Aligning Actions with Values with Hoang Murphy
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
In this episode, we delve into the critical importance of aligning your nonprofit's actions with its core values. We're joined by Hoang Murphy, CEO of People Serving People, who brings a wealth of experience from his journey as a teacher, a Foster, and a leader in the nonprofit sector. Hoang shares his expertise on creating impactful solutions for those affected by inequality and emphasizes the role of lived experiences in decision-making processes.
Don’t forget to become a supporter of our show!
Key Episode Highlights:
Identifying Core Values: Hoang guides us through the process of identifying the fundamental values that drive your nonprofit. He stresses the importance of narrowing down to essential values to establish a solid foundation for your organization's mission and actions.
Translating Values into Action: Discover how to move beyond merely talking about values to actively incorporating them into your organization's operations. Hoang shares strategies for engaging your team and the communities you serve, ensuring their voices are heard and valued.
Cultivating a Committed Team: Learn how to integrate your nonprofit's values into your hiring process. Hoang discusses the significance of real-life experience and cultural fit over traditional qualifications, highlighting the role of shared values in staff retention and satisfaction.
Fostering Genuine Funder Relationships: Hoang emphasizes the importance of building authentic relationships with funders who truly understand and support your mission. He shares his approach to fundraising that has consistently helped double their budget year after year.
Don’t forget to become a supporter of our show!
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/YsndeUvRwdI
Links and Resources:
Hoang Murphy (LinkedIn): linkedin.com/in/hoangmurphy
Hoang Murphy (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/hrcapist/
Hoang Murphy (Email): hmurphy@peopleservingpeople.org
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mariario/
Support the show: https://www.buzzsprout.com/208666/supporters/new
Transcript:
00:00:00 Hoang: If you say that you value staff, then let's look at your retention policy. Let's look at how much you pay them. Do people have a living wage? Do you actually provide PTO? Do you contribute, like what percentage of healthcare do you contribute to? Because if you are not contributing anything and you say that wellness is something that your org values, then it doesn't actually, because you're not providing anything for it.
00:00:29 Maria: Hi friends, ever wondered how you could turn your big ideas into results? I'm Maria Rio, your go-to guide for helping small nonprofits have real world impacts. Together, let's reimagine a better sector, tackle systemic issues, and yes, raise some serious cash. Welcome back to The Small Nonprofit, the podcast where your passion meets action.
00:01:01 Maria: Hi friends, welcome back to The Small Nonprofit Podcast. Today I'm with Hoang Murphy. So I'm really excited to introduce him to you. Hi, Hoang.
00:01:11 Hoang: Hey.
00:01:12 Maria: For our audience who may not know where you are, who you are, or what you do, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?
00:01:18 Hoang: Yeah, my name is Hoang Murphy. I am currently the CEO of People Serving People, which is a Minnesota homeless shelter. And we are the state's largest family shelter.
00:01:29 Maria: Okay, great. And how did you get into that? How long you've been a nonprofit? Why do you do it?
00:01:35 Hoang: Yeah, so I previously had founded a nonprofit called Foster Advocates about five years ago, five and a half years ago, and really, you know, just saw that nonprofits needed to operate differently, particularly one serving foster youth. And so I quit my job where I was working for a much larger nonprofit working in advocacy and founded that nonprofit after those five years as a founder just really saw the need to then step away so that it could have a legacy outside of me. But then also felt the need to then be at a larger scaled nonprofit to really show that the things that we were doing as a small nonprofit were things that were scalable at a much bigger one. In fact, I would argue that they're a lot easier.
00:02:21 Maria: What makes you say they're a lot easier?
00:02:22 Hoang: You just have a lot more resources. And I think that the moral demand to do some of those is much greater. If you have only one employee impacted on a team of seven, for example, the pressure to do right by that one person is maybe not there. But if you have 30 employees impacted by that same issue, then the scalability of that allows you a chance to address it. As long as it doesn't get so big that it just becomes a statistic. But until it reaches that huge scaling, I think larger nonprofits are better equipped due to their funding sources being more diversified generally, and also just then it's just easier to shift things that are peer policy.
00:03:02 Maria: That's a very interesting transition from small to big nonprofit. I've never worked at a super large nonprofit, so I've never experienced that kind of, like, relief, but I'm sure it comes with a bunch of other challenges. But I want to go back to you starting Foster Advocates and how you started creating a culture and protocols and systems for your organization, what did that process look like?
