lot of guidance. We've been talking about CEO succession for decades and how to improve it. So we've gone through and curated all the best articles on CEO succession. We provide some checklists on CEO succession. For instance, very sadly, sometimes there may be an abrupt departure of a CEO. They may be terminated, they may quit. Sadly, may even pass away. We have checklists of what you should do, and each one of those instances, executive transition also involves a CEO contract. So we have whole sections on contracts from the board's perspective and the CEO's perspective, what to look for, what to negotiate, what's important, what you really focus in on? And of course, there is compensation. We have lots of tools and compensation philosophy. We even have a whole practice built around helping organizations determine the right compensation for their CEO. So that's just one of those areas that we really drill down and focus in on. The content. So we provide the opinions, the articles, the how tos, the checklists. We do this for every single one of the categories. Like in financial management, we have 20 questions a new board member should be asking about the financial situation of an organization. This is good for someone who's maybe new to governance and doesn't know what they're doing. So it's a good primer. We could talk about all the content, almost this entire podcast, who does just so much of it, governance. I went into this knowing a little bit about governance, and now I think I'm almost an expert, almost nearly half as smart as Paul, because there's so much to governance, the science of it, there's so much to it. And where people mainly get tripped up is the art of governance. And so we hope to be taken care of the whole package.
Paul Pomerantz 7:22
I couldn't agree more. And one of the great areas of content that we're really proud of, and we go through everything like Mark says: legal, roles and responsibilities, all these things. But one of the areas I'm very proud of is the board selection and development piece. And this is the area where Mark Engel and some other folks have been leaders in this area and have really created publications and tools. Well, all those are going to be curated into this website. So the whole idea of, how do you evaluate board trends and board needs? How do you recruit for a board house is an optimal leadership development process? How do you orient and train and own board members? How do you evaluate their performance? All those kinds of really rich tools that haven't been easy to locate will be part of our resource center.
Dave Coriale 8:13
And I think that's a critical piece. You just pulled out the easy to locate, right? So the ease of use of this resource center, and especially if it's being redesigned, or being designed from the ground up right now, as opposed to taking something and trying to fix it, always yields a better user experience. And speaking of the users, who is this targeted? Is it the CSO, the chief staff officer? Or is it the board? Is it both? Who's the target of the resource for, what are most of the resources for?
Mark Graham 8:34
Really anyone involved in government. So primarily, is going to be the chief executive and board members, but increasingly, especially large organizations, they'll likely have a chief governance officer or someone who's a significant portion of their time is dedicated towards governance. These are for people who aspire to the C-suite or aspire to serve on a board that a lot of people just think they're going to learn on the job. And I can't stress enough that's the wrong way to do it. You don't want to start making mistakes on the job. When it comes to governance, you want to go in fully educated on how this stuff works and where the landmines are. I've seen too many CEOs, chief executives get tripped up because they didn't know what they didn't know.
Dave Coriale 8:36
Yeah, it certainly makes sense. I know how to run my business, but I've been on a board, and the orientation was, you know, "this is our cadence of meeting. This is how we do this process. This is who is the head of this. This is who's the head of that." That's very different than what I'm hearing here in terms of giving the team the resources they need to really ensure that the governance is quality, right? The assessment piece, the onboarding piece, you're talking about the content that I could have as a board member reviewed to understand my role better and how I contribute better. That's what it sounds like. We're bridging the gap between I'm on a board to what's the most successful version of the board.
Paul Pomerantz 9:53
One of the critical audiences we had in mind, CEOs, board members. But also--so and Mark mentioned this--that governance professional, the chief governance officer, director of governance, sometimes manager board operations. They have different titles, and most of them are that, like everyone I met, is a supreme professional, but they all come from different backgrounds. They all have different experiences. And when people are introduced to this job, they may not have all the foundational elements. We developed a course that will be offered asynchronously, called Introduction to Association Governance, and it was originally for this group of governance staff professionals sometimes new to the job, just to give them a common framework to operate from. But as we've begun to develop this course, realize it's of interest to new CEOs. And also CEOs are telling I'd like to share this with our board. In this course, the station in this course, which will be ready in the coming weeks, we'll have legal fundamentals, roles and responsibilities of the board, board selection and development and a function of a board meeting, what you need to do before, during and after. So the tools, as you can see, are really intended for everybody who's part of the governance process.
Mark Graham 11:17
Yeah, offering a micro credential in that course you can get certified in governance.
Dave Coriale 11:23
That's awesome. You mentioned that course is asynchronous, right? Are there in-person events also associated with this resource?
Mark Graham 11:30
With AGI, there is. Where ASAE has two exceptional governance in-person courses already that have a long history and a really great programs. Blend Teck program, CEO Symposium, the one mark Engel runs Exceptional Boards. But we have added another one called the Governance and Strategy Forum within the McKinley Group, which is going to have its inaugural meeting of April 29 here in Washington, DC. It's a two day in person event. It's designed to build the strong partnership between the CEO and the elected leaders, typically the, of course, the chair. But these are also open to incoming chairs. These in person meetings we hear time and time again are terrific to build those bonds with the chief staff and those elected leaders.
Dave Coriale 12:18
That's awesome. There's a micro credential associated with this in the in-person piece. I know that a lot of work has gone into that new in person piece that you just talked about, that's happening in April, and I'm sure that the participants will come out with much more than they thought they would when they went into it. And I'm aware of the symposium and other pieces that you talked about, and they've always had a great track record. So before we wrap up on AGI, one of the other things that I remember hearing about was some assessments. Earlier, you mentioned there are some assessments too that are related to it. Who's the target audience assessments, and what might one expect to put into it and get out of it? If you could elaborate on that a bit.
Mark Graham 12:57
Certainly. At launch, we're going to have two assessments, but we have more planned. But at launch, we're gonna have two assessments. One is a CEO assessment the board would use to evaluate the chief executive, and the other is the board self-assessment, where the board would evaluate themselves on maybe 11 areas to see how they do, how they function, how they work, and compare it against thousands of other organizations who've taken this assessment as well. So the CEO assessment is very cool. It's four parts. It's a custom tool there where you could enter in your own performance evaluation of your chief executive. Every organization is different. They have their own KPI and goals. Well, there's certain things that are just fundamental to every organization. There is, how will you do the job, the administration of a CEO role. There is the leadership qualities, the personal leadership qualities, your interpersonal skills, your communication skills. And then, of course, we have accomplishments and challenges that are present for every organization as well. So this tool is an online tool that board members fill out at the end of this survey, they take on the chief executive. They get a report, and also the CEO takes this survey as well, so the CEO and the board can compare how the CEO perceived themselves in these areas compared to how the board viewed the CEO in these areas. And the other the board self assessment tool focuses in on, I think it's 11. Sorry, we are working on so much here at AGI sometimes it's hard to remember the exact number and details of these parts. But if focusing on how the organizations, the culture, the meetings, the policies, financial oversight, and how well board members think they do in these areas, and again, then we compare it to. No board is perfect. Some boards are great. Some boards are okay. And so what we're going to get with this report is we're going to see how you stack up again. Stack up against a bunch of other organizations. So these two tools were created, actually a long time ago in partnership with board source, but ASAE has now taken them in house, and now they'll be part of AGI.
Dave Coriale 14:56
Understood. And what's the time commitment on the organization or the executives part on those types of self assessments?
Mark Graham 15:02
About 30 minutes, 30 minutes. It's a thing, where you can jump in on your phone, fill out few things, come back. But if you sat down, really wanted to push for it, it's about 30 minutes on each one. There is some administration for the CEO assessment, because some of those questions are custom assessment questions. But once those are done, the board member can expect about 30 minutes. It's a good tool they can use year after year and track their progress, board self assessment and the CEO assessment, so they can see where they're doing better and where they still have some work to do.
Paul Pomerantz 15:32
It's a wonderful tool. I've seen it used. I've used it on my own board, and I've worked with other boards. And what it does is it provides that opportunity for the board to give itself feedback. This is a board self-assessment, and boards could be their most critical evaluators. And so it's one thing for a CEO that say, you guys could be doing better. It's another one for the board itself to look at this and say, we could be doing better. And so when properly done and facilitated, these instruments are incredible because the board identifies not only its strengths but its weaknesses, and gets to compare itself with its peers. And so that's really eye opening for board members. The eyes light up. They get excited, and they're engaged about how do we move forward? How do we become better? It's a great tool for self improvement.
Mark Graham 16:21
These tools are completely confidential. The board members are not going to know who answered to what questions, so it really gets some honest feedback of the CEO and of course, the board.
Dave Coriale 16:30
Yeah, that's a really important point to make in ways you want to ask also, one of the things we love to do in this community is benchmark ourselves against others, right? Will there be as you collect data across time, even though it's anonymous, will there be the opportunity to see where your ratings stand against other organizations?
Mark Graham 16:48
Yeah. In fact, in every report, you will see every single category, almost every single question, how you stack up against all of your peers, because this poor self assessment has been administered for gosh, I drew my math here, 16 years, we have an enormous amount of data, awesome to pull from. The CEO assessment is not a benchmarking tool. And it shouldn't be, for probably reasons. But the board self-assessment, you'll be able to see how you do, yeah, and year to year, if you do the report every year, every couple years, you can just go back to the little report and see how you did.
Dave Coriale 17:18
So speaking of how you do, is one of the key aspects of this. How are we doing as a board? How are we doing as a chief staff officer? Paul, you started this thread. You started this conversation around the CEO is successful, or the chief staff officer is successful when governance is solid, paraphrasing a little bit there. But you're saying governance a good place. CEO has much more likely chance of success. And I know you also mentioned earlier, culture playing a role in that, and that's something that I feel like you've focused on. You've written some articles about it, you've talked about it. I've heard you talk about culture, fair assessment, fair statement. That's important as far as success goes beyond just the operational aspect.
Paul Pomerantz 17:56
Yeah, I would say it's probably the most important aspect and the least well defined.
Dave Coriale 18:01
I was going to ask you to start by defining what when you talk about culture, how do you define it?
