← The PM Podcast
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- [00:00]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Part of the way that I stay renewed is by being able to share with people coming along some of the knowledge, the learning that I have had. And it's not to save them the experience of screwing up, but it is to tell them that if they do, you can still pull truth and learning out of even the worst experience.
- [00:29]
Jay Frost
Welcome to the PM Podcast brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Kay Sprinkle Grace is one of the most respected voices in global fundraising and board leadership. As the founder of Transforming Philanthropy, she has worked with over 1000 organizations worldwide and authored seven influential books, including Beyond Fundraising and the AAA Way to Fundraising Success. Her impact has been recognized with some of the sector's highest honors, including the Henry A. Rosso Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Ethical Fundraising, the AFP Distinguished fellow designation, and AFP's Global Fundraising Professional of the Year Award. We spoke about the arc of her life and work from her earliest memories as a fifth generation Californian to to her international travels and her most personal books to date.
- [01:27]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I am a fifth generation native Californian, but I have lived north and south both and even in the I was as a child I lived in Sacramento in the Valley and then I lived in. I was actually born in Southern California. I've lived in Southern California, but this is my home. This is, this is where I groove. This is, this is where I feel that I feel like me.
- [01:54]
Jay Frost
Five generations in one state is a lot. Especially it's a lot which is relatively young. So take me back a little bit. When did your family get?
- [02:05]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
1849. 1849. And these are on my mother's side. My father actually came to California the first time when he came to University of California at Berkeley. But my mother's family, the one side of the family, the Montfort side, he heard about the Gold Rush and he was not interested in the Gold Rush. He was interested in the business that the Gold Rush would generate. And so he did this arduous thing of sailing around the horn. He arrived in Sacramento in April of 1849 and he immediately went to work for what became Wells Fargo at that time had another company and they were the company that went up into the gold country, picked up the gold, brought it to the Assay House and then took care of it. And in the Wells Fargo Museum here in San Francisco, there's a huge bill of lading that is signed by H.L. montfort. So he did that. He left his wife in New York. They had lived in New York City. He left his wife there because they had two very small girls, little girls. And in 1853, so four years later, she packed up those girls who were like 2 and 4, I guess, or whatever. She sailed to the east coast of Panama, walked the immigrant trail across Panama with these two little girls on muleback. They were on mule back. She walked. And then a ship picked them up and took them to San Francisco. And he, by that time had settled in Sacramento. And so then she made this arduous trip from San Francisco to Sacramento and got there and was pretty stunned at wooden sidewalks. And the ratio of men to women was like 20 men for every one woman. She wasn't sure she was going to stay, but she did. And about nine months later, they had my great grandfather or great. Whatever. Anyway, so that's the one side, and then the other side, my mother's mother's side, my mother's father's side. What happened was that he was a farmer in Ohio, and he heard about the gold, so he came out alone. He left his wife and family there and came out alone, checked it out, came back and said, the real gold in California is in agriculture. He said, I've never seen such beautiful land. He convinced 100 farmers to sell their land, buy a wagon, and they successfully brought 100 wagons across in 1849.
- [05:05]
Jay Frost
Are you the family genealogist?
- [05:07]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
No, but my mother was. And so she was. She was the family storyteller. So I have the gift of her stories firmly lodged in my memory. I have a cousin who's actually a better historian on all this than I am.
- [05:23]
Jay Frost
But telling of stories is so important, not just in the field that you've been engaged in for so long, but just to life in general. And it sounds like you grew up with those stories.
- [05:35]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yes, I did. And in fact, I grew up in the house that was my grandfather's house. And my grandfather was a grower. He was a Stanford graduate, class of 1905, but he became a gentleman farmer. He was an orchardist. But I grew up in his house because it stayed in the family and it was everywhere. You could almost feel it when you walked in, just the appreciation for this heritage. And so, yeah, it's very. I really value.
- [06:19]
Jay Frost
Sounds like California was an attachment, not just of necessity, but it was a decision.
- [06:26]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I mean, well, and I think. I think California still is, you know, for many people. It's kind of. When I was the development director at the California Historical Society, the now Late director of the Historical Society said California was what happened when they tipped the map of the United States and all the loose pieces rolled in. Lots of adventurers, lots of rascals, you know, just like it was a place you could go that was so far away from those farms in Ohio or the streets of New York City that you could be anything you wanted to be.