00:03:27 Hoang: Yeah, I mean, I would love to circle back on what you define as large, just because I think it's similar to how we define wealth. It's someone's wealthy if they’re just making, money than you personally do. And I'm particularly interested in where the cutoff is for, whether it's a large one or it’s a small one, often, I feel like this is the best podcast in order to mitigate some of that. But as far as policy, really, for an org that started with just me, at least for the first two years, it was creating policies that benefited me. They felt right to me and it made sense, then I just did it. As long as my board didn't need to be plugged into any particular decision that was related to it.
00:04:07 Hoang: But as we then scaled, I realized that a lot of the policies that were simply my design may not work for someone else. And so what we did was we created a conversation that, you know, it was more of a partnership in that third year. But then the following year, when we doubled our staff into four, realized that we definitely needed to have a set policy. And I did it the same way I did it when I was creating policy for myself and when it was with one other person is we had a conversation first. It was then, became really clear that that wasn't going to work. We also needed then, to have a conversation about what our core values were as a team and how, did those values show up in our workplace, and whether or not those were core values for the org.
00:04:48 Hoang: That really is that shift from my personal values to what were values of the organization. Once those were cemented, then we could have hard conversations about, then what did the integrity of the org demand, and what policies then should be reflected in that, and what our vested self-interest was in it, and if it violated or was aligned with one of those core values.
00:05:11 Maria: Did you find those conversations with staff or with board members in determining those core values difficult? Were there any butting heads and how did you deal with that?
00:05:20 Hoang: Yeah, I think any change about conflict is not really, probably a change. Just because maybe it's because I'm used to a space where conflict is so avoided, at least here in Minnesota. Maybe that's true in Canada. But it's one that, then it means that it wasn't significant enough. But also, I think that sometimes then it's a railroading of a policy. You're not then embracing discomfort that should be necessary. And so I would deeply encourage folks to kind of lean into that conflict if there isn't any.
00:05:56 Hoang: But for us, it was super necessary. Folks did disagree. It's in the minutiae that that disagreement exists. If you say, well, generally, we should make sure that everyone has enough, then what is enough? What is enough when someone has children? What is enough when someone comes from family wealth? What does it mean when someone has foster identities? What is enough then, knowing that there are maybe extra costs around receiving medical care that might be more critical than that someone receives mental health services if they're in a body that has lived experience in that work.
00:06:37 Hoang: It might provide some key and deep insights to the work at hand, but then it also comes at a cost to their individual well-being as well. And how do then we compensate for that? How do we make sure that we are doing things that aren't seen as discriminatory, but also are meeting everyone's needs?
00:06:54 Maria: That seems super hard. How do you compensate a person based on their holistic self and their holistic lived experience and other... How do you make sure it's enough per person without running into kind of, like labor issues?
00:07:09 Hoang: Yeah, I mean, I think it's different for every single person and it's constrained by your very real budget needs. But I think it starts with having a really honest conversation. You put all the cards on the table. You say, this is what our budget is. This is how much we have to work with. And here's what we are thinking. And it is a policy, then that has to work for everyone. That is the floor. The floor is that everybody's in. This is baseline and that we're not going to accommodate.
00:07:37 Hoang: So for example, or sorry, we're not going to accommodate, for someone just because of one thing. Everyone gets it. It's a universal design principle and that if a fostered identity coworker needs every two weeks, they need an hour off to go seek mental health services, but then everyone gets that hour. It's just the baseline that everyone should be at. I think that makes it a lot easier for folks than to come on board.
00:08:07 Hoang: But the idea that someone who didn't have those in these wouldn't need that hour is also not true. Everyone used it, for example. And so whether you used it for yoga, you used it to take a nap, or you used it for mental health services, I personally didn't care. As long as it was available then, then we were doing what we could do. You can't make like, you can lead a horse to water. But then you also have to make sure that there is actually water there.
00:08:34 Maria: I love that. So that must have been really helpful for the culture. Or was that something that kept people around? Or did you see any attrition because people were having difficulty, having difficult conversations? What did that look like?