Paul Pomerantz 18:06
Greatly, it's like that famous quote by Justice Potter Stewart. I notice when I'll know it when I see it. He was describing pornography in those days. So probably not a great analogy, but culture, we're going to end up with an explicit rating, exactly, you know, and your kids listening to this. But no, all kidding aside, the culture really refers to what groups value, what they believe in, and how they behave towards each other and to others, and it really reflects The norms of behavior. And what's interesting is that culture is not defined by what people say they are. So one of the big misinterpretations out there is, well, the board values, right, or the organization values they represent your culture. They may not, because the culture is really how you live, how you behave, people. And I'll say Mark Engel again, he has assured with me, and I truly believe it, that there are three pillars to governance, strategy, structure and culture. And the if you think about it, strategy is your direction, structure is the hardware, right? How's the board organized? How many board members are there? How's it staff, all those kinds of things. But culture is the software. It's really how it works. It's the operating system that really makes the board operate. And the literature is full of examples of when culture doesn't work properly. They go back in the last couple years, we've had issues on the media with the National Association of Realtors, where culture broke down, the organization was blind to activities that took place within the organization that was very costly for a reputation of the National Association of Realtors, certainly in the corporate sector and the for profit industry, many examples and we can point to. To really the very high profile experience with Enron, going back to the turn of the century, where, you know, that led to really the downfall of that company, because the board was not paying attention to things it should have, and accounting was hidden. It was falsified. And really resulted not only in the downfall of that company, but new laws and regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that really required a high degree of transparency, and we can go through examples in this article I wrote for more brief, there are many examples where it's just very costly, where, when the culture breaks down, it could be extremely costly for the organization. Interestingly, people would say, what's a an example of the good cultures of people getting along? Is it people being very civil with each other? And I'd say, no, it's really the reverse. It's where boards are inquisitive, where there's healthy disagreement, where there's healthy curiosity, there's robust discussion of issues where people are held accountable. There's accountability of the staff. There's accountability to each other, and the board is engaged in a very rigorous process of self evaluation, evaluation of the organization and accountability. They're asking the tough questions about their industry. They're asking the tough questions about the organization and how well they're doing. They're asking tough questions about their competitors in the competitive environment that they're in. I think we sometimes falsely seek in our organizations a degree of camaraderie that may not necessarily be healthy. And one of the things we talk about in the article is that association boards are especially vulnerable to this false sense of harmony. And the reason is, in associations, you got people from the same profession or same industry, and we're less likely to be critical to call each other to account, because I'm going to rely on you. Let's say you're in my profession to help me to advance further. I want you to like me. I don't want to call you out, because then you'll call me out. But in the contrary, that false harmony can be very detrimental to the organization. So I hope that makes sense, and what we talk about in the article is, how do you evaluate your culture, and then what are some of the tools and resources that are available to help check in and improve that culture? It's not all that hard. It's really just asking the right questions. The board self-assessment is clearly a tool you can use the CEO selection and evaluation. That's a very critical resource you want to make sure that the CEO has been somebody who has had experience building a culture, building a partnership with the board, sets the model for a healthy culture. In an organization, you want to recruit board members who have similar types of experiences that are good at this. They understand what they're trying to do. Look at the board agendas over time. That's another tool as well. Boards with a healthy culture will spend more time on strategic items and generative items. They're going to spend more time exercising their curiosity and asking tough questions. Boards that have a weaker culture are going to spend their time on operational issues and micromanagement. Why? Because it's easy way of getting out of the tough issues. You really want the board focused on the tough issues. Another thing that many boards are doing is they're bringing on public members and other perspectives to create a diverse, diverse points of view. So if you have a board that's we're all from the same industry, we're all used to talking to each other, bring in different perspectives, bring in a member of the public, bring in a customer of members, either as a member of the board or on an infrequent basis, to help challenge the board and then lean into the bad news. What I found is boards tend to avoid the bad news until it's too late. What you want to do is, if you had a bad record financially. You want to talk about that. What does that mean? The industry is facing some tough times. What are you going to do, and how are you going to address that? That you've had a staff engagement survey, there are some signs of stress among the staff. How do you present that to the board and talk about that? But leaning into the bad news, having those frank conversations is very much part of that.
Dave Coriale 24:21
So there's a lot in there, right? I'm trying to listen and parse all the way through that, and it all made sense. You asked in the quite in the middle of that, you said, that does that? If this makes sense, it all made very good sense. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? So culture is one of those things that you have to have your eye and it's also always known to be one of those things that it's really hard to change. You can't execute a new culture like you use the word. You have to build it. You have to push towards it. And you tied that to the values of the organization. And when there's misalignment between values and action, is what it sounded like to me, fair assessment, that we have values, that there. The website we're done with that. Let's move on. That's a critical piece that can fall apart when you're not paying attention to it.
Paul Pomerantz 25:07
Exactly. I've seen too many boards say and come up with values that don't really reflect who they are. So our value is customer service. Our value is civility. Now you really got to break down, what do you really mean and what do you truly live? And I'm going to modify your quote there, culture eats strategy. I'm gonna say culture eats CEOs. What happens is, if a CEO knows how to manage culture, understands culture knows what to look for, they're gonna do well. But what I see too often is that CEOs will enter organizations not really familiar with the culture that they're walking into, not sure how to measure it, not sure of their compatibility with the culture, and try to redefine strategy or their role or change culture without really knowing how to do it. And we see those stories all the time, and having a cultural competency is really important for a successful CEO, particularly as it comes to working with governance.
Mark Graham 26:08
Well, we'll add though, culture can sometimes be the third rail in organization management, because a CEO goes in there, they can see the culture is not well, but to change it, they may have to tackle their own board of directors. I've seen many associations CEOs going, Nope, it's just not worth it. I'm going to just go with the status quo. And sadly, that's really one of the reasons why we want AGI to be successful. We believe in excellent governance. We want to give people the tools to maybe tackle that third rail, even though it's a little intimidating. But if culture's eating things again, yeah, I think it is eating CEOs and strategy, probably a few other things.
Dave Coriale 26:43
It's such a big word, and so I'm wondering if there is an assessment. Yeah, I think you mentioned there is an assessment. Are there ways to assess culture as a new CEO walking in? Because one of the ways we define it is how work gets done. Right here at Delco, we say culture is how our work gets done, and we're not talking about the process that we go through. We're talking about what you talked about, Paul, in terms of whether or not we communicate with each other frankly and honestly, or if we just want to get along for the moment, whether or not we challenge each other. That helps us define what we mean by culture. But in the AGI content and assessments, how does the CEO get help assessing their culture?
Mark Graham 27:19
I think when Paul and I first adopted the board self assessment and took a look at it, we made some minor tweaks to it, to update it, modernize it for 2024. But he and I saw a huge opportunity to really upgrade this. So we're already in the planning stages of version 2.0 of the board assessment, and really drilling down on culture, because we both believe it's very important, because this is a benchmarking tool, you need to make these changes like once or twice. You can't just make iterative changes to a benchmarking tool. So we made very small changes to it for this first version, but this next version that Bucha and I were working on in 2025 we hope to really drill down on culture. I'm not sure if it's going to help CEOs going into an organization, unless executive recruiters require boards to take this self assessment before entering into a search phase. But at least when they're in there, the board, the CEO and everyone who reads this report might know where they're weak and where this improvement to be had
Paul Pomerantz 28:17
And I'll add to that that the courses that ASAE offers at CEO Symposium, Exceptional Boards. These offer opportunities to talk about culture. I think there's good content in there that Glenn Techer and Mark Engel and others offer that allow for that frank discussion about things. The other thing I'll say is that if you come in as a new CEO and you say, All right, I'm going to address this culture, and I'm going to have that changed in six months. That's not how it works, a slow process. You work by example. You work iteratively. Your organization will live by the example you set. By your example of transparency. By your example of collaboration, your example of how you raise issues and discuss issues, you'll begin to shape the culture that you want to achieve. I think that the organization I came from, the American Society of Anesthesiologists, we had a very cumbersome structure. It was nothing that anybody would say that they would want as a governing structure, House of Delegates, large board. We had a even a third tier, because with the board was so large, called our administrative council. But what worked was the culture. We really emphasized having those discussions. We emphasize accountability, we emphasize transparency, we lean in the controversial items, and the members really appreciated it and were able to get things done. And I think that's how you do it. You set the example you build trust, one board at a time, one president at a time, and you'll get to where you want to get to.
Mark Graham 29:46
Paul is talking about building this culture. AGI is going to give people tools to have room to build that culture. Paul led a webinar that will be on AGI called we love this title. Everyone hates your board meeting and. One of the tidbits in there from one of the participants was they give video presentations of the reports from the organization in advance to the board meeting, and they can watch it beforehand, and they can answer questions about it at the board meeting, but the CFO is not going to the board meeting and giving a financial report eating up valuable time. It's a valuable report. I don't want to take away from that, but if you're giving more time in the board meeting time, by having that information presented at events, we're giving you more time for the strategic discussions that you need to have, the long term discussions changing the culture of the industry and organization. So practical tips can be found inside AGI to be that room.
Dave Coriale 30:38
Doing this work of challenging each other and having these conversations like you're describing without being a jerk. That's really the success of the culture you need to build, which is challenging each other, being candid, leaning in, like you said, to the problems, but everyone needs to be civil and in our environment, in our association, 501c culture, as a community. It is we're generally nice people, right? So it challenges us to be challenging to each other, but fortunately, we're mostly nice people who can do it in a way where it's not going to turn into something that's acrimonious among the participants. So hopefully that's the outcome. But culture is not a new word, certainly. Is this a trend, though? Are CEOs paying more attention to culture than they did 15 years ago. Do you feel like I think so?
Paul Pomerantz 31:24
What I'm seeing is more attention to that and really trying to understand the work that's getting done. That's a discipline generally within the business world. In general, you go into a lot of organizations now, bigger ones, they have corporate anthropologists and business schools are teaching business anthropology, and I think to some degree, all that is heading into the association world as well. Some of the consultants that I'm familiar with have really begun to pay attention to culture, and a lot of the people that Mark and I are working with a CEO Advisory Committee really are attuned to the culture in the organization. And like you say, how work gets stuck.
Mark Graham 32:03
Search teams are created tuned to this as well, and when they place the chief executive, it's in their best interest to have a long, fruitful, happy relationship. So they don't want to put someone into a mismatch. So they're doing assessments and doing the evaluations on the board and the CEO to find out a better marriage.
Paul Pomerantz 32:20
Yeah. Well, what I would say is that CEOs who may succeed on business measures, and they may succeed on culture measures, they'll get fired for failing on culture business, they'll be more forgiven. And I've seen this time and time again, where you see an organization with stronger results, but you have a cultural mismatch, and it just doesn't work. I would say that this is the most critical of skills for effective governance.
Dave Coriale 32:49
I want to hit on one more topic before we wrap up, and that is, and Paul, you were nice enough earlier to bring me into the conversation by talking about the hardware and software, because I'm a tech person, right? That's what we do here at Delcor. Word technology alignment with mission, vision and business objectives. And one of the things that I've seen in governance is a struggle between the staff and the boards as it relates to the technology integrating with the strategy. I've said this a million times, that 10 years ago, we as technologists were order takers. Tell us what you want. We'll build it or buy it or buy it for you. Good luck. Now there's an opportunity for true strategic participation and saying, "Tell us your vision, tell us your objectives. Let us help you with the fidelity around the edges of that because we might know things you don't in setting that strategy or setting that objective." We might know capabilities that the organization could have. What do you feel like the role of the board and the governance body is as it relates to technology within a well functioning organization?
Paul Pomerantz 33:49
I don't think it's ever been more critical. And it's funny what you say. I go back to when I first started in the industry, and that was in the last century, back those of the 19th century, roughly, and it was exactly what you say, but somebody else does that. It's a lower level task. Now it's it's not only a C-suite function, but the CEO is really expected to be conversant in the strategy and issues surrounding technology. And I think it comes down to a couple areas. One is assuring a seamless and excellent experience for the organization's constituents, whether it be its members, external stakeholders, whoever it is, the board has an interest in making sure that the organization is engaging accessible, that the experience of people who interface with the organization And the whole interface is technologically based, is a good one, and that we're getting information and we're learning from each person who comes in boards. Want to make sure that that experience is there, and that they're gleaning the information that comes from that. The second area, I think, deals with emerging technology, and particularly around AI. That has become a strategic item for virtually every board I talk to how is AI going to be used? How are we managing the risks of AI as well as the upside of AI? Do we have an AI strategy? How is it going to help us competitively, and how are our competitors using it? How are we using it and really looking through the future? How are we understanding its capabilities and moving forward. And the third area, I would say, would be in the risk management. The whole area around cyber crime. Cyber Risk is keeping every board I know up at night. Now, the larger the organization, the more pearls the risk, the more chance for the organization to be hacked for information to get out there, and then the deal with that. And so boards want to make sure that there's a good strategy towards dealing with the cyber crime, cyber risk, and that the CEO and this team are really on top of that, including that not only staff need to be well trained in dealing with cyber risk, but the board itself, and really all the commitments anybody interacting with the organization needs to be cognizant of the risk factors. So those are three that come right to mind. Mark, I may have missed some items there.