- [07:09]
Jay Frost
I'm just imagining what it's like to grow up with a storyteller. I didn't have that. We had a lot of stories in my family, but to have kind of a native storyteller, my mother could pull it out.
- [07:19]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Like, you'd give her one word and it would until the day she died at 98. I mean, she corrected the afternoon before she died. In the evening, we were chatting in the living room, kind of, you know, know how you are. And we said something and she just called out from her bedroom and said, no, no, that wasn't the name. And then she gave us the correct name.
- [07:43]
Jay Frost
Are you one of a whole brood of kids?
- [07:46]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
No, there was just. I had one brother and he's gone. He died 15 years ago. Yeah. So it's just me carrying on that. And it's a tiny generation. It's interesting it's a tiny generation because, I don't know, it was a post World War II generation where a lot of people were having lots of kids, but not in our family. And so there was my brother and me, and then I have two first cousins on my mother's side and only one on my father's side.
- [08:12]
Jay Frost
Wow. So the weight of carrying those stories and then conveying them is.
- [08:18]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yeah. I'm grateful for my cousin, who really is. And she lives in Sacramento, so she's right near the. The heart of where all this happened, so. And she's very good with her grandchildren. Just saying. Now we're going to go to the museum and we're going to go to the archives, and you're going to, you know, see more about this family. So.
- [08:37]
Jay Frost
But you're not relying entirely on your cousin, because I understand that during COVID you did a deep dive, at least into your father's story.
- [08:44]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I did, and that's my father's World War II story. And my father was deployed. He was ordnance, but he was deployed in the frame of D Day. And so he arrived in England in October of 1943. After training, he was an officer. He graduated from Berkeley, and he was a commissioned officer because he was rotc. And so he re upped his commission and went in. And so when he arrived in England, they ended up in Hereford and as in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire. And they ended up in Hereford, outside of Hereford, in a little town called Morton on Lugg. Don't you just love the British names? Which very quickly became known as Morton in the mud because it never stopped raining. And they were in old World War I barracks. But anyway, he met the. This woman who had been evacuated from the south of England because there was the threat of the V2. The V2 rockets hadn't started yet, but there was the threat of them. And what happened was when the Germans would come in and bomb London, they would just strafe the south of England. They lived right on the channel. She and her mother lived right on the Channel. And so they were whisked out and forced to go north to stay away from the Channel anyway. And they met and it led to a lifelong relationship that was. It was love, but not how we think of love. It was deep respect. It was caring for each other's families. She married after the war. She married a man who was very, very involved in India. He was head of a British company in India. And they had three children and my parents had two. But it was the constant intersection. And for my father, kind of the theme of the novel. And I am rewriting it now as purely a novel. It was a mixed genre. And my five readers said one or the other. It's either, you know, your first person narrative or it is a novel. And it's better as a novel. I'm having more fun with it because I can write things that I know nothing about that just sound wonderful. And so what, you know, what happened was that all the way till the end of their lives, they stayed in touch. And my mother was not always happy about it. She inferred things that were really not so. And anyway, it was a wonderful thing I did this, as you say, it was such a deep dive. And thank goodness for the Internet. I mean, when you're confined at home during the pandemic, it's really good to be able to input images of 1943 Hereford and then images of the Bishop's palace, because the Bishop of Hereford played a big role in their story. And just, God, there were the pictures and there was all this information and I thought, wow, you know, this is so great.
- [12:28]
Jay Frost
I've got to ask you, writing something that's like that deeply personal, even now as a novel, was that a journey for you? I mean, are they. I mean, I can't imagine they were. If your mother and father maybe Had a little conflict over this.
