Bethany: We’re going to move into, actually, our panel now. We’ve got Sheli here, who will be moderating, and we have Michelle. We’re going to be discussing about the heart of innovation, which is, you know, what real human need comes out, or real human need is what creates innovation. And so I think a really great conversation.

Sheli: Oh, thanks. Excellent. All right. Hello. Hello. 
If I haven’t met you yet, that’s sad because I really like people and I’m actually addicted to people. My doctor at one point told me, anyway, that’s not what we’re talking about today, but I would like to meet you. My name is Sheli Gartman. I’m moderating today. And do we have one more or. No, this. Okay. I heard there was somebody else, but just kidding, it’s us, which is a good thing because we have like a tight 30 minutes and on panels that’s kind of hard to get through all of it. If somebody missed you earlier, I’d love for you to just reintroduce yourself, kind of give us that 1 to 2 minute elevator pitch of who you are, what you do. And Blossom, maybe reiterate it just that way as we’re recording this if they shared this segment separately, that they would know who you are and what you do.

Michelle: So I’m Michelle Short. I’m the founder of Riley’s Residence, and we’re building long term housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities here in the Valley. And that will be of all ages. So it’ll be respite care and long term care with all the facilities and stuff that they need on site as far as therapy.

Blossom:
I’m Blossom Johnson. I’m the founder of Idaho Partners for Good. And we are reinventing how people give, share their expertise and do greater good together.

Sheli: So, Blossom, in the segment that was right before this you mentioned, I mean, we really are at a massive crossroads in a lot of ways, right? And we’ve talked about some of what’s challenging about that. But what’s also cool is like we’ve had lots of massive transformational changes in our history. And one of the things is we always overcome. We evolve, we adapt. Sometimes it’s that urgency and that we’re almost forced to adapt. But the cool thing is we need to, we deserve to. So maybe let’s talk for a little bit. This is a newer nonprofit, the one you’ve created. What are you seeing right now that are opportunities for the nonprofits that you’re in or, you know, some of the Other ones that you’ve talked to that you know of, what are they leveraging that’s helping them succeed in this moment?
What are you seeing that’s working?

Blossom:
That’s a great question. I would say that what’s working is they are taking the time to think strategically. They aren’t just going out and continuing the same, trying to get as many services done as possible. They’re actually pulling back and they’re going timeout on themselves. So they’ve got to figure out what’s most important. What services do we actually need to give to XYZ nonprofit down the road? Because we’ve been competing against them for so long, but now they actually do a better job, we’re going to give it to them. So it’s strategic time with their boards to just stop and say, here’s what’s best for us and the people we serve. Because I’m going to tell you, if all the nonprofits went away, I wouldn’t care if the services and delivery and programs were still being delivered. It’s not the model that I’m enamored with. And I want to fix. I want to just make sure human beings don’t fall off the cliff, however that happens.

Sheli: What are your thoughts on that? I mean, you’re a newer nonprofit. Are there things that you’re leveraging or that you’ve been giving counsel, like in the current moment, what’s going to work for you? Because it’s very different starting one today. Right. Or really scaling one today than say, 10 years ago, even five years ago.

Michelle: Yeah. And I started more from experience as a family member. Right. A mother of what my child needs. And so you start thinking about all the things that I would like to have my child go to, but that doesn’t mean that it’s obtainable right away. You have health and welfare that gets involved. So you have to be a provider. So what are their requirements? It’s really doing your homework before you start going out, trying to raise money and create all these events and stuff. And so when we started out, were going to do a single building with 100 rooms and then an aquatic center, detach from it right?

Well, if by doing that we had to have $22 million and have, you know, probably three or four years for it’s going to be complete before anybody can move in there. And so went back to the drawing board and said, how can we get this done faster? And that was during research saying, let’s do this in a development. And that way we can do it in phases. As we grow, we can do one house at a time, two houses at a time, and those take about six months to build. And that gets us the leverage that we need. And we also did nonprofit. We’re doing for profit for that reason, to be able to obtain investors, but then feed it back into the nonprofit part of it and stuff. And so that way we can raise money faster.They see an roi, but the nonprofit is being fed from that. And so it’s whether they want to do it themselves or for our portion and will always be donated back to these residents.

Blossom: That is so smart. And that’s the model that we actually promote with nonprofits, is figure out what you do best and monetize it.

Michelle: And having our construction side was a big part of it, because we have these big ideas, and we all can be dreamers and stuff, but what’s realistic? And when you’re going to ask people at your first gala, hey, we need $22 million, everybody in the room’s like, good luck, right?

Sheli:
Piece of cake, piece of cake.