Mark Graham 36:13
Again Paul, perfect. I have nothing to add.
Dave Coriale 36:15
Then I will ask you both to add one thing as we close out. First of all, I appreciate you spending the time and explaining this. This the AGI, sounds like an awesome new resource for the community. I would like to know what advice you would give an association leader that is looking to build that healthy culture and board relationship in 2025. What do you both have to say? We'll start with you, Mark.
Mark Graham 36:37
I think it really comes down to spending time together and building that personal relationship, because that's where you're going to build, the trust, where you can be candid with each other. Paul spoke earlier, delivering bad news is much easier when you have a strong personal relationship with someone. For me, my recommendation for any chief executive with their board is spend more time with them.
Paul Pomerantz 37:00
I thoroughly agree with that. And the other thing I'd say is, it's no secret, we're in a tough time. The world has been turned on its head. We're trying to understand this world that we're in, and I think having frank discussions with the board that talk about, what are the risks now to our organization, our professional industry, and what are the opportunities? And one of the tools that we talk about, it's in a lot of materials that the AGI has, is and it's and will be discussed in the issue of board brief that'll be coming out soon is the use of generative discussions at the board level. In other words, having a discussion at the board that's not about finding answers, but it's about understanding and just as a board discussing, what do you see as the new risk? What do you see as new challenges to you? What's your experience in your profession and your business, and how's it changing now? And what are some of the things that our association needs to be paying attention to? So it's really trying not to try to avoid the controversy, but as we said before, lean into it a bit. Don't create argument, but try to understand it. How are different members of your organization, different generations, different ownership models, how are they experiencing the changes we're seeing taking place, and how do we best navigate it as an organization?
Dave Coriale 38:19
I love that piece in there, you said, try to understand it. It's a human nature. It's a common thing, especially when you're pressed for time, or don't have the relationship that you talked about, Mark to start assessing blame, as opposed to trying to assess and understand. So I think that's a super elegant way to put just try to understand it before you start solving it. Especially, and if I may be so bold, to offer my one piece of advice to this CEO and to the board, et cetera. It is something that you touched on a second ago, which is, don't cut spending on cybersecurity. We work with a lot of IT leaders, and It shocks me the number of organizations that the head of it is putting in the budget some type of cybersecurity, whether it's a tool to further protect, or it's education which is also going to protect, and they come back, and that's been what's cut. Yes, build a mindset of cybersecurity first in your organization. So again, thank you. I look forward to seeing you both in 3d in real life some point soon, but I appreciate very much the time we spent together here.
Paul Pomerantz 39:19
Thank you, David. This was fun. Yeah, lot of fun. Thanks, David.
Dave Coriale 39:23
Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy the U.S. and the world. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on this topic, visit Associations NOW online at associationsnow.com. Thank you.
Rob Wenger: So our main product is online community. It's a place where associations members can talk to each other, share documents, ask questions, network, all the kinds of good stuff that they might do in person. They do it online 365 days a year. And we also make marketing automation products and a bunch of other different add-ons to it, like volunteer management.
Mentor management, a lot of different things that really are geared toward helping associations and their members connect.
Joanna Pineda: Amanda, you've got an interesting title. Your title is Senior Privacy Analyst. What is a Senior Privacy Analyst at HgherLogic?
Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, so I am definitely someone that works across the company.
You know, privacy is really everyone's problem, right? Everyone works together, creating privacy champions. So I actually report to the legal team. I deal with audit and making sure we are compliant for any applicable privacy laws, also working with our sales team and our data processing agreement and working with marketing.
So really just collaboration across the company, just to make sure we're staying safe. And we're adhering to any applicable [00:02:00] laws and staying compliant. Well, that's
Joanna Pineda: really interesting because today our topic is AI. And Robyn and Vanda, I'm really curious to learn almost two sides of the AI journey at HigherLogic because I bet you're integrating AI into HigherLogic products, but I'm also really curious to learn about your AI journey as a company.
Like how do you get people trained up and excited about AI so that now it becomes part of the culture? So what do you want to start with?
Rob Wenger: Yeah, so we sort of kicked off our internal AI journey in October 2023. I had this idea and I guess in August, Hey, let's get everyone in the company using AI like for a day, like sort of one of those hackathon type thing.
And then report back on what they did that was cool. And so I started kicking this thing off and then the folks in legal and Amanda's team said, Hey, hey, let us. Think about this privacy stuff first. Don't just jump into this. So we spent a little bit of [00:03:00] time putting it together. We ended up doing a whole month.
AI October we called it.
Joanna Pineda: And this was in 2023.
Rob Wenger: 2023, right, so October 2023. And so we spent a bunch of time, Amanda's team spent a bunch of time coming up with sort of the rules of the thing. Like don't just go use any tool and don't put customer data in it and all these kinds of great things. She developed processes and stuff like that.
I'll let her talk about that because she knows way more about it than I do, but then we ended up doing it as a full month, and the idea was everyone spend 16 hours in October. Do some stuff, get in the teams of one, two or three, play with these tools and come back and report back. And what we ended up doing is having on Halloween, it was a contest with costumes and with who had the best usage of AI.
And so it was a lot of fun, but it was a big journey to get there. And I'll let Amanda talk about that because she did most of the work. I just have the big idea and she made it happen.
Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, so it's really important to establish an internal policy and, you [00:04:00] know, it's really kind of putting the guardrails on certain areas.
And what I see in legislation is they really focus on balancing innovation and safety. And I think that's what we're kind of doing here too, right? We want to innovate, but we want to do it safely. So putting in place those policies is really important and again, like collaborating with teams on what type of data do we have and what are we holding and what are we okay with as it relates to AI and what type of data goes into AI.
And I think Rob, you bring up such a good point because we talk a lot about testing and really getting our hands dirty. And I think that's so important and it's really important because AI is ever evolving, that we're always evolving our policy and evolving how we work internally as well.
Joanna Pineda: Well, let's step back here because I'm curious about this and I'll give you a little bit of background.
So I was at a luncheon with a bunch of association CEOs and a number of them said, [00:05:00] gosh, we're struggling with AI. What does that mean? And they said, we've asked our staff to use the tools and they're either getting pushback or they're not seeing the fruits of some of this experimentation. And so what would you say to an exec who says, look, I think AI can help my team be more productive, but how do they kick it off?
Like, how do you get people comfortable with the tools so that they are seeing the fruits of this amazing technology?
Rob Wenger: Couple of thoughts on that. I get some really good advice. Yes. About a year ago from an AI luminary and the gist of it was If you're trying to turn people's daily routine around, that's difficult.
It takes time, and it's difficult to get them to start. Once they start, it takes time to get it to work, right? And the advice was start higher up. Start at system level stuff, like get AI. Doing things that don't involve humans yet. I mean, humans, you want them in the loop, but it's sort of like automating things [00:06:00] as opposed to like using ChatGPT every day on your desktop, right?
So we really started there looking at all right, we're going to build a data warehouse. It's going to have all this data from around the company in it. And Amanda's part of that as to how we handle the stuff that really is like privacy related or would be data for clients. We don't really put that in there.
We put data about clients more, but keeping the privacy stuff working well, but then doing it on top of that to give us sort of answers as opposed to letting a person go into ChatGPT and just. Ask a whole bunch of questions. So starting at that end of the spectrum, you can get a lot more of those kinds of things done.
And, and, and I know we're gonna talk about the product later, but that's how we're thinking about the product as well. It's more about automation than it is about what you're used to seeing in JATTPT, for example. We have that functionality. But where we think the real bang for the buck is going to come from is having AIs do a lot of automated type tasks.
So we started there. And [00:07:00] then, of course, we do encourage our staff to use these tools. The easiest place for us to start was with our engineers. Some of the reason is because it's way behind the scenes. Like, they don't really touch client data. And they also, products of an AI are Then test it, right?
Because that's the whole point of software development. You have to write the software and develop it and test it. And if you have any, I do that work, you know, it's going to be right because it's got to go through that process. And so that is an easy place to start. They're also very technical. It's easy to get them going where it starts to become, you know, more interesting.
I'm not gonna say challenging because the uptakes been really good. But when you get into finance or you get into, you know, accounting and some of these other aspects of the business where it's not obvious, How the data is going to be used. You got to be careful, but you can see a lot of gains. So it's been quite a journey.
Like I say, we started almost a year and a half ago and it's become something where it is throughout the company. One of the thing we did in that timeframe is we actually appointed, [00:08:00] I call him the AI Czar, his actual title is chief data officer, but Steve was the head of engineering and it seems like we have a bunch of engineers, so it was like, we really need to get AI done right in the company. And so Steve has taken on the role of really shepherding it through and we brought in some now very specific AI tools. One we really like called Glean, which brings in data from across the company and then you can query it just like ChatGPT, but it's all internal to the company.
So that's really cool. And so he's been like And been pushing those kinds of things and working with Amanda's team to keep us compliant and to keep us safe. And her recommendations are also really super helpful for approaches that we take on these things. Well,
Joanna Pineda: let me ask you a question because most associations don't have the ability to just spin up a data warehouse.
You know, and say, wow, let's automate stuff. So for an association exec or a CEO who says, you know, I want to get people using these tools. How would you recommend that they put on an AI October or [00:09:00] an AI May to get people comfortable? So let's start with the policy. And Amanda, I agree with you that we start with policy, but I have clients that I've been.
thinking about their policy for a year, and in the meantime, we can't even record Zoom meetings. And nobody can use any AI tools. So I'm not sure that that's the solution. So how do you get a policy up and running fast so that you can get some stuff done, but do it safely?
Amanda DeLuke: Right. Yeah, I think again, it's going back to the data classification, right?
So you're gonna kind of use that as it relates to any laws that are applicable to you, or maybe the sensitivity of the data. So if you know that you have public data, right, or something, maybe even some internal data that is okay to be used within AI, start there. We know it's public data. We're using a public model.
We're okay with it. We let's do this in a low risk activity. Let's test it. I think there's a lot of ways to really get your hands on it without having to move up through and start using it with a high risk type of data. So I think that's the great approach here when you have a [00:10:00] AI policy to kind of leverage that type of data and where are you using it and.
It really does kind of link into the EU AI Act and other legislation that is actually banning and have like prohibited uses for any high risk data that you might put in there. So I think it's really good to focus on the general use of AI. So I think that's a way that you can really leverage getting that policy out and being able to use it very quickly.
Rob Wenger: You're going to use tools, right? I don't expect any association to create their own. LLMs or anything like that, right? You're going to use something else. And so, Amanda, I know you and your team evaluated every product that was being used in our AIA October thing and still have the approval process for any new product we use.
And so, as an example, you know, Copilot, which is Microsoft's product, and you can get that with the Office Suite. I think it's an add on, you probably know more than I do, but, but like that one, we've got a guarantee for Microsoft and none of the data [00:11:00] we put in there. And so that's an easy place to start, right?
Joanna Pineda: And Google says the same thing about Gemini.
Amanda DeLuke: Exactly, Rob. You definitely want to check the terms to make sure, if it's a private model and, you know, your data is not going to be trained on that, then it's not going to go out to the third party to be used, that data to be used. Then you're okay. Then you have those set guardrails on there and you go in with eyes wide open.
Like, okay, they're saying that this is a private model. And if it is being trained, that information is only private to you and not, being sent externally, right, or being used externally.
Rob Wenger: So we, we, we sort of think of that as a process or a procedure or guardrails is a great term for it, where we have that outlined and they did that 18 months ago, whatever it was, and we've been following it.