00:08:51 Hoang: Yeah, I mean, I think we had pretty low attrition. But also I think that's the nature of maybe a really small team. But I don't know, I've never started a nonprofit before and I almost am certain, will not do it again. But I think that there are... You can pay greater attention to who you hire on such a small team, but also it's just so necessary that they're really stellar, that we spent a lot of time vetting folks, more so than maybe other places might, because we couldn't afford to miss any of our shots.
00:09:26 Hoang: Similar to applying for, like grants, is that we didn't have the scale of a bigger nonprofit. If we're going to put in the effort, you know, the eight to 10 hours it takes to get in a application, then to justify that work, then it had to be one where we've had a lot of conversation with a program officer, a lot of engagement with them so that we know that this is much more likely to succeed than if we were to just, you know, approach, you know, apply to a foundation that we don't have a previous relationship with, even if it would appear that we have a match.
00:09:56 Hoang: So for example, I never applied to a foundation in which I didn't meet with a program officer and we're given a deep go ahead that we were a strong alignment because there's writing and then there's actual practice and similar I think with hiring is that then people need to know what they're getting into. So you name those challenges. You name that, hey, there is risk here. We are really small.
00:10:17 Hoang: I have six months of burn just in case something really bad happens but that's all I can guarantee you is that if, you know, stuff were to hit the fan is, this is how much room that I have, you don't assume certain things and you don't leave people with any misunderstandings because I think it's those hard feelings and those unexpected bumps that then cause people to lose faith. But if they know that they're possible and then when they do happen, it makes them a little bit less hard.
00:10:44 Maria: Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I always see leaders turn around and say, like oh, we can't share that information with our staff because then they would want to leave. And it feels like taking a little bit of consent and agency away from them. Because like if we only have six months of runtime, people have every right to know that if it's going to significantly impact your life or, you know, if it's a different problem, maybe it's better to have more hands on deck and more brains working on it than just two people.
00:11:15 Hoang: Yeah. I think any policy that is predicated on, you know, if your staff found out that they would quit, then you shouldn't have that policy. And I think it's just like, it goes back to the golden rule, is that if I wouldn't want this done to me, I shouldn't do it to anyone else. And that's how moral injury, you know, infects us is that we start moving away from that, is that we think that we have to be a defender of the rules instead of making sure that the rules serve us. And that is the thing that I try to pay most attention to is really just asking myself, if I was on the other end of this policy, would I be okay with it? And regardless of whether or not you think that's true, then go ask that person to make sure that that is true.
00:11:54 Maria: How did your experience creating such a good, strong, transparent culture transferred to your new role? Did you have the opportunity to assess where the culture was at? Was it mostly okay? What did that look like for you?
00:12:08 Hoang: I guess I would appreciate a clarification. You mean when I landed here at an org that is now 90 staff versus an org that was eight staff? Okay.
00:12:16 Maria: That's right.
00:12:17 Hoang: Yeah, the first thing that I wanted to do was get settled. But then one of the first efforts that we immediately made in the first 30 days was I started a listening sessions. And so we were meeting with anyone that wanted to meet with us. But scheduling it, you could always opt out. But that you were going to be given space to have a conversation with me and the goals that were really just to get background. Help me understand my role. But then also, then help me build a relationship and then also understand your role. And you try and you do it with everybody.
00:12:52 Hoang: And so what we made sure was that there was no one in any of the groups that was a manager. That was in, you know, so if you were a manager, then you were in your own group. If you were associate or coordinator level, then you got to be grouped together. But anyone that managed someone else or that was in a critical, you know, sensitive information issue area like HR or finance, then you had a separate conversation. But that allowed then, for us to get a deeper idea about what the culture is right now, because at least in every process and those things like that, you are getting, idea of what the idea of what the culture ideally is, or they would like it to be, or think it is.
00:13:33 Hoang: But that allowed me to get a really deep ideas where are we at now, and then get a better roadmap of, then the willingness of folks to get us to where we maybe need to go. And the idea that there isn't improvements to any culture to be made is a false one. I don't care how good the culture is. There's always something you can be doing better. It's a constant iterative process.
00:13:53 Maria: Yes, for sure. It's… It must be really interesting to transition from a smaller staff team where it's easier to kind of align your values and have these conversations to a huge team. 90 people is not a small team. So I wonder if you have any thoughts around, like how to align 90 people worth of values into one streamlined vision?