- [12:44]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
They had a lot of conflict over it. And I was often in the eye of it, as actually were my children, who, you know, we would go every summer and visit them and some this would flare up. And I think what I came away from, Jay, was the idea that we make assumptions about relationships and even if one person may have a desperate longing for someone, because the tension in the novel, and I'm not as explicit as I was in the first version, because everybody told me I overstated it. Okay, thank you very much. It was the tension between duty and desire. My father was very duty bound. He was military. He was an engineer. He was a petroleum engineer and geologist. And everything was precision, and that's the way he liked it. And yet everything that Molly was, was, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, let's just go do it. Oh, do come. Do come and visit, you know, or, I'm coming to the US And I want to come and stay with you, you know, with my parents, which she did. You know, it was. There was this desire that was ignited in him periodically over the years, and my mother invited Molly to my father's 90th birthday. My father had had a series of strokes following a brutal automobile accident where a woman ran a red light and hit him going 35 miles an hour. And he was. It was a pretty hard three years from the time he was 87 till the time he died at 90. And I said, mother, I said, why are you inviting the fox into the chicken coop? And she said, okay. She said, you know, she's 82 and he's 90. I don't think anything. And my dad was pretty compromised. But she said, I want him to have closure because I think this is an open thing for him, and if he doesn't get closure on it, he'll just keep hanging on. And that was a huge thing for me to find because I have letters. I have my mother's letters, I have Molly's letters, I have my father's letters. And then I have some letters that my father wrote to Molly, because Molly's youngest daughter is like a little sister to me. And so she had some of those letters. But, yeah, it's. I have loved it. I think the way we sustain ourselves in the kinds of business that whatever business we're in, where we do our business is do we have a creative outlet? Do we have a way to plunge deep into ourselves and say what else is there? And for me, I have my photography and I have my writing, and most of the writing you're familiar with. I mean, it's these books. Seven books on, let's see, high impact philanthropy beyond fundraising. Okay, but that's expository writing. That's just getting a message out. This has been just wonderful. And I'm writing chapters now that it's a novel. I'm writing things about which I know nothing but I can imagine. So I have a new chapter in the book where it's before D Day, and it's Christmas, Christmas 1943. And my dad is in the BOQ and one of his other officers walks in and says, hey, what's the matter? What's that book you're holding? And my dad says, well, I trying to figure it out. He said, marion, my wife, sent this to me for Christmas. But he said, I don't understand why she would send me this book when we were waiting to go into the Normandy invasion. And it was a book about a person's adventure around the world. But it was the inscription that just said, I hope reading this will take you wherever you want to go. And the guy. And I've got the book. I know exactly what she wrote in the book. But then the guy says, God, doesn't she know the only place we want to go is home? You know, so that, you know, that I just made up because I thought it was a nice way to also show that there was this tension, you know, even. And my dad was so open about this friendship with Molly and her mother. She lived with her mother. And I mean, he would write my mother, I have long letters that he wrote to my mother.
- [17:44]
Jay Frost
The experience of people who were in the war at home and overseas, many didn't talk about it.
- [17:52]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yeah. And my father never talked about the war when he got back. Ever, ever, ever talk about the war. And that's a very light part of the book. I mean, light not in terms of humorous, but light in terms of the density of the text. Because what I know about him was they left Hereford on July 4th, so that was D day plus 26 or 28. And by the time they got to Portsmouth and down, because they'd had some issues on the way down with illness, apparently, of somebody in the battalion. And then he finally went in, they gave them the signal, they crossed. And because they were ordnance, they had trucks, they had jeeps, they had bomb, you know, bomb. I forget what you call it when it's. So they can basically de. Detonate a bomb. But then what happened? And I have this in a narrative from my father, a letter he wrote to one of my Children who asked him years later. And he said, we got there, we got to Omaha beach and then we couldn't land because the Battle of Saint Lo was still going on. There were destroyers in the Channel, there were airplanes overhead, there was live fire everywhere. And finally there was a break in it. He said, and we just got in. They said, go. And their mission was to go out to Cherbourg and create an ordnance depot because they had just chased the Germans out of Cherbourg. And then they followed Patton's army into Paris. And then he ended up in Cambrai, which is right on the Belgian border. And so after VE Day, he and his men went into Belgium, which was a mess because when the Germans left, they left, I mean, mines underneath. I mean, it was just awful. They slept in tomato fields, you know, without even tents or anything. It was. Anyway, it was quite a story. So anyway, that's. And then he went off to see her as soon as he could get a pass.
- [20:06]
Jay Frost
I have to ask you, what motivates you to write that story and to write it now? Because you just said you've written seven other books and I'm sure we'll talk about that. But you started, I think, in the study of journalism.
- [20:21]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I did.
- [20:23]
Jay Frost
And expository writing has a through line to that. This is a different kind of storytelling and it does seem like it's embedded in one aspect of journalism, which is this hunger for finding the real story beneath the story.