And then. You know, I don't know how often, daily, weekly, new things come up and the team is evaluating them and saying yes or no, right? Sometimes it takes a little time because it's not so obviously, you know, I always want to use the latest and greatest tools and the latest and greatest tools don't always have [00:12:00] the best.
Documentation on how they're getting it, so, uh, I mean, I just gotta spend a little more time to evaluate things like that, but I think that's the first step, I mean, you know, associations, they could be doing that today, even if they're not quite ready to use or jump in with both feet, putting these guardrails, because people are going to use it, right?
People are using ChatGPT and Gemni and, and all these sorts of tools, and so you want to make sure that they're using them safely.
Joanna Pineda: So what I'm hearing is, decide that you're going to have AI as a policy initiative, right, or a program initiative. Develop some policies, start simple, have some approved tools, and then give people explicit direction about using AI for specific use cases.
And give them, it sounds like you even gave them guidance about how much time to spend, so that then they either weren't spending too little time or too much time. on their AI exploration. So it sounds like what I'm hearing from you is be very explicit and intentional with the AI journey. And then at the end of it, you [00:13:00] had sharing.
So can you share some cool stuff that came out of AI October, if it's not too confidential?
Rob Wenger: There was nothing confidential. There were some amazing costumes as well, but, but yeah, it was actually the one who won the thing. I mean, she's super smart. So I'm not, I'm not saying I wouldn't have predicted it, but it was in finance.
Like she took data. And use some tools to make some really cool spreadsheets and reports out of it that took her manually every month. It took her, I want to say, two days to come up with these things. And then using this new process that mixed AI and some, you know, kind of like workflow tech tools. She got that down to a few hours.
And so, Wow. She won because, first of all, she's a finance person, but like, The technology she was able to employ was very impressive and, you know, literally saving two days a month. That's life changing. Yes, it is. And for her, especially, because she's like, well, now I don't have to do those two days work, right?
[00:14:00] She can do other things.
Joanna Pineda: She can go to lunch.
Rob Wenger: She, she doesn't. She works hard on other things because she's that person. But yes, I agree.
Joanna Pineda: Are there other cool things that you can share?
Rob Wenger: It was all on this line. So there was a lot of stuff in sales. We use a lot of tools like gong is a tool we use. We record demos and gong had some really great AI tools that were introduced then, and they've been made a lot better since where we can get summaries and we put those summaries into Salesforce so that when we looking back at the account that we can see.
You know, what was discussed, what the key points, what their pain points are, make sure that we're meeting them with what we're proposing, things like that. There were a lot of things around that. It was really taking the features of existing software. So none of this during AI October was anything we developed.
These were all features of products we already had or things like, you know, Copilot that we added for it that then we just started building on. And then the sharing of the experience was To get others to see what they could be doing, right? [00:15:00] I mean the stuff I did was pretty basic. I didn't, well it wasn't part of the thing, but it was like, I just talked to ChatGPT all day long.
I don't ask it things that are specific about clients, but I ask it all kinds of questions about things I'm thinking about doing for the products, for example. And It's really good at telling me these things. So, no, it's been awesome. Like, you can go in and just ask it, what does an association do? And then drill down for hours and find out every role, every person in every association has.
And, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do with our product then is say, okay, there's You know, if you think about jobs to be done, there's a thousand jobs to be done in an association. Can we automate 200 of them? If we can, you know, that's 20 percent of their time they get back to do more strategic things or talk directly to members or whatever it is that they want to do to further their missions or run their organizations.
Joanna Pineda: So when you say you talk to ChatGPT all day long. As you're going about your day, you'll say, let me ask ChatGPT this, or do you set aside time to have these [00:16:00] conversations? And have you named your ChatGPT?
Rob Wenger: I name all of my AIs Samantha because of the movie Her. And if anybody's Ah, yes. That is a great look at what This is going to look like in a year or two, but anyway, yes, now I do.
I actually have this little cool device. You can't really see it, but it's this little thing called the stream deck. And it's got all these programmable buttons and I have a ChatGPT button. So when I push it, it pops up in front of me and no matter where it is on my massive number of screens and windows that are running, cause I can't, I just lose it, but yeah, I use it all day long.
Like you said, in the beginning, I. I have a question and I immediately ask it. By the way, I think Google search, it's dead to me. I think it's probably dead, a dead man walking kind of thing because I ask ChatGPT everything. The only thing I Google is when I need to go someplace, an address, right, not a physical address, but a web address, and I don't know what it is or I want to type it.
I type it into the, you know, the search bar and it comes up with it. But otherwise, ChatGPT is everything. And the reason I bring that up [00:17:00] is because it is sort of a cautionary thing. I do think. Traffic driven to websites is going to really, if app rate might be too strong, but it's going to be significantly impacted by people using ChatGPT rather than Google.
Because Google drives most traffic to most websites. Right, right. And if people aren't Googling things, ChatGPT doesn't currently, I mean they have The sort of rag, here's where I got the information from. But I find that I never click on that. I've been using it constantly for over a year and I almost never click on what they tell me to click on.
So, be aware of this, like, sort of lack of traffic and think about your marketing plans are going to have to be different.
Joanna Pineda: Right. Wow. Well, this is a very, very interesting and very intentional playbook for really kind of creating an AI adoption strategy at an organization. But let's turn to higher logic, right?
So you've got this suite of products. How are you integrating AI [00:18:00] into the products, and why are you integrating AI into the products?
Rob Wenger: Yeah, so we're being very intentional about it. I think what AI is great at, like, Unparalleled great at is understanding people's language, right, talking. It doesn't have to be English, whatever language of what you're actually asking in, you know, human spoken language is so good at understanding it.
Now, the jury's out on how good it is in giving you back what you're asking for, but in understanding it's really good. So that's one of the things. And so we're, we're really driving toward things that are going to move the needle on what do our organizations do. The first thing we actually built was a little chat window inside of our marketing product and forms, where a person can say, I want to send an email, you know, to my members.
Can you help me draft it? It's just a very, I could have done that in ChatGPT and pasted it in here, but we want to put that in place. And that's very easy because you can. Click it or not click it. It writes it for you and then you can edit it before you [00:19:00] send it. So it's, you know, an easy way to get into it.
Second thing we did is we did this thing called the bulk uploader, which I've wanted to do forever, but couldn't figure out how, which is we have a resource library, right? It has thousand PDFs in it. I wanted to upload all thousand PDFs at one go. It requires a, like a description and a title and potentially tags in order to arrange it, right?
With, ah, we could easily do that. Say, read this PDF and give me a summary on it. So again, pretty simple. Worst case, it's not exactly right. You click in, you say, oh, this is, you know, this is what it's about. So it's not the end of the world if it hallucinates. It doesn't, really, we found. Especially when, over time, we've upgraded the model.
I think our overall goal though is to automate, right? So having, there's two other things that I would mention. One, we just today launched in beta our, we call it a rag bot. It's an AI assistant, right? So it uses. The theory of retrieval augmented generation to take what the model has and augment it with what the association has as [00:20:00] private information.
And the private information is used to answer the question. The public and the private is combined to answer the question. So none of that private information goes to a model to learn. It immediately forgets it. But what we do is we combine search with, okay, here's what they're asking. Let's see if we have any documents that answer it.
We return those documents and then the AI just reads it. It summarizes it and then points to them and then forgets, right? So that's the biggest one, like I said, beta launch today. We have 15 beta clients on a call with us today, starting it up. It's available to any of our clients as of today, because you can just say, I want to be in the beta, but we'll probably put it out for, you know, like everyone should turn it on in the first week of March.
And we've been beta-ing it. Alpha and Beta with IBM for about four months now. IBM is our biggest client. They also make the AI tools, right? So we built it on top of Watson X, which is one of their big AI systems. And it's been really great. And so the feedback has been amazing. Four months in, in [00:21:00] Alpha.
Let's call it with them. So we're kicking off the general beta. So
Joanna Pineda: I want to make sure I understand what this thing does. You're saying, let's take a standard LLM, a large language model, and then using the RAG model, really train it in particular on, say, an organization's research reports. Train isn't the right word, but kind of prioritize the data, right, and have access to the private information from the association so that now the members can have a conversation with this chatbot that includes the data from the research and it also understands the association's acronyms, for example, because there's a jillion ASAs and a jillion NASs and, you know, and, you know, all that stuff.
Rob Wenger: So, and the reason I point out we don't train is because it doesn't remember, right? So it's, you know. That's right. But yeah, generally, you're right. And instead of saying data, I might say information. The difference being it's not private information. It's not people's email addresses and names and addresses and phone numbers and stuff like that.
It's really just the [00:22:00] content that's created. So the Q&A, the blogs, the uploaded resources, uploaded contract samples, whatever they put into their community is available to the search. Search runs, brings back the results, and then the AI reads the results of the search and summarizes the answer to the question.
It also, by the way, behind the scenes, does a whole lot of back and forth. So it'll appear to you, and ChatGPT works this way as well, it'll appear to you like you ask a question and it gives you an answer. What really happens is you ask a question, and a whole bunch of back and forth happens with different systems.
Right. And then eventually you get an answer that we've sanitized and said, okay, this looks like the right answer. So it's more complex than you think, more complex than I thought going in. But after four months of tuning it and prompt engineering and all kinds of feature development to make sure it's good and accurate, that's what we came out with.
So that's number one. Number two, our main strategy really is to automate as many of the sort of the, the [00:23:00] small repetitive tasks that have to happen to run an organization like an association. And anything that a computer and an AI can do, let's have them do it. So that the staff doesn't have to do it.
Simple example, I asked Chia at GPT, what are the big questions that someone in the association membership department gets from members? And it came up with a list of like 50 questions. And I said, how many can an AI answer? And it was probably about half of them. An AI could just read the website and give the answer.
And so if a, if a member, instead of calling the association and asking the question, ask the chatbot, and the chatbot can give them the answer, it's done. The other half, it could also answer with a little bit of work. Like, if I said, what are the member benefits? Right? It would be able to answer that just from looking at the website, so it could tell me who that is.
If I say, when does my membership renew, it has to look up who I am and see when my membership renews and answer that question. And the third [00:24:00] level is, can you register me for the webinar next week? right? So that's a sort of what I call doing. So one is, one is reading, one is doing. When, when you get to the doing level, that's when it gets really, really cool.
And these things we call agents.
Joanna Pineda: The agentic experience. The
Rob Wenger: Agentic experience, exactly. We're making dozens of agents with hundreds of skills each. And then the AI. And we get back to what I said about understanding English really well or language really well, is when you ask, it can just match up what you're asking with its skills and it's much more like, we call it deterministic.
It's much more likely to do the thing right than if you just let it do whatever it wants to do.
Joanna Pineda: Now let's take a quick break from the conversation for a word from our episode sponsor, HigherLogic. Is your association struggling to keep your members connected and engaged? HigherLogic has partnered with associations for nearly two decades to help them demonstrate member [00:25:00] value, increase engagement, and support their missions.
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Well, I got another question for you. So within the HigherLogic community itself, there's lots and lots of data about what members are interested in, what they're saying, what they're thinking. Are you developing tools [00:26:00] so that the associations can get some insight into what's keeping them up at night, and how do you balance data concerns?
Amanda, maybe this is for you.
Rob Wenger: Yeah, I'll let her answer the concerns question. I'm not concerned but then I have her Backstop. So I don't need to be the reason I'm not concerned though is because it's the data. It's the organization's data, right? So we're not giving them anything other than what they already should have access to we're just doing it in a way That they can you know digest it, right?