00:14:12 Hoang: Well, ask me again in three months or so and I'll let you know if it worked out. But one of the things that I quickly realized when I came here is that there was, not set or values. There is now a core set of values that exist here. And so we are going to be going about figuring out what that is. And I think that starts with teaching folks in your senior leadership team how then we find out what those are. And it starts with core values, which core values are the values that you're willing to hold onto and that you're willing to sacrifice other values to maintain these specific ones.
00:14:48 Hoang: And so I think it starts with an exercise with your senior leadership team. So I'm going to be modeling that with my direct reports then the rest of the senior leadership team. And then I'm going to be asking that they then do the same thing moving down. And that is then how we're going to come to better alignment about what our core values are. I think part of that is people think that they don't have a buy-in to what the org values are if they're maybe at, entry-level position or they're newer, but that's deeply untrue. We all contribute to it.
00:15:20 Hoang: And we then need to, then decide if that is intentional because there are values that exist here. They're just not named and they're not maybe ones that we would like there to be. But where that shows up is in our budget and in our work. And there's the values that we could get maybe if other people, you know, we ask other people to say what they are, but I find that less useful as the ones that we intentionally create now.
00:15:47 Maria: And when you're saying they show up in your budget, what does that look like? How, does that look like in operations?
00:15:54 Hoang: Yeah. So like if you say that you value staff, then let's look at your retention policy. Let's look at how much you pay them. Do people have a living wage? Do you actually provide PTO? Do you contribute, like what percentage of healthcare do you contribute to? Because if you are not contributing anything and you say that wellness is something that your org values, then it doesn't actually, because you're not providing anything for it. And so if budgets are values documents, then that's where your value should be reflected. And if it's not reflected in them, then you need to really dig deep about whether that is a core value.
00:16:32 Maria: How would an organization go about discovering their core values? So for example, my mission is to save all the cats in shelters, for example. And is that my value or is my value something else? How does an organization jump through that understanding?
00:16:53 Hoang: Yeah. I mean, I would say that that is a mission or a goal, right, that, if you want to save all the cats in shelters, certainly my cats, would applaud that. But a value then is a word or belief that then guides that. If you believe that everyone should have agency, for example, then that conforms. It's like, that the reason why you want to save all the cats is because then they should have a say in what happens to them, for example. If you say that you value quality of life for your cats, well, then you should probably value it for your staff and then you need to start asking yourself hard questions about whether or not. Then that is reflected in your policies and procedures if those are two values of yours.
00:17:45 Hoang: Are you willing to give up on something else? And so it often at least the way that I have been taught it and I'm sure there's a multiple ways of doing it is, you know, you can find them online, but you just get a, you know, a big sheet of values or you know, words that you know, might lend to to that belief and you just have people start crossing them out. What is least important? And the reason why you start with that, rather than just saying circle the five that are most important to you, is that you actually have to sacrifice them. That's how you know it's a core value.
00:18:14 Hoang: Because I can say that freedom is most important, but then what I quickly realized is actually I value order a lot more. Because I personally feel like you can't, that there's a tyranny to choice often. That we give people too many choices in ways that are not meaningful. And then it dilutes the choices that are really critical and distracts from the really important ones. That if I give you 15 options for your healthcare plan, then it distracts you from the [functionality], which is that, what if you said two and both were really, really good. And so I think that there's just different ways that we can start thinking about that and ways that our values inform it.
00:18:51 Hoang: But there is no magic solution, but I think you just really have to be courageous and leading in ways that just don't make you feel bad because I think that you should think critically that if you don't feel great about this decision making that you're about to go upon, then you really should explore why and you maybe should pause until it's at a place that you can morally stand behind it.
00:19:19 Maria: I feel like that's such an easy way to look at developing values. So thank you for sharing. But just like I believe X about our community and how they should be treated and how they should experience life better. And then seeing how that reflects internally is really great. Outside of the budget, how else can organizations check if their values are being integrated into their work? So whether that's programming, hiring, recruitment, anything like that.
00:19:49 Hoang: I think you ask people, you should maybe do surveys, but also you should do listening sessions. I'm a big fan of skip level meetings and check-ins where you make it a regular process that you're checking in with all of the staff within a org, but that you should, especially if you're new or you haven't done it in a long time, I think it's really worthwhile to do a listening session across the entire org. Then you should also do that with the clients that you serve as well. That if they're not giving you feedback in your regular process, then you need to go out and seek it in ways that are deeply meaningful and that they can actually engage in and then compensate them for the time that they gave you.