Michelle:
But then I’m like, listen, if we have 1 million followers on our accounts and we ask them to donate $20, I mean, we’re right there, right? So it just depends on how you go about it. But not looking at the big picture really puts you in a bind, because you’re just seeing the right now and what you’re doing, but your donors want to see consistent, like, moving the pendant. Like, what’s the needle? Where are we at? What are we doing next? You know, if I go each year to this gala and nothing’s happening, people are going to lose interest in donating to us and being part of it. So we have to keep them informed. We have to tell them, this is what we’re doing next. This is what we’re working on. This is what we’re changing. And as long as they know there’s been work done, then they’re okay with that.

Blossom: So Sheli and I go back and forth on this one, because the whole issue of fundraising, specifically galas, and she is a master of galas, she can raise tons of money. But not every gala is equal. So there are a lot of philanthropists, and we heard that in our study that they’re so over the galas and the other fundraisers. So just know that you’re in a different environment.

Sheli:
Yeah, it’s a good point. I mean, it really. I think the answer I give to everything, any question I get asked, whether it’s my child or a client, is, it depends Right. It depends on so many things. I mean, you can have a gala if you don’t have the right people in the room. It doesn’t matter what you do or how clever your theme is or any of that. We do like our galas, like, a lot of people actually do like them. I know we do kind of debate on this because servant leaders like to come together and network with other servant leaders who are giving back and not just talking about it, but actually doing it. The doing parts, really important. Right. All the strategic planning in the world. Great. What else are you doing besides that? Right. We’ve got to give, we’ve got to lean in with time, talent, treasure, influence. But there are people that can rush to that too soon. There’s not the right people in the room. And you know, I’m not the Holy Spirit. I can’t take money from people that don’t bring it to the room and want to give it. Right. Like, that’s just not. I’m not. I don’t have that gift. I can take it. If you bring that money to the room and you’re excited about this cause, then I can take it from you. So a lot of it’s like, it depends. Right. And so there’s not like a five step template that you can snap on to every nonprofit or business and just say, this is what’s going to work, who’s on the board, how long, what’s your cause? Are there 29 other causes within your zip code doing the same thing? There’s so many context things there to think about. I’m curious. So, like, part of this panel is about the creativity thing and leaning into creativity, which I love the idea of that because it’s like doing the same things we’ve always done. You know, some things still work and some things definitely don’t. So where do we. There’s strategic planning, but there are some strategists that will shut you down if you ideate. I mean, they will just shut you off. They’re like, nope, you’re dreaming. So how do you balance strategy and ideation? How do you think about that? Because that’s a challenge both in business and in the 501c3 world.

Michelle:
I think it’s all about storytelling for me. Right. When you get the point as to the people that you’re impacting and then trying to create things that can get that point across, whether it’s video, social media. Joelle is a huge part of ours. She’s our creative director and so she helped me from the Very beginning when we didn’t have any posts, we didn’t have anything to show on our Instagram. And so she put creative things out there to grab your attention. And so it was our colors. The first thing I, I did was I got a branding style guide. I didn’t even know what that was. I come from a mortgage background, so to me that was foreign language. But that was one of the best things I did. And it cost me fifteen hundred dollars.

And I don’t like to spend money, so I don’t take a salary from the nonprofit. I never will. And so I hate spending money on things that aren’t bringing in money. And so being creative with somebody that I’m not creative, but you have somebody that does. So delegating is super important. But. But I think it really starts from your storytelling and people can tell when you’re passionate about it or when you’re just trying to sell them something. So when you’re speaking from the heart, I don’t typically have like some kind of speech made out. I just tell my story. And so I think that creates creativity.

Blossom: We just built it into our DNA. So how many of you have heard of Mission 43? Okay. How many of you have heard of Bloom Blum? Okay. Those were things that I started when I was at the Albertsons Foundation with the help of students. At the time, One Stone was just an after school club. We brought these teenagers in with these salty mouthed veterans and they interviewed and did human centered design with these veterans. And we built mission 43 off the intel directly from the end user. So you build it into your DNA and you keep that forefront. Our three values are continuous learning. That’s why we have an eval team, entrepreneurial mindsets. Because that is a big risk for most nonprofits is they don’t know how to run like a business. And the third thing is we design with the end user. Anything we build is tailor made to the nonprofit that we work with.