So I don't think of that so much as AI as I do analytics
Joanna Pineda: Oh, that's true. Okay,
Rob Wenger: so we actually have a strategy we call the three A's it's AI analytics and automation They're not independent things, obviously, but that's how we think of everything we're working on in those categories, right? So this is what I would say in analytics, but you're right.
All the interactions, we expect there to be more interactions. With members and the association because of AI because they can start to think of this AI [00:27:00] Assistant as someone a companion who sits next to them that can answer questions for them Now what's interesting about associations though is I originally when I was thinking about this was like this is gonna be a big threat to associations because You've got no traffic being driven.
You've got these AI chatbots like, like ChatGPT and Gemini being trained on all the information in the world that has access to. Like, why do I need to go to an association to get any information? Well, there's two reasons. One is that there is all that private information, right? The stuff behind the file, right?
So you've got your journal, your spec, your standard, all the conversations, all the blogs, all the official publications of the organization. Exactly. So you've got all this content. that it can't get to, so it can't learn from. Even stuff like textbooks, in theory, are copyrighted, so it can't know that stuff, right?
So associations still have all the knowledge. And the second one is associations are the only place where you can continue to develop this knowledge, right? So I think of it as like, The, the best things associations have done [00:28:00] is gathered all of the world's experts in that thing in one place, right? So I started thinking about this with community, and this is the reason for community, right?
If I have a community for my association, my members can ask all the other members a question, right? So you're a junior member or you just have a hard question. You hope someone has that experience. You post in the community, the person has that experience or that, that expertise answers the question and it's great, you've got your answer.
The future now is, though, that now the, the bot could answer that question. Not ChatGPT, but the association's bot can answer that question. And so, there's a lot of value that's been created over all these years between all of the different content properties that an association has that you put into a bot, and now it's much easier to get that information out than it is to search.
But then, what happens if you can't get it, right? Because no one's asked the question before, but some spread is out there. So we had this cool feature, I think this is Awesome. It was my idea. So, you know, obviously I think it's awesome, but it's a button at the bottom that says, [00:29:00] not getting the answer you need, ask your fellow humans.
The idea of it is the bot goes and does its search and it tries to find an answer and it can't find one and what do you do? You push that button and it drafts a post to the community of basically what you were conversing with it with. It makes a summary and asks the community. This
Joanna Pineda: makes a phone call to a, to a human.
Rob Wenger: Phone's a friend. Phone's a friend. Phone's a friend is a good word. I might have to change it. Phone a friend.
Joanna Pineda: So, Amanda, let me ask you a question. So I do have some clients and I've heard from some association execs that are concerned about member data. Rob doesn't seem concerned. Are you concerned? And what safeguards are vendors like HigherLogic putting in place?
Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, so I think, again, it kind of goes back to the, the data classification and understanding what data is going to go into the model, and if it's even, you know, storing that data, if it's, right, it just, it's able to just, you know, go away and [00:30:00] you can ask a question and doesn't store it, so that's going to be really important, so keeping everything private, and the other, I would say, probably just the, the data classification and making sure it's a private model, it's not training your data.
Private model, right. Right.
Joanna Pineda: Right.
Amanda DeLuke: Yeah. And then also like some other things just to consider is just to make sure that when you are using AI, you're adhering to your current process. Like you shouldn't have to be changing your process. You should just be able to adhere to whatever applicable laws there are and, and whatever you, whatever you have.
For guardrails for your vendors, make sure that that's all in place. And if it is, then you can use it safely. I mean, this is one of my favorite features. I get so excited when you talk about this, Rob, because I'm like, this is a perfect use case because being able to leverage this data is really just going to allow in automating things is really going to allow.
Associations that have to wear so many hats be able to focus more on the human elements that are important to the business, [00:31:00] right? So I think all of this can be done very safely as long as again, because associations have different types of data that they're dealing with, it's just making sure that you identify the types of data.
Do your due diligence, making sure that it's private and it's not training a model and that it's staying internal. And then as long as you follow all of those guardrails, I think you can really do this safely. As well as like, if you do have something that you have concerns about, make sure to talk to your teams about that.
And then also you may just need to be transparent. Talk about in your terms of use or in your privacy policy, like, this is what's being used and just being very transparent and upfront. I think that's really important too.
Joanna Pineda: So what I'm hearing from you is have a conversation with your vendors or your industry partners to say what's going to happen to my data.
Is it private? You know, show me your terms of use and your, and your privacy policies so that I can be comfortable that we're not training the LLMs on my member data. Yeah.
Rob Wenger: What makes it easier [00:32:00] and harder for us, easier because there's a thing called SOC 2, right? Which is something we have to comply with.
Well,
Joanna Pineda: Explain what SOC 2 is.
Amanda DeLuke: Yeah, the way you explain it, it's, it's basically taking a look at all of the controls that you have in place at your business, right? And making sure they're, it's showing proof and accountability of those controls being in place and that they're working properly. So that's usually, you know, how I would describe SOC 2 audit.
And there's different types of SOC 2 and type 1, type 2, type 3, right? So depending on the type of data you're processing, but yeah. You want to be testing those controls to make sure they're working properly.
Rob Wenger: Yeah, so the good part about Suck2 is that because the guardrails have been set up over a period of many, many years, probably a decade now, I think, we have good checks and balances and we have people like Amanda who make sure we follow it.
It's a pain for me because I always want to violate them, not for real, like I don't want to purposely violate them, but I want to do something that [00:33:00] she says. No, you can't do it, which is great, but you know, it both speeds us up and slows us down. So an association probably doesn't need to and doesn't want to take on the burden of becoming SOC 2 compliant, but their vendors should, right?
So most of the organizations I think in the association space are certified SOC 2 compliant in one level or another. As long as they have that, they shouldn't be too worried about it, but they might want to be informed about it.
Joanna Pineda: Well, Rob and Amanda, I could talk to you guys all day, but before we go, what's two things that you would recommend to an association exec who says, I'm just getting started?
What should be in their playbook?
Rob Wenger: Yeah, I think number one is what we talked about earlier. You have a plan for how to deal with it. Even if you're not going to do it right away, make the plan. Because then you, you know what it's going to entail. The process of the planning will get you where you want to go.
And the thing I tell everybody, whether they're an association executive or my mom, is just use one of these tools. Play with [00:34:00] it. Like I said, I replaced Google with it, and I never looked back. It wasn't overnight, though. You know, a month ago, I would start to Google something, not get an answer, and be like, wait, why am I doing this?
It takes some time to build those muscle memory, so I would say, encourage your staff to just take that journey at least, and then you can become more sophisticated. I would also say, and I'll let Amanda talk more about this, but when we finished October, At the end of it, we put on a webinar for the association world to just like hear what we'd done and, and all of the sort of artifacts of that, the rules and regulations and stuff that Amanda and her team produced, we made available.
So if you do want to start, I'm not suggesting necessarily doing it in October, especially because I wouldn't wait till October, but if you can do, you know, April. Those resources are out there from us or there, there's a lot of other sources and Amanda, you're the expert on that. So,
Joanna Pineda: yeah, Amanda, you got the final word.
Amanda DeLuke:
So [00:35:00] clear company statement and communication is really important. Like, why are we doing this? Like, what is your scope? I think being very clear on how you communicate, what is important? Why do we want to use this AI and how are we going to benefit from it? So I think just answering those questions up front is really important, and it gives everyone sort of the fire to want to start using it and getting really excited.
So that's something that I felt when we started using AI October. I'm like, Oh my gosh, we have something clear coming from Rob, and we were all excited about using it. So I think that's really important. That's one step. And then really, I'm going to just hone in again on that data classification.
Understand the types of data that you're holding and the vendors processing it. Cause I've, I've seen some of these vendors, it's sort of happening like with this Trojan horse thing where AI just gets turned on by default and you don't know about it. I've seen that happen where you have to go in and actually manually turn it off.
Or I think that's really important is to be able to know your data. [00:36:00] Know where the data is being processed and know your vendors processing it, especially as it relates to AI.
Joanna Pineda: Wow. Well, I have enjoyed myself tremendously during this interview. I've learned a whole lot too. I want to thank you both, Rob and Amanda.
And thanks to ASAE for letting me host and being part of this amazing conversation.
Rob Wenger: Thanks for having us. It was a lot of fun being here and yeah, happy to answer any questions anytime.
Joanna Pineda: Thanks to everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact that associations have on the economy, the U.
S., and the world. Again, we'd like to thank our episode sponsor Higher Logic. For more information, visit them online at higherlogic.com. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And for more information on AI in the association space and how it's transforming our [00:37:00] community, visit associations now online at associationsnow.com.
How about enough about me? Let's jump into today's conversation about [00:01:00] events and sustainability. First of all, I do want to thank. Our episode sponsors Visit Omaha and New Orleans and Company. Today I am thrilled to welcome Virginie De Visscher, executive Director of Business Events for Destination Canada and Amy Hissrich, Vice President of International Affairs at ASAE. Hello, ladies. So let's jump into today's conversation. I'm absolutely excited to talk about this topic. It's actually a topic that's personal and close to my heart. I'm actually a full-time van Lifer. I collect memories, not things. So I naturally am over conscious about Mother Earth as it's truly an extension of my home.
I feel like it's pretty easy for me to adjust my lifestyle so that I'm thinking about the future of our environment and our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come. But when I think of [00:02:00] nationwide organizations like Destination Canada, it seems daunting. Like how in the world I. See what I did there.
Do you support more localized DMO with sustainability efforts? It does truly feel like a monumental task for conferences and events when there are literally millions of people involved. So Virginia, let's get started with you.
[00:02:28] Virginie De Visscher: That's a great question, Teri, because Canada's the second largest landmass in the world, right?
And Destination Canada really plays a unique role as a, I call it a national conveyor or convener, and a and a catalyst. So we're not A DMO ourselves. We work to build capacity, we create alignment, and we try to support our local partners in advancing sustainable business events. Some of the ways that we do that are, for example, training and education.
We've launched a national initiative [00:03:00] where right now actually we have about 50 individuals across the country that are taking the Sustainable Event Professional certification in partnership with the events industry council, and that gives Canadian d os that foundational knowledge to integrate sustainability into their event strategies.
We support Canadian cities in joining the Global Destination Sustainability Index. The GDSI that helps them assess and benchmark themselves and improve their sustainability performance over time. We also see ourselves as bringing collaboration and and tools together, so d os and venues and partners can share best practices and co-create tools around sustainability calculators, storytelling assets.
Finally, I believe in a national alignment. So we make sure that strategies reflect Canada's broader commitments. So Destination Canada has a 2030 tourism strategy so that all those collective efforts can be future facing, that can be consistent and and scalable. [00:04:00] So it's more about continuous improvement and sustainability is embedded in destination marketing in how we do business events across the country.
[00:04:11] Teri Carden: So there's a saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And it sounds like you've got lots of single bites going on at one time to make a huge impact. And it makes a lot of sense bringing in those benchmarking and certification, you know, and delivering those or offering those up or providing those resources to those groups.
Excellent. Amy, did you wanna add on to that?
[00:04:34] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: Can address this more from the association perspective. So some of the first things that associations would want to think through when they're starting down their sustainability journey is really the why. So are they framing the conversations with their boards as to.
Does sustainability align with their mission? Is it part of their mission to embrace sustainable practices? And [00:05:00] the other thing they might wanna think through there is the component of risk and resilience when you're looking at sustainability. So sustainability has three pillars, environmental, social, and economic.
But there are real. Potential downstream business risks. So when we look at the World Economic Forum in 2025, they produce a risk report. Two out of the top 10 risks are environmental. So much like Virginia talked about being a convener. Associations are conveners and we. As part of what most associations do, we have conferences, congresses events, an inability to convene because of extreme weather events represents a real and significant business risk for associations.