00:20:34 Maria: And when you say, like you need to go out there and seek it, are you talking to mostly executive directors, board members, senior leaders, all of the above?
00:20:41 Hoang: I think those things are important, but I would say that, you know, at least seeking out the feedback, at least in how I, references that in February, I plan on engaging in meeting with families. Now, families here in our shelter have a lot going on right there in, shelter. There's a lot of things that they, that would pull their attention away. And so what we would then like is to figure out ways that we can do meaningful focus groups, provide adequate compensation that's competitive for the hour that they're giving me and understanding that we value it. And so that comes then with a cost. And that is a cost that we're willing to then incur to get this type of feedback.
00:21:23 Hoang: But I think it's important to talk to other EDs, to talk to senior level folks to kind of see what other folks are doing. But that shouldn't guide your values as much as what your clients are asking you to do and what your staff are personally asking you to do. Because if I go and ask all these other nonprofits, if RPG policy is good or not, then I'm going to the market. But the market is not moral. The market is not immoral, but it is amoral. And that's not a value of mine. And so it shouldn't be a value of the org. It's important to do comparison, just to kind of see where you're at, but I think it's more important to look internally for yourself, but then look internally into your org.
00:22:09 Maria: I've seen passports that I've worked with, get their copy of their, you know, draft collective agreement and try to see someone else's, which totally erases all of the information that staff and your community are giving you. Like it's not just copy that policy and implement it here, but it's very much about creating something that's specific to your culture, to your organization, to your values, as we were saying, and just making sure that that lives throughout. When it comes to funders, you had mentioned a little bit about having these relationships before you even apply. Why were you doing that?
00:22:43 Hoang: Just because I feel like people are just really unable to take ownership of the power that they do have. And I feel like that's the hardest thing to get as I was becoming a ED, is that I had to own the impact and the power that I had for my staff and for the fosters that we served. And I feel like foundations have not had, at least not all foundations have had that same conversation is that they need to own their impact as well, which is that you do hold a great deal of power and control. Now not completely over someone the way that you would if they worked for you. But you do have it in the landscape.
00:23:21 Hoang: And because of that, often people then strive to be nice, but then they're not being very kind. In that they're saying niceties to you about maybe how you fit in or how that works. But then they're not actually telling you, for real, like, hey, if you apply, you just don't fund small nonprofits. Then they don't understand that the cost that is incurred is that I've just spent six hours, that time that I wasted. And also I'm wasting your time. Why should I have you reading an application that you know you're not going to fund or that you know isn't going to get past your board? And so it's better to have that direct conversation.
00:23:59 Hoang: And so I would, early on, I would just ask people very directly, do we have a degree of likelihood to get funded that would make it worth it for us to apply. And if the answer is no, well then awesome. That's great. I'm going to circle back once we do fit or I'm going to keep working on you and I'm going to keep having conversations with you until we are a great fit. But I'm not going to spend the time it would take then to apply until we are right, until it is a good match because I just can't afford that time. And I can't afford the, you know, when it was just me, the morale hit it would take for me to get another no.
00:24:39 Maria: And would you find in your conversations that the donors had already thought through some of this or was it kind of new to them and you're explaining like, well, now I have to spend six hours on the… just this application for you to say no.
00:24:52 Hoang: I think it really varied. I think for some of the foundations, they had really been practiced and really just were great. Like some of the program officers, even if it wasn't something that was named as part of the foundation practice, they just did that anyway. I think it's just one of the things that you kind of pick up or you learn or if you lead with your values, it's just a kind thing to do. But then there was, others that, you know, they were really taken aback. But also if you're shocked by that question, that is the answer too. It means that someone that is not thinking about these things, and they're likely then not going to be a good fit if they refuse to answer them. At least they don't, you know, match your values.
00:25:31 Hoang: And then what is the likelihood of you getting the money? Pretty low. And what is the chance of you getting the money again, even if you got it this first time? And that's why I really, you know, it might be corny, but it really is about the relationship that is much more worthwhile to invest in than this transactional interaction that we're maybe accustomed to, that we're going to say these things and so will they, but it's much better to dig deeper and to figure out who they are as a person because no one actually wants to do things outside of their values. And so if you actually start pulling people back towards those values, conversations, then they're much more likely to do something aligned or at least you're going to know much more clearly that they're not a good fit.