Sheli: So I’m going to take this in a little bit of a different direction and talk a little bit more about the creativity, like that side of things. So even taking it down to just the essence of a lot of people will say, well, I’m not creative. Which is very interesting because everybody starts out like we all drew and we colored and we thought were amazing, right? And then all of a sudden you start getting criticized. I remember I had my daughter in a school and she colored something, drew something, and she was like in second grade and the teacher wrote on the Paper, almost. And I thought, almost what? Like it’s art, you know, like, almost what? So we start getting these weird messages about our ideas, our creativity, what’s right, what’s wrong? Very subjective. Right. So do you guys think of yourselves as creative? And if you do, how do you like, lean into that to express that? What do you think about that?

Blossom:
So thank you. This is really timely. So I was on a podcast this morning and it was on coaching, and he says, you know, tell me a little bit about your story. And I said, you know, one of the biggest pieces of this story is learning about what happened to a NASA scientists back in the 60s. They wanted to hire for creativity and innovation. So they created like NASA will, tools to hire people that way. Well, then somebody had a brilliant idea. I wonder what the general population looks like for their creativity. So they did a longitudinal study starting at age 4 and 5. Anybody want to guess what the innovation and creativity was in 4 and 5 year olds? 98% of all children that were assessed were scored on the genius by the time they were five years later, age of 10, where were they? They were down to 32% by the time they were 15, 12% by the time they were 32, the inverse 2%. What happens to all of us? This, I’m talking you, you’re genius. We all have genius and we got disconnected from it. We need the genius back. We need to reconnect to the genius that is naturally you.

Sheli:
Preach. Come on.

Michelle:
Okay, all right. Yeah, just playing off of that. Just go staying in your lane. But also understanding. Like there’s different ways that you can be creative of what you know best, right? And then when you’re talking to people, then you get more creative. So then you have a room full of creative people that have these great ideas. So the more you talk about what you’ve got going on, and hey, I have this idea, what do you think? And then they start bouncing stuff back. That’s what’s helped me the most when I’m wanting to do like, what do we do? Whether it’s a gala or the golf tournament. These are things I’ve never done before. But they were both super successful because I had people’s input. And even building this, people said, I don’t want my child to necessarily live in a group home.

What do you have for independent living? And I hadn’t thought about that yet because that wasn’t where my need was. And so I think the more you talk about creativity, about ideas you have, no matter how big or small or crazy or huge. Right? Because some people, when they have big dreams, are afraid to talk about it because they don’t want to get shot down. And so it’s like you just have to keep going, like, and if those people aren’t aligned with you and they’re not helping you, then they’re just an interruption and move on to the next person until you get some feedback and stuff. But that’s really trying to figure out who you’re aligned with, knowing that they might be smarter than you, they might have more money than you, they might be more creative than you, but if they’re not aligned with you, it doesn’t matter.

Blossom:
We really need diversity of perspective. If we do not have diversity of perspective, we’re going to come up with the same solutions. So best thing you can take away from this is find who isn’t thinking like you and invite them to the table.

Sheli: That’s the best. I mean, it’s the intergenerational. It’s. Everybody comes from different homes, different spaces that, you know, they speak different languages sometimes. Like that’s the best collaboration that there is. And it’s interesting. One of the things I’m going to talk a little bit about tomorrow is flow. Like how do we hack into a flow state? You know, the zone, when you’re just in the zone, whether it’s work or creativity or whatever. But part of how we do that is creativity. And it is like masterminding together like some of the very practices that are age old, that are always, they always work, they always help us be healthier and more vibrant and more collaborative. We’ve kind of suspended a lot of it because frankly, sometimes we so strategic plan that we don’t do other things.

Like, okay, now let’s go out into nature and you know, build something with rocks. I don’t know, just something. And that discomfort even of doing something you don’t normally do or you haven’t done in a long time, it’s. It’s uncomfortable. That’s part of the secret to hacking into flow. I have to push myself a little bit. I have to. It’s got to be a little weird. Otherwise it’s just like autopilot. That’s part of what’s not working right now is the autopilot. So I love what you said, like get in a mastermind group or get in a collaborative group, but people that actually tell you the truth, even if it’s different than how you think and like it’s just magic, it’s usually not what one Person says, at the end of the day, it’s like this collective tapestry that gets stitched together.

Blossom:
I will say that is one of Shelly’s super strengths. One of her superpowers is to ask the right question at the right time and keep drawing, keep pulling, not let you off the hot seat. It’s the hot seat when we get really prickly and the new stuff starts emerging.

Sheli: Sometimes people don’t like that though, you know, but it’s okay because like we do need to be pushed. You know, Josh talked about that this morning. Urgency, right? Urgency and time and deadlines. And so that also helps us hack into flow and creativity and move our businesses and nonprofits forward. But we avoid it. We avoid pain in our culture. We kind of self medicate, we avoid. We try to be comfortable and it’s like, And now time is collapsing so quickly with the changes that if we don’t like, what do we risk losing if we don’t adapt and evolve? Right.