- [20:39]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
And I think that's a very interesting statement. I never thought of it and I believe growing up, I knew Molly very well. I mean, when I lived in Paris, Molly would come over and see me from England. And I mean, I just knew her well. I mean, we went to castles together. Her family had a property, has a property that is now on the, you know, the National Trust. And it's a boys school, but it was, you know, it's a gorgeous Tudor building where Queen Elizabeth danced on the lawn. I'm talking about Queen Elizabeth I. And left one slipper behind. We'll never know what happened to the other one. But I knew them and I knew them together. And what fascinated me was he was so different with her. One of the chapters is called should have Been Hill and that was originally what the book was going to be called, was should have Been Hill. Because I was visiting in France with a friend, traveling companion, and we went to see my. My father was in England helping my brother who lived in England, ostensibly. But really he was, I think, there to see Molly. And I mean, my dad was already like 78 years old. I mean, he was not like 43 years old, you know. And so we went off, we had a picnic in this little, wonderful little place where we had to climb over the stile and climb up the hill, and we had this picnic. And Molly, as well, was always just so gracious and fluttery and everything. And I. When we got back in the car, I said to Molly, because I journal, I said, molly, I said, what is the name of this place? I said, I want to put it in my journal. She looked at it and she said, I don't believe it has a name, but let's just call it should have been Hill. So I told Molly when she was. I think my dad had already died, so it was. She lived to be 94, and she was a bit younger than he was. And I took my granddaughter, who was 10, to see her, to meet her. And my granddaughter lives in France, and so she's fluent in both English and French, as is Molly. Oh, they had the best time just chatting, chatting, chatting. And I said, you know, Molly, I said, I'm going to write your story. And she said, over my dead body. And I said, I can wait.
- [23:23]
Jay Frost
That's one thing about writing. Memoir versus fiction. You. You did wait?
- [23:27]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I did. I waited. I waited. And she died in 2009, in December. And Mickey, her. Her granddaughter, who was my. My dear, dear friend, was with me in New York when we got word that Molly had died. And she was going to go home right away. And Mickey's husband said, why? He said, molly would love to think of you and Kay, you know, just kind of being there together. So, yeah, so it was. It was just something that was squatting on my shoulder for years, that I needed to write this story because it's so amazing.
- [24:06]
Jay Frost
And all along the path, of course, you had this other career.
- [24:11]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yes, I was earning money.
- [24:15]
Jay Frost
So for people who don't know and are listening to this conversation, it's, you know, seven books makes it sound like you just whipped them out on ChatGPT. That's not the way you wrote those books.
- [24:26]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
No. No.
- [24:29]
Jay Frost
So maybe you can take us a little bit through that journey, because I know that, again, you started by studying, among other things, as a writer, and then you went into the world of work, and you didn't enter fundraising directly. So what. Why. How did you end up here? And then. And then finding writing is one way to express yourself in this career.
- [24:52]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I. As you said, I was educated as a journalist. My degree is in journalism, and I have a master's in Education. Both of them are from Stanford. Some gap between them, because I was doing other things. And so what happened was that it was a lot of life is what happens when you think you know where you're going and then you end up taking a turn and it completely reveals, you know, the Oz that you were looking for. And so what happened to me briefly was that I had been a journalist, worked for a magazine television station and a publisher, and then I went into education. When I had children, I went into education, and then I became an educational administrator. And then in California, we passed Prop 13.
- [25:40]
Jay Frost
Oh, yes. And for those who don't know what it is, could you just give us a penance?
- [25:43]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
It was a change in the way schools were funded, and it froze the property tax, basically, so there was no incremental property taxes as property values increased, and therefore, the funding for schools was just completely ruined. And so we managed to hang on for about three or four years in the district I was in. But what was also happening was that it was declining enrollment because as the value of houses went up, people didn't move. And it was an elementary school district, K8, and, you know, they didn't have kids there anymore. The kids had gone to high school and then, you know, out. So I was rifted. I'm sympathizing with the people who are being riffed right now, because I know what that's like. And I, meanwhile, had been taking increased responsibility as a volunteer for Stanford in fundraising, and they really invested well in their volunteers. I was sent to programs and to training and to, you know, kind of meetings of other people who are working in it. And I really loved it. It was energizing. I really. I was a national chair of five different programs for Stanford and got their highest award for volunteer fundraising. And after I'd lost my job, I went to lunch with some of my friends from Stanford, and they said, have you ever thought of doing this professionally? I said, get paid for what I've been giving away. I said, what a concept. As it turned out, a job opened up that was an organization, a children's health organization that was adjacent to