00:26:16 Maria: So most of the times when there's a red flag, it's either really, really obvious or it's a little bit more insidious. Are there any green flags or red flags that you saw in your funder relationships that said like, this is a good values aligned match?
00:26:30 Hoang: Yeah. I mean, I don't think you can get it, always 100% right. And I think that it's just really important to trust your gut. But I really don't think there are, like too many hard vest rules about that. Like I spoke with someone when I was starting out and they're like, well, if a program officer doesn't offer to pay for your coffee, then they're going to be really cheap and they're not going to help you out. And I was like, I strongly disagree with that. Sometimes they don't have a budget for it. Sometimes it's a cultural practice. It might be assumed rude, that if they just like, insist. And so I never liked the awkward interaction about figuring it out. So I always just offered to pay. And that was fine.
00:27:11 Hoang: But I think that one of the green flags is just that when you ask that question and you just are really honest, right? Hey, I'm new to this work. I'm looking to get feedback from you on our application. If someone then has issue with that, they're not a good fit because they're not going to fund a newer person. That means that the doubt that they see or that the help that you need is then not something that they're engaged in. You can then move on.
00:27:39 Hoang: You know, I had a great… a colleague who shared this phrase, you should just bless and release people that say, that's fantastic and now you're free to go on and do things that are better fit for you and so am I. That it doesn't, it's not worth arguing with someone about it. It's not really worth engaging with someone about why they should, unless you build a deeper relationship.
00:28:01 Hoang: Now, there were some program officers that we didn't get funded from and I sat down with them afterwards and was like, hey, I really need to dig in as to why, because while I know that our budget and our outcomes are not dependent on funding from you, that your decisions shouldn't have that much of an impact on us, the reality is that you're one of the few places that funds in this sector, that funds in this issue area. What more can I do to make it a good fit? Or what can I do to speak with your board or to shift your org so that you can better see our value?
00:28:37 Hoang: And while no one ever took me up on speaking to the board whenever I asked to, it created a sense of reflection and that either if that person pushed back, then I could tell that this was an org that was not open to ever having its mind changed and was pretty insular. But if they were open to it, even if it ultimately never led there, it then was a door opening to say, hey, let us think about this and let us get back to you. And that told me a lot.
00:29:02 Maria: How did this approach impact your fundraising from when you started to when you left?
00:29:07 Hoang: I guess I knew so little that I didn't know what I should be doing, which was actually maybe good. I just did what felt like the right thing to do. I also got a lot of advice on which foundations I should probably target, but no one sat with me in those early conversations. And so I just went ahead with them, the way that I would with anyone else is that I'm trying to get to know you. I'm trying to be deeply relational. And it paid off really, really well. We doubled our budget every single year. It's easy though when you're really small. We started with a $60,000 budget, barely enough to pay for me in year one. Then we got to like $140-ish and I was like, hey, maybe we can hire someone.
00:29:53 Hoang: And then the following year we did and doubled the budget again and then hired two more people. And when I left, we were a team of eight. And I'd like to think that I left with a pretty strong budget that if anything went wrong, that we could float for a really long time if that was needed. But I think that I was just really trying to be thoughtful of the fact that if I was going to leave, I was going to leave in a position where things were really good and not the way that founders often leave, which is when there's a problem that they don't want to deal with, they become the problem or that just stay so long that they need to retire and I wanted to be much more intentional than that. And so I left a little earlier than maybe most folks would have.
00:30:42 Maria: I love to hear a little bit more about that intentionality because as we know like founder syndrome can be a very big thing so for you to do a in such a measured manner, I think is really important for people to kind of understand like what steps you took and what that looked like for you.
00:30:57 Hoang: Yeah, I saw a lot of feedback. I just, throughout my work, I saw a lot of, especially male CEOs and EDs get to a stage where the, a lot of, typically women around their work or non-male folks then picked up a lot of their slack and I just knew that I didn't want that to be me, that I looked at that and saw a bit of grossness that this was privilege in practice, right? And so, because I didn't want that to be me, I very intentionally tried to speak with folks and name that, like, hey, I don't want this to be a problem. And so the more steps I make to resolving it, then the more likely I will receive a… outcome that is more positive.