So in addition to some association having a mission mandate, all associations may be impacted and will want to think through the risk and resilience process for sustainability, and then work towards that.
[00:06:00] Teri Carden: Well, it sounds like there are some big factors that are coming down the pipe for associations to be making sustainability a massive priority, and it sounds like they know it too.
So that's good news. Okay, so onto the next question. What are the biggest challenges, associations and DMO face when implementing sustainability initiatives? Amy, in our early conversations about this, you know, we talked about like millions. You know, are coming and going for education and events and there are monumental challenges that organizations are faced with and you know, how are you coaching around those challenges to the associations and DMOs as they work to implement some of these sustainable strategies and initiatives?
[00:06:48] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: We're going, again, back to fundamentals first, making sure that we have the upfront conversations with our board so that we know strategically where the alignment is. How far the organization is [00:07:00] prepared to go, because then when you have that buy-in, then you can do a holistic plan that executes against that buy-in.
So then you can start to say, we are committed to this work. We're focusing a lot these days on work over words, and so making sure that we then roadmap the actions we want to take. For most associations, their biggest. Impact initiative will be their meeting conference, congress, or event. And so making sure that they are looking at that event as far as the sustainability impact there is likely where they're gonna wanna start.
It's also where they can start building those quick wins. So we see a lot of examples of associations really trying to look at, while sustainability has those three pillars, environmental, social, and economic. They often do look at the environmental impact of that meeting as a place to start. It is quantifiable.
They can measure their progress. So oftentimes associations will [00:08:00] start there.
[00:08:02] Teri Carden: Great. So it sounds like, it is very similar in any area that association is seeking change, right? You've gotta start small, you've gotta do something. And I loved your framework of a work over words, right? You know, actions do speak louder than words.
And it sounds like, you know, even educating associations that they need to start the conversation and then do something small is a huge gain and a huge win. And then when they see those analytics or those. Stats come back that they're making change it, it, it can only snowball effect. So, Virginia, how about you?
Same question or did you wanna add anything to what Amy mentioned?
[00:08:40] Virginie De Visscher: Absolutely. I mean, I think we're so aligned on this one because, you know, fundamentally I think associations and DMO want to be sustainable, but it's how do you translate those good intentions into actual actions? Because at the end of the day, we all face budget concerns.
We face data gaps that you mentioned, and stakeholder [00:09:00] alignment. Like how do you get all the partners involved in an event to. Move in the same direction. And we recommend same things as you do from early planning, you know, to start ensuring that sustainability goals are embedded into the process, to partnerships.
So please, associations partner with your d os in making this happen and, and transparency. Let's be open about what the goals are and, and what progress we want to see. So very much aligned.
[00:09:26] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: If, I can, Teri, I'd love to just say that's one of the main reasons I love working with Virginia so much, because when we did, as an example, write some of our guidelines as we're trying to be a laboratory and be an example of what associations can do, we wrote.
Exhibitor guidelines for our annual meeting. And I was so grateful that Virginia has such depth of knowledge about sustainability practices that I really felt like I had somebody that I could say, can you help me review this from a substance perspective? So just knowing that somebody has done the upskilling for themselves, she mentioned the [00:10:00] SEPC, but Virginia has a higher level credential for the sustainability profession.
And I always just think that that that is so amazing 'cause it demonstrates. Credentials are part of what associations do, and that's really walking the walk there.
[00:10:12] Teri Carden: Absolutely. I thought that whenever we started the conversation earlier, I was like, wow, this is so meta. You know? And it is the beauty of association, how collaborative we are and what a sharing community that we are and that you know, that you can lean on somebody who is two steps ahead of you.
So what a great testament to working with Canada. So thanks for sharing that, Amy.
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Teri Carden: What are, you know, beyond environmental sustainability? How can associations and DS ensure that their meetings leave a lasting positive impact on the local community?
[00:11:58] Virginie De Visscher: Amy said earlier, you know, [00:12:00] sustainability is a, is a three pillar word, and, and we think the same. It's not just environmental sustainability or emissions.
It's really about people and place and purpose and creating that legacy and long-term value for host communities with really that intention, that intentional design. And some of the ways that we can recommend or suggest to create that positive impact into destinations with events is one is. Working with local suppliers and artisans so that event budgets really support the local economy or partnering with indigenous communities in Canada.
That's the cultural sustainability angle and inviting indigenous leaders to shape programming and, and speak at events and showcase traditional knowledge, not just a checkbox, but really co-create or incorporating volunteering donation initiatives. We have LA Chef in Canada and many others, or focusing on accessibility and inclusions to ensure the event is, is really welcoming and representative of the local population, just a few ideas. [00:13:00] It, the key is to ask, you know, how can this meeting give back more than it takes?
[00:13:06] Teri Carden: Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. It's teamwork too. Sounds like the laundry list of people that would like to be involved. If to if just ask. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Amy, did you wanna add to that?
[00:13:19] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: No, I think the thing that I would bring in here is we've talked a lot about some quicker wins or in my earlier conversation, but there are also, this could be a big moment for innovation. There are large scale needs that will likely emerge. There's a school of thinking within the sustainability community.
The incremental reduction isn't gonna get us to where we need to be. So I'll give the example, since we're talking specifically about meetings, one of the biggest. Now I'm pivoting back to environmental 'cause Virginia gave an a great example of the people and the social pillar within sustainability.
But back on the environmental one [00:14:00] fuel, getting people to that meeting tends to have the highest impact. But we also know these meetings. Peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges. They create so much value and up-skilling and re-skilling and, and are essential for delivering on the the mission of associations.
So we still know that that's going to happen. We want that to happen. So where's the innovation? And there are even coalitions now forming for developing new fuels so that we can then innovate. Use new technologies to help us solve this problem so that it's not always just a where we're reducing. I'm a huge proponent of, you know, our personal responsibilities, so have my reusable coffee mug, and there are gonna be bigger actions that are gonna require technical innovation.
And I think associations and coalitions of associations are starting to form to explore those possibilities. So there's some green spaces there. No, no pun intended.
[00:14:58] Teri Carden: Again, I think that's just [00:15:00] emphasis or exclamation mark on the teamwork between organizations and technology companies and you know, vertical industries to help.
You know, all ships rise here because to your point, Amy, we, we don't want to vaporize is people coming together to learn and to grow and to collaborate in meaningful ways for our industries and the professions that are represented. So thank you ladies for that fodder. Lots of ways that we can make impact on our small communities.
So I know you have some examples, Amy, that you shared previously and I'm sure you have a giant list of examples, but you know, sustainability is not really a new topic. Right? This is been something that's been on our desk for a long time. I think back to my early association career days, and this was a hot topic, you know, in Florida then, and I know in.
You know, with the events that I've run or I've helped run over the last 18 years, and I think [00:16:00] about the impact of each of those and just the sheer number of people that were involved there. You know, we have evolved and gotten better, but what are some of the emerging trends that are on your desk right now that you've seen in events that associations and DMO should be aware of?
[00:16:17] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: So I wanna take this down to just a really tangible example of behavior change because, well, we talked about innovation before and sort of the, the macro technological solution. A lot of this is still gonna be incentivizing the behaviors that we want to see and making the best. Decisions at an individual level.
So I'll use the example, IMEX Frankfurt, I believe they probably do this for their America's conference too. I just haven't been involved in that one. But they, when they give a menu, when you get a menu choice, they actually show the emissions choices, the footprint of that menu. So of course there are lower footprint foods and higher footprint foods, and so they ask you to choose essentially, do you want this [00:17:00] higher footprint. Meal that is likely to contain larger animals. As you're, you're looking down there, do you want the more plant-based alternative? And I will be very honest. It changed my behavior. I really wanted the other meal and just looking at the delta between the two numbers, I was like, I cannot possibly make that decision because it will hurt my soul.
And that wasn't just because of the role that I wear here at A SAE, it was because, you know, I wanted the carrot cake, which was in the other menu. But I did make the other choice because the numbers just told a story that I couldn't ignore. So I, I love that example.
[00:17:37] Teri Carden: It kind of hearkens when they started adding calories to menus as well.
Right. You know, it's, I have an eyeopening and, and, and sometimes jarring. When I looked at my bagel calorie count the other day, I was like, Ooh, changing my mind. I better go with the egg bites. Right. How about you, Virginia? Do you have any examples or anything you'd like to share about the trends that are on your desk right now?
[00:18:00] Virginie De Visscher: I do and I love Amy that you shared that IMEX example because it's impacted me personally a lot too. Most recently I attended the site Global conference, so the Society of Incentive Travel Excellence, and you know, we do have an industry that gives a lot of gifts and it can be very wasteful. And what they did is they actually had a marketplace, and I've seen it a few times, but there it was really done tastefully, the event was in Mexico and they had four different local vendors with.
Things like a charcuterie board that was local wood and beautifully painted, and they had some beautiful fabrics with cushions or purses that were made outta straw and all local artisans, and so the attendees could go and get one of the gifts of their choice. So it was a higher end gift. There was no waste.
Everything was taken back, and then the local community really benefited from those purchases. So I thought that was a beautiful, beautiful example. I'd like to add one more and a, a trend that I'm seeing more and more is [00:19:00] regenerative events. So the word sustainability is. In my mind over loved, overused, and sometimes has a antagonist effect where people say, oh, again, sustainability.
Well, we're trying to have the other way around. And so it's, how do we still talk about sustainability while maybe not using that word, we don't want to sustain where we are. We wanna move beyond doing less harm to actually leave it better and restore ecosystems. Invest in local communities, build social capital.
So that regenerative term, I'm seeing it more and more come up and I, I really love it. I, I think it's a beautiful way where our industry perhaps might be going.
[00:19:40] Teri Carden: What an awesome picture of what we should be working toward. I mean, when we think about where we've been or where we're going, even if it's something as simple as a hike, if we can just leave it a better place while we get to enjoy it.
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Teri Carden: So I love marketing and storytelling, especially when the antagonist, you know, or the challenge is so colossal, yet it's relatable and the hero or the heroine performs in an almost superhuman way, right? I believe that [00:21:00] stories about the grind that make monumental changes for the world and the community around us should be shared.
I don't think that we should be jumping through these hoops in vain, or even just for the sake of leaving it a better place. I think it's okay to share our story and obviously some of these sustainable efforts are exactly that. They are big feat and collaborations by humans doing superhuman things. So that we can leave the world a better place.
So what are some of the strategies that associations are leveraging from these efforts to enhance their brand and member engagement and kind of like sort of tying it all together, like we know, Amy, you mentioned, you know, associations need to focus on the why I. Right, but now this is a little bit more of like the how, how are they telling their story or how are they enhancing their brand and member engagement?
And honestly, I think of this question a little bit as this could be the conversation starter for your board and for your executive leadership. You know, [00:22:00] selfishly, you know, how can some organizations elevate their brand and involve members or get members more engaged through some of these practices?
Amy, you working for an association? Let's start with you.
[00:22:11] Amy Hissrich, MA, CAE: So once the organization is moving down this direction, I, I agree that that probably would happen. What the reputational lift might be would happen during that initial conversation. But where that's gonna get sort of implemented and moved into the operational piece is further downstream.
And so, you know, of course, associations are starting to put up their, their sustainability practices pages on their websites and things that you would expect. But one of the areas that I see as more opportunity does. Tied back to meetings and events because it is often where our members will interact with our sustainability decisions.