Blossom: So I’m gonna say that the greatest treasure in our communities right now are those that are retired. That is your greatest treasure. We have got to figure out how to reconnect them to community and redeploy them because they’re the ones that have the time, the treasure and the talent.

Michelle: And being creative on that. Because a lot of them aren’t on social media where a lot of our platform is, right? Cause it’s free, it’s easy for us to do. But my parents aren’t on social media, their friends aren’t on social media. So how are we going to outreach them? And it’s really going to be the one one meetings because they’re still the handshake kind of people. They want to meet you, they want to know what you’re about and stuff. So trying to be creative as to how you’re going to get to meet them. You go to groups that maybe are places that you’re maybe not as comfortable or aren’t in your wheelhouse, but you make those sacrifices so you can meet those people and talk with them and get them involved.

And so I think that’s super important too is networking with people that are going to be the right people. And what Sheli said earlier was so true about, you know, you have a gala. And I looked at our first gala as our marketing. I mean, I said, okay, this is the way that we’re paying for marketing. We’re making some money. We actually raise really good money. But it was our marketing thing. And it’s also an appreciation for Our donors, because we take care of them when they’re there. So every year they move better. But I mean, it’s just again, making sure you’re with the right people and being able to meet them to that point.

Blossom: To that point,
I would be remiss if I did not also talk about the younger side of the spectrum. By the time they’re in the sixth grade and oftentimes a little bit younger, they’re ready to ideate, they’re ready to give you solutions for world problems because they are not blinded like we are. They do not have blinders, they do not have ceilings. They go. And so if you’re looking for thought partners, there’s a young man back here that probably has some thoughts that you might want to listen to if you ask them the right question.

Sheli:
Yeah, I like that. Cross mentoring, right? You know, when I was growing up, if you even heard about mentoring, which actually wasn’t that often sat sadly, it was like the older to the younger. But what about the younger to the older? What about these new ways of thinking and all of that? Or just different ways of thinking? Again, diversity means a lot of different things. And I think sometimes we’re even limited on what we think diversity is. Or we talk about it. Like sometimes I’ll, you know, come into a group and they’re saying, well, yeah, you know, I helped a non profit, I did some consulting and then I did a fundraiser for them where I did the ask portion of their fundraiser. And what they were saying was, great people, great intentions, like usual.

But they were like, well, we really want to get the younger generations, the young adults apart because, you know, some of the people giving us a lot of money, they’re gonna die at some point, you know, they’re gonna be done. And like, we’ve gotta, like, continue this on. Right. Pass the torch. I was like, great, love to hear it. Like you’re singing my song. But then I noticed all of like the people that he had gathered around him were older. And then I was like, well, who do you have going to the event? I saw the list and I’m like, oh, there’s lots of older people. Cool. So where’s these young professionals we’re going to connect with? Oh, yeah, that’s. We’re mostly asking CEOs and decision makers. And I’m like, so where’s the disconnect? Yeah, how can we bridge the gap?

Maybe it’s a better, you know, where we say, well, we, you know, we’re saying things because we intellectually, somehow the subconscious mind actually knows we need to do this, but then we don’t do it. We still do the same things we’ve always done until code red, it’s on fire.

Blossom:
We have to get intentional and we have to get proximate. Without those two, you will not become a multi generational whatever it is that we need. We have to get intentional. If you don’t know young people, go find where they’re at and go hang out and get to know their names, what they love and what the genius is in them. So get intentional. Get proximate.

Michelle:
Yeah. I went to a speech with the founder of Overflow and they help nonprofits raise money. So they do it through their stocks, your bonds and stuff. So not just cash. And they said that the people that are most giving right now are in the ages between 22 and 30. They’re the ones that are actually giving more money away than buying their house first. And it’s a national vet. And so they said that if you want to go after young people, that’s the age group that you go after. Because they’re wanting to see a difference with what they’re. They’re all making really good money, most of them, you know, and so they’re like, hey, I want to give back. I want to already create this legacy when I’m in my 30s versus when I’m in my 70s and retired and trying to find something at that point, I want to, I want to grow with this.

Sheli:
So that being said, if all of our events cater to 85 year olds, the young people aren’t going to come to them. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Okay, last question, because I know we’re–

Blossom: Unless, unless you are from another culture. If you’re from another culture, you’re going to have the babies to the grandmas. So we’ve got to kind of get out of our own way sometimes and start looking at how else does the rest of the world bring multi generational in?

Sheli:
That’s it. Thank you. We’re good. All right.