00:31:40 Hoang: So for example, Charlotte Vu, who I think everyone is aware of his blog, but I reached out to Vu kind of just randomly, and I tried to him to, fully just ignore my email, but he met up with me. And I asked him, he's like, well, hey, I'm feeling a little crispy. Maybe not all the way burnt out, but I'm pretty close. And Vu said, hey, it may be paradoxical, but the more that you do to make it easier for you to leave, the easier it will be for you to stay.
00:32:12 Hoang: So that's why I started doing. What would it take for me to leave? It would take, make sure that all my staff are well compensated. It would take increasing my own salary because I can't leave unless there's enough of a salary here to then replace me. And what I found was that, oh, it did get a lot easier for then me to stay, that all these decisions that felt really selfish that were hard to justify in my mind because of the way that we often deal with imposter syndrome and the way that we...
00:32:45 Hoang: I guess I shouldn't say often I assume everyone does, but maybe everyone doesn't, but that we engage in these practices that might feel that they're purely self-serving, but they ultimately are for the benefit of the org. And as we created those steps, I was able to stay longer. And at a certain point, I realized I reached all the steps necessary for me to actually go. And then the question became, well, now, is now a good time. And I would like to think so. But time will tell.
00:33:18 Maria: Who became in charge of operations there then? Was there someone that you were training, like succession planning? It's always so hard with small nonprofits. So just wanted to hear your thoughts on that as well.
00:33:28 Hoang: Yeah, shout out to Nikki Beasley. She's my upgrade there. And she was someone who was on our board. And before I get like an eye roll from folks who are like, oh, of course, they just picked someone up there, they're a board. It was, because it was a board meeting where I was like, hey, board, what is the biggest vulnerability to the org? And they were like, budget, getting funders, if you did something terrible. I was like, yeah, yes, yes. But also it's really just if I left, or if, I think I said if I got hit by a bus and I couldn't do this work anymore, how about we just say if you just exited some, like you won the lottery or something.
00:34:08 Hoang: And I was like, yeah, so then how would you address it? And everyone was like, well, we probably would not be able to, or would probably put out a search immediately. It's like, well, then we need to then build those pathways. We need to figure out what the plan is for an interim staff member to step in, but then we also then need to start searching for someone who can potentially be in that space, including just, even if it just means having them in our network.
00:34:36 Hoang: But what we talked about with my staff and with other folks was that, what type of leader did we need to have? And what we identified was that it had to be someone with lived experience. The reason for that was for credibility. Credibility in community, credibility with our funders in the work, but also the credibility with staff, that this was someone that had to have skin in the game. And so we went about searching for that person. And frankly, we were like, this is going to be impossible when only, you know, like 3% of fosterers graduate with a four-year degree. And not that that's necessary for this job, but it's probably someone that has that background or significant work experience as an ED or high-level director.
00:35:17 Hoang: And I was talking about and pontificating about how difficult it was going to be, and we'd probably have to look national, and then we'd have to figure out how to get someone here. That a board member, Nikki, who had joined just like six months earlier, raised her hand. She was like, well, you know I was in foster care, right? And one, I did not know that. And secondly, she was like, well, I would be interested in that. And it really then started this conversation that while I kept looking elsewhere, we were also then we're having conversations about whether or not she might be a good fit. And so had her meet with all of our staff, had her step off the board.
00:35:59 Hoang: And then we also did in a three month period where we overlapped that knowing as a founder, there was lots of things that I probably just did that I didn't know that I was even intentionally doing, and that maybe didn't fit in our job description even, that then we were able to then overlap, and then I was able to hand off the org after that. But that's one practice that I would highly encourage is that whenever you get to a salary negotiation or like a regular check-in period, I always had my staff redo their job descriptions, just so that one, then you keep the job description on hand and it's updated if they were to exit. But then also they then got to do reflection of their job editing.
00:36:41 Hoang: So we know that people just do jobs as they come up, but then oftentimes it can drift from what their job description originally was. And we should then reflect that because that also then should maybe be reflective of their compensation if they're doing extra work. And so that's the same practice that I did with Nikki is that we rewrote the job description to make sure that it then fit what the ED role was currently, not just simply what it started off when I founded it.
00:37:09 Maria: I love that it was someone that was already involved with the organization. That's always so nice. And thanks for that kind of disclaimer with the board member part, because we do see just board members get tapped in who have no lived experience, who have no involvement in nonprofit. And it just can be a little bit of a disaster. So just going back to that comment about lived experience, I'd love to hear why that's so important in a leadership position.