So using those moments to communicate why we're making some of the changes that we may be making. So I, I'll use A SAE as an example. We intentionally did not give people reusable [00:23:00] mugs at our annual meeting last year. Even though we reduced as much as we possibly could, single use plastics with the goal towards elimination, and we did that because we wanted to incentivize them to bring their own mug.
Everybody has now seven different reusable mugs. Just giving them a higher end piece of plastic wasn't going to affect. The kind of change we were looking for, but we were sensitive to not wanting our members to not know. They wouldn't know did we make a financial decision versus did we make an intentional decision for a specific outcome Using the the meal example again, when people are waiting in line and they're seeing the options that they've been presented with, sometimes those choices were made with sustainability in mind, and so making sure.
We're communicating that virginity tells the great stories of the markets or the gifts that are from local communities that could use that support new local merchants to help lift up those local communities that need that lift. Tell [00:24:00] that story about why you made those decisions. So I think that's key.
The other thing, and we haven't really talked about it. So it's it's brand, not just from the member's perspective, but from a workforce perspective. You know, of course, we're all trying to attract the best possible staff and Gen Z. I'm gonna read some data from Deloitte here. 46% have already changed or planned to change job or industry due to climate concerns.
54% say they or their colleagues are putting pressure on their employers to take action on climate change and. 64% are willing to pay more to purchase environmentally sustainable products. Of course, that Last Data Point doesn't talk about them joining the workforce, but it does show that they're willing to put money behind this.
Just underscoring how important this is for associations as they're trying to attract the best possible workforce.
[00:24:51] Teri Carden: Wow. I mean, when personal values of the employees are hitting the pocketbooks of the companies that are hiring, that's when change [00:25:00] is really going to happen. Right. Virginia, how about you?
Have you seen any of your partners elevate their brand or get their communities involved through some of the programs that they've been able to initiate?
[00:25:13] Virginie De Visscher: And I, I do believe in the power of those brands. So from a, a national perspective, a Destin Mission Canada, where we're seeing that meetings that are designed with purpose, with responsibility and community impact in mind, they help associations stand out.
And I mentioned this earlier, the word sustainability really gets used a lot, but it's about future focused choices. It's about aligning with values that matter to your members and their communities. You're gathering in. Amy A SAE, you gave that example with the water bottles is so thoughtful, right? So when associations make those thoughtful decisions like working with local suppliers or reducing waste, or partnering with indigenous communities, it does much more than check a box.
It. Tells that story and it shows your members and stakeholders what you really stand for. You mentioned [00:26:00] the younger generations, right? They want to feel that events that they're part of are doing some good, and that emotional connection really strengthened the engagement and the loyalty of members. And we are seeing that even from the D-M-O-N-T-O perspective.
People want to belong to organizations that share their values. So we're really trying to make that easier on the Canadian side and working with our, our DMOs and our. Partners and our tools and supporting associations to create events that not only reflect operational excellence, but really push the boundaries of meaningful impact to create that stronger brand and, and resonate into the story from the beginning to the closing keynote.
So I, I'm in agreement with you about that, the power of that brand.
[00:26:44] Teri Carden: Amazing. I wish we had all afternoon to talk about this. However, I hope somebody is on their e-bike with their AirPods in listening to this and they're probably, you know, at work already if people even still do those things. [00:27:00] Themes that that popped up today.
Work over words. People place and purpose making micro changes in behavior. And that doesn't even just start with a single person. It can start around a small group of leaders at an organization. And honestly, you know, I would love to walk away with a local hand painted tiny something, you know, from a marketplace of an event I went to rather than, you know, another pen or another notepad.
And honestly, I didn't realize, but. I do think that even my tiny little efforts in my little van life, you know, are making a a difference. So, Virginia, Amy, what a beautiful testament to the power that collaboration, teamwork around a single purpose, and also setting intention for what you wanna do so that we can leave this world a better place.
Both of you today, your involvement in this. Conversation has been a true testament to that. So thank you so much. [00:28:00] Thank you for being our guest today, and thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Associations Now Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals as we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field today.
And highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy and the US and the world. And I'm going to add this, even though it's not in my outro notes, the universe. Again, thank you so much to our episode sponsors. Visit Omaha and New Orleans and Company. For more information about our sponsors, check out their links in the show notes.
Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And for more information on sustainability in the association space, visit Associations Now [00:29:00] online@associationsnow.com.
Welcome to the show, Mike.
Mike Moss, CAE: Thank you very much for having me and looking forward to our conversation.
Christine Shaw: Fantastic. Well, let's just dig right in and start with the big picture. How is career development evolving in the association world and what makes this moment particularly pivotal?
Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, and it's the right [00:01:00] question to start with because I think from our perspective at SC and also mine as a 34 year practitioner in the space is we're shifting from a linear to a kind of a multi-directional career path.
As I came up through the industry, it was a pretty logical progression for me in operations between being an assistant to a manager, to a director, but pretty much all within the same discipline as I was given opportunities, maybe different associations. I. The directional was pretty linear, and what I really appreciate where we're going as an industry now is that we do have multiple directional paths, meaning I can do a bunch of different things at my association or require a bunch of different skill sets over time, and the association can be committed to me to develop those skills.
I do not have to come on entry with. All the skill sets to be a generalist. I can come in with specific skill sets, develop competencies in certain areas, and then have another opportunity to explore different career paths. And I do think what that's been driven by, and you'll hear me talk about this a lot, probably today, which is I do think our employment base is [00:02:00] beautifully shifting to being purpose driven.
And that's why they're attracted to our sector is they're here to serve and they realize that the service is going to change as tech changes needs change, service requirements change, funding change. I. And I think that this next batch of association employees really get the purpose-driven association.
Christine Shaw: Mike, I agree with you on the purpose driven. That's one of the reasons too. A lot of people, myself included, are drawn to this space. I liked what you said though, that you don't necessarily have to have all the skills 'cause they'll be developed. And I think sometimes people hold themselves back because they think they need to have all the skills.
So that's very encouraging coming from someone like you who's reached to the top position and letting people know that we're here to develop your career along the way. Let's talk about a tricky subject now, right. Nothing's gotten more attention than remote and hybrid work. They've become very common across many industries.
So talk to me about how associations are adapting to this shift and what challenges or opportunities does it present for talent [00:03:00] development?
Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, and I, what I'll do here intentionally is avoid the generational trap. I know this is a pod, so people not, may not be able to see me, but after working for 34 years, you can imagine I'm not in my twenties.
I came up in a different type of environment than what we're offering now. The hybrid remote, and my organization is hybrid remote, meaning everybody in the central office location of Ann Arbor is hybrid. We also have employees coast to coast. So we have a beautiful mix and I think some of the challenges that we've experienced that may probably translate to other listeners is that there has to be a real intentional connection process.
You can't just assume people are checking in with one another just to check on the weekend. All that proverbial water cooler talk can be very challenging. And I think we've really experimented with different types of setups. And the one that's worked the best for us is we do have a twice a month purposeful presence meeting.
It's called a P two because every abbreviated, so the Purposeful Presence meetings are. Obviously partly a staff meeting, but they're also mostly a social and it's a chance to [00:04:00] guarantee that at a minimum eight hours a month, 'cause they're both four hour meetings. We're having the chance to connect as humans who happen to work at Skype and making sure that we have that social opportunity.
And that's proven to be real helpful to make people, especially if they're new and remote and not in the hybrid environment that we have. Ann Arbor, it can be a lot longer tail to get. Ingrained into the social movements of the organization. So I appreciate that. And I also think one of the things that's really important, and it goes to what we just talked about where we're heading, is digital fluency is really important.
Obviously you and I are connecting today through Digital Medium and my remote employees, and I see each other three to four times a year in person. Otherwise, it's all digital and being able to manage that digital fluency, not just to open software and use it, but know which software you're using, what tools come with it, what are you endeavoring to do in that meeting?
Does take training, and I think oftentimes we just assume if it's a icon on a desktop. The person will figure it out. And I would encourage all of us as employers to recognize training is one of the biggest outcomes of the hybrid remote work [00:05:00] environment training, the culture training, how the digital fluency will work in your organization, and being real honest about what's not working, and having those channels provided for feedback from everyone, not just your hybrid folks or your remote folks, but from everyone.
Christine Shaw: I like what you said. A couple big takeaways is one, don't put age bias into it one way or the other. I think that helps a lot. I love what you're saying about digital fluency, because I think you're right. Everyone adapts to technology and digital differently, but ensuring that there's alignment on the tools and the training.
It's really key to making this work. And also the fact that you pointed out that some of your intentional in-person meetings are about social, not just work because that's how you get to know people and create those relationships. So well done that. Those are some good takeaways for all leaders to lean into.
And I hadn't really heard the digital as long as we've been doing this, the digital fluency aspect. So that to me is a real key one. And I guess this really goes right into the next [00:06:00] topic, which is culture. We all know. The saying, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Right? So it plays a significant role in career satisfaction, employee retention.
Tell me from your point of view and your experience, what does a healthy growth-oriented workplace culture look like? Especially in today's digital hybrid world and specific in the association space today.
Mike Moss, CAE: It's a great question. So I'm gonna start by saying it took me 34 years to get this terminology understood.
And it's everywhere. There's amazing organizations that run this discipline and that is being a learning centric organization. In being learning centric, it is really hard, at least it has been for me as a leader. It has been really hard to get this going and I'm still learning every day. And the simplistic side of being learning centric, which would is the cornerstone of our culture, which is you do something, you reflect on it, and then you do it differently.
And while that may imply I work in a silo, it may imply I worked in a team. It all has to imply that you're learning every day to do something in service differently. And to me, that's what's driving the [00:07:00] collaboration at sc. And so we can say all day long that we have a cultural collaboration, but if we haven't enabled that with a systemic approach that is in our job descriptions, it's a systemic approach that is in our daily expectations.
And we talk about it at every P two meeting we have is what did we learn to reflect on? 'cause not everything requires reflection, but what are we gonna do differently so that we can continue to move forward with our members? Who at times are moving a lot faster than we are. And at other times they're looking for us to model how to move forward.
So I think that's the culture piece I would offer is with learning centricity comes psychological safety. It needs to be a place where when I do my reflection, I feel okay in front of all my colleagues that what I'm gonna say is my reflection. It may not be a truth to everyone, but there's where we can collaborate and work together to make refinement.
And so I found that to be really helpful for us and also always reminding that we're mission centered. I know as nonprofits and especially as associations, man, we're all about that. But oftentimes we forget to remind ourselves that we're all about that. There's so many things coming at us [00:08:00] so fast all the time that recentering ourselves to be learning centric around our mission Obligations can be a real strong way to make sure we're aligned appropriately, resourcing appropriately, training talent, all those things.
So I do think for us, and what I would advocate is look into that learning centric organizational design. It's been really. I wouldn't say magical, but pretty close for us. Yes, we've transitioned out of the pandemic.
Christine Shaw: Yeah. That really resonates for a few reasons. Just this morning we talked about how to think, exercise and go away and reflect.
'cause if you do the same thing over and expect a different result, we all know. So I love that. And attaching that to psychological safety because I think oftentimes people. Operate from a place of fear. What if what I say is not the right thing or I'm gonna be judged, but offering that psychological safety is critical as well.
Mike Moss, CAE: Christine, if I may, I wanna build on that. What you said. There's awesome, and I wish I remembered where I learned this because the person or the organization deserves huge attribution for this. But on our whiteboards, we have the word fun, and what it stands [00:09:00] for is fearless, understood, and not alone. I love that and I wish I knew who said it.
We did not. I don't want to pretend like I came up with that. That's way too good for me to have come up with for sure. But that is to your point on psychological safety, is we are sometimes operating with mindsets of scarcity and fear. We wanna do growth, mindset, abundance and learning, but we have to remind ourselves that it's fun because we have to be fearless at times.
We're not alone. And when we're not alone, we're understood. And I think that's been a real cornerstone of those P two meetings that I referenced.
Christine Shaw: They say some of the best things are plagiarized, so I think the person would be more flattered. And I know for me this is a great takeaway. I hadn't heard that one before, but for sure I'm gonna reference that.
So thanks. And let's go back to what we talked about both at the beginning and in your last discussion is about purpose and mission. So talk about how you feel associations can better align career development efforts with that sense of purpose and mission to engage your staff and new hires.
Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, I think it starts with value-based [00:10:00] hiring.
And as and assessment and value based onboarding. As much as I just totally went all in on mission in the previous discussion, I think it does come on now, is are we value aligned? And I'm gonna be very deliberate here. It's not about fit. I. It's about value alignment, and I'm not a big advocate of fit because it limits the type of experiences we can bring in potentially.
And not to be completely self-deprecating, but one Mike Moss at this group is enough because of the way I work. That's enough. I would love to be complimented. And so what I wanna be complimented is on my value commitment. And so if we look at the career. Recruitment as well as the onboarding and our career pathing around the value alignment.
It does open up a huge opportunity to have diverse experiences. Lots of different skill sets come in, and as we mentioned earlier, you don't have to have all the skill sets when you show up, but do you have a mindset that you can figure it out, learn it, wanna learn it, do the learning centricity? So I do think.
Alignment with mission is important, doing the value-based hiring and onboarding and then give everyone cross-functional exposure. And [00:11:00] I can do that easily at 18 people. I've worked at groups of 250 people. Obviously things scale differently, but be real intentional about that cross-functional exposure.
'cause that's when someone raises their hand and goes, gosh, can I take a shot at that IT job? And that's where we get that, that real nice retention. But we also get growth and we get new skills, new perspectives. So I think that's how I would align to that answer.
Christine Shaw: And that really segues nicely into professional development.
I think you in that answer previously, you articulated ways in which you help with professional development. I think both the encouragement of not waiting for every skill, but then this cross-functional. So tell me a little bit more about how you think associations can innovate in this area. Besides what you're already doing in your own association.
Mike Moss, CAE: I think all of us, including scup, do we need to get real good at peer-to-peer knowledge sharing? We all talk about silos. We all have learning that we have that we forgot to say out loud, but we're in peer-to-peer environments to knowledge share, create those opportunities. I think in leadership, it's our obligation to create that.
[00:12:00] And the other thing is you cannot invest enough in training. And I have to be held accountable to this by my peers at times because one of the easiest things often in crisis to cut is we don't need to do training right now. We just need to get through it. That has to be the last thing that you agree to cut.
Of course people and the training that goes with it. Last thing to do everything else you can because in that training investment, you're making a commitment to them for learning and career trajectory. And we all know we're not all gonna be here for 34 years. Some people are here for 18 months and some are for 18 years, and they all require a consistent investment.
And that investment. Projects the trust that we want in our development. We trust that you're going to put this to good use. I know I may not be investing in you forever. I am gonna make you a better X, Y, Z, whatever your path is before you leave here. That is my commitment as an employer. And I think that mantra of commitment to training and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is something we all need to improve at.
Christine Shaw: I agree, and I think that my mantra is always, if I investigating you for training, even if you don't [00:13:00] stay long-term with me, I'm making you a better contributor in the overall economic world. So that's a win-win for everyone, and I do think employees appreciate that. I think it's great, and I think that everyone holding ourselves accountable, it's just the right thing to do as we think about making a better workplace for everybody.
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Christine Shaw: Let's talk y'all about somebody who may be just entering the association field. What advice would you give them and what type of meaningful connection should they be leaning into to help with their career development?
Mike Moss, CAE: Great question. This does not have to do with people's personality gifts, which is extroversion or introverts.
It doesn't matter for an extrovert or introvert, but you've got to build a network. And that's easy to say after you've done it for three and a half decades. It's hard to do when you've been out of college for three and a half months. But as you're considering entering the field, you have colleagues already.
They just may not be aligned to what you believe to be your trajectory. Talk to him anyway. My son has friends in all different industries. He's in agriculture. The place he learns the most about how he can then apply differently to his trajectory in a and agriculture is talking to people who are not.
Farmers. And so working with engineers and his friends [00:15:00] talking differently, but building up into connection of I know a person. And there's that old joke, everybody needs a person. Well, we do. So work on that. Work on finding your people and they don't have to be the logical, again, it's not linear. It's multi-directional now.
So build that ecosystem of yourself and when you're doing that, be sure that your own personal development as you enter any field in our amazing association world is cultivate adaptability. I have preferences. I have preferences for music, I have preferences for office setup, all the things, but sometimes it just doesn't play out that way.
And I had to cultivate a sense of, and a mindset of adaptability, which is of course very close to what we're looking for in employees, which is agility. I. Having that adaptability like this isn't perfect, but it's great for now. To your point, I may not be here forever, but here's what I can learn now that serves you as someone entering our field as a new person, and you'll find your path, especially if you're with an employer who knows that their investment in you is, as you described, you're gonna help everyone while you're here and we're gonna help you go where you want to go.
I think just putting all that together is the, [00:16:00] the network, the adaptability, and also don't. Get overstressed out with only knowing about association stuff, learn anything and everything. And again, like my son's doing, which I'm very proud of, is learn outside your own field and apply it to your own. And sometimes that's where some really interesting ideas come from.
Christine Shaw: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. The other thing I would add to that too is if you're an introvert by nature. Don't let that hold you back and lean on people to make introductions because I have seen so many positive outcomes by just having. Network. Network and leveraging that network. So I think that's great advice.
A little sidebar, I was in agriculture prior to joining the association world, so that's a great place to be. Good for your son.
Mike Moss, CAE: Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you.
Christine Shaw: Now you know, whatever industry anyone comes from, sometimes I. It feels like it's a niche or a click of people. Help us understand how associations can broaden their access and reach to people to make it more [00:17:00] inclusive and accessible to people who may not come from the association so we can have a more diverse pool of candidates coming into these space in general.
Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, that that's everything, right? And what I would start with is a negative, which is if it looks like it was a job description that could have been posted in 1991, you've got to start over. That is the wrong job description. Don't start there. So start with where we need to be, where we are now, which is be really transparent about everything about your company and be.
Very transparent about the compensation, and while I appreciate that, there's state laws that vary, all the HR compliance things we have to do, the one thing we can all do is not post a range that says zero to 500,000, and just play the compliance game. Be real specific, and in that specific transparency, you are going to attract the hiring prerequisites that you're looking for because a lot of people.
We'll be looking for that transparency. I know what I'm getting into on the first interview. They're maximizing their time and you're maximizing yours. So it's like procedurally, I think those things are important, but then also in the [00:18:00] interview process, don't assume just because someone is a hiring manager with management experience, that equates to interview experience.
It goes back to our earlier conversation training matters. And so I've been fortunate to be a manager, but then as I became a hiring manager, I. At the time, I didn't get any training on the difference between having a conversation with a colleague and a conversation with a candidate. Those are materially different conversations.
So I think you got to make sure you're training so that it's not just about, make sure you say these words, Mike, but it's, it is make sure that you're having a conversation that brings out what they're looking for, what we're looking for. And that is not the same as talking to a colleague. And it also isn't the same as the like typewriter effect.
Interviews that we all grew up with a table of 17 people and you rotate around. I think we all need to be back to that adaptability. We all need to be more adaptable in how we're approaching candidates because a lot of them, as we've experienced in the first question, are remote. Yeah. I may not actually meet, and I have some stories here.
I have not met some of my employees until they're months on the job. In person. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a different experience, so make sure that [00:19:00] we're all ready for that, that digital experience. By training, don't assume, just because I manage people, I can manage an interview.
Christine Shaw: And to that point though, I do think that the remote hybrid has broken down some barriers about reaching out to a broader geographic area, which helps with diversity.
And going back to your networking, one thing someone taught me in my career is when you are networking. Ensure that you're going out beyond your inner circle, because that's where you're gonna get people who aren't from your little ecosystem, right? Like you're thinking of the example you shared about your son.
You're proud of him with engineering, reaching out, even though he's an ag, you don't know where that connection could lead to, or perhaps there's a really good candidate. Through a friend of a friend. So the more we can do that and not think so linear, I think it helps all of us. So
Mike Moss, CAE: that's, uh, and no one can see this, but I'm hitting the plus 100 button.
Oh, good. Awesome. That was awesome. Thank you for bringing that forward.
Christine Shaw: Certainly you have a lot of historical perspective and experience, [00:20:00] especially 34 years in association space. But let's look ahead a little bit. Do you have any trends or changes that you are anticipating will shape or develop associations over the next few years?
I can think of many that are going on right now in terms of advocacy and impact from funding to tax issues. So let me know what's on your mind, Mike.
Mike Moss, CAE: Yeah, and this is the farthest in the last two years I've made it in any conversation without saying ai. So we will just acknowledge, we know that's part of it, that the AI integration into our businesses, whether we're slow to adopt or fast adopt, there's the future workforce.
So we'll just honor that and leave that there. Yeah, we think we need to really think differently as associations about becoming hubs for continuous professional development. So being lifelong learning ecosystems and not just a place where people work. So this goes into the, I think the bigger collaboration issue for associations, if I applied any level of foresight to this would be we will not be standalone associations in the next five to 10 years.
We will be in ecosystems and the business models will have changed [00:21:00] dramatically. And it's from all the pressures we know are real, it's pressures we haven't figured out yet. But I think we, that's part of being in a lifelong learning ecosystem. So we have to adapt and we have to be calibrating our plans.
So one thing I would say, getting the planning head on for a minute. To this question is that we all write 3, 5, 10 year strategic plans and then try and work 'em. Two rules. Number one, never abandon your plan. And number two, always adjusting, recalibrate your plan. Yep. So if as things change what you wrote two years ago into a plan, or three years into a plan is not gonna be the same outcome, and having that outcome focus will determine then going to this conversation about career development, it will determine what skill sets you need for that next run.
Whether you run six months or six years on whatever you're doing. I think that's the adaptability that is coming. It's not the same siloed industry specific type associations. I do think if I could offer one thing is let's be open to this ecosystem of support that we need to use for the society to come, industry to come.[00:22:00]
Christine Shaw: It could be and open to the fact that it could look different than it does today, but it could be also more effective. I like also what you said too, is that a lot of times when something isn't working, the immediate instinct is to just whiplash and abandon your plan. But to your point, it might just need adapting.
Not throwing it out. So I think that's important. Mike, I've enjoyed this conversation as the leader and someone in this space there. You gave me a lot of good takeaways and some new things I hadn't even heard, and I'm really confident everyone else is gonna enjoy it as well listening to it. So I really wanna thank you for your time today.
Mike Moss, CAE: Oh, thank you. I, this was a great conversation. It could go on for hours, so I appreciate it. We, we got through it in a timely manner and appreciate also y'all's support of our industry. I don't care what other people do for a living, working in associations is the right way to think it, just to manage your career.
So let's keep people coming.
Christine Shaw: Great. At this point, I'd like to thank everyone for listening to this episode of Associations NOW Presents. Join us each month as we explore key topics relevant to association professionals, discuss the [00:23:00] challenges and opportunities in the field today, and highlight the significant impact associations have on the economy, the US and the world. And again, we wanna thank our episode sponsor, visit Omaha. So be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. For more information on career development and the association space, visit associations now online@associationsnow.com.
Thanks everyone.
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