00:37:35 Hoang: Yeah. I think it's really important because it, I mean, it's similar to what I said earlier about having skin in the game, but at the end of the day, who's going to care about this issue outside of it being their job, right? That no matter what, I'm going to care about this outcome because I'm so personally invested in it that I have a vested self-interest in seeing this mission achieved. That often I think in a life cycle of nonprofits, that you go from a founder who is trying to achieve mission, and then you go to an ED that's trying to keep the organization going. And that's become secondary to the mission. And it also hurts.
00:38:13 Hoang: I don't actually think it's an easier or better way to run an org if it's simply the goal is to keep it running. That if you're pursuing mission, then the running of the org will then follow, but it can't follow the other way. And so we then wanted to make sure, in that the leader was someone that was going to have that proper focus that is not simply about the maintaining of this org. Because Foster Advocates frankly could close and I wouldn't mourn it if so long as it was no longer necessary when it did or that it was intentional in doing so. That if government operations then picked up to a pace where it was not needed, then I would actually celebrate its closure.
00:38:53 Hoang: But I don't think that's like, that happened anytime soon. It's still necessary in this landscape and the person that's going to be a best assessor of that is, community itself and then some community needs somebody, the decision making and the way that that is often done is then make sure then a member of that community is leading that work. It doesn't always have to be that case, but if you are someone who doesn't have lived experience and you're running an org, then how do you know that community decision-making is actually what's informing those choices? It's then you need to build decision-making processes.
00:39:26 Hoang: So we had a, you know, lived experience board that rotated and the two of those leaders always sat on my main governing board. That way, their voices were fully included as well, just in case we ever got to a stage where we want to make sure that someone has all the skill sets needed, but they didn't have lived experience. I would still encourage hiring that person, but then you then have to build intentional pathways for feedback to make sure that community is informing daily practice and policies that folks are pursuing.
00:39:58 Maria: And for Foster Advocates specifically, I think that that lived experience value also carried over to board members and staff. Is that correct?
00:40:07 Hoang: Yeah. So the majority of our staff had lived experience and I would say at least 50% of our board, there were times where we only had five board members and so therefore it tipped one way or the other. But I think that it's better to have folks that, I really think it's better to follow the spirit of the law than the letter of it. So that I had one foundation that I got into it with, because they were saying that you need to have 51% people of color on your board. It's like, I have exactly 50% because right now I had someone step away because they moved and I have three and three. You're telling me I really can't apply even though I'm an ED of color being on staff that is majority people of color and serving almost entirely people of color. You're telling me I cannot apply to this org.
00:40:54 Maria: That's insane that they let you apply in the end.
00:40:58 Hoang: Yes. But it was more because we quickly added a board member. And so it was less about forcing them to amend their policy but that's where I think it's just really important to remember we make the rules, we should not be in service to them.
00:41:16 Maria: Yeah, I always appreciate having lived experience, like as close as possible to leadership or of course as part of leadership because I just feel like that's the way to know all the pros, the cons of all the situations and all the lessons that you learn. So I appreciate that. Well, thank you so much for the discussion. It's so great to have you here. I'm just wondering for people who are listening to you and they wanna get in touch with you, is there a way for them to connect with you?
00:41:44 Hoang: Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say what my Twitter or X handle was, but I'm not on there really anymore. So I think the best way is probably through Facebook. You can find me on Hoang Murphy. I'd love for people not to comment, on maybe if I'm living on my values there, just you've got to pick one and they're probably the least evil. But if you really want to send me an email, you can send me on that, hmurphy@peopleservingpeople.org. But otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.
00:42:13 Maria: Okay, great. Well, thank you so much again for being part of this conversation, for sharing all your insights with us. I feel like I learned every time I talked to you about little things to improve how you actually are as transparent as possible with your organization, how that operationalizes itself into the organization once you're doing that well.
00:42:35 Maria: So thank you again and thank you to all our listeners for tuning into this new episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you want to see our lovely faces again, we are on YouTube so you can look at us there. But until next time, bye for now.
00:42:52 Maria: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to connect with our guests directly or find me on LinkedIn. Let's keep moving money to mission and prioritizing our well-being. Bye for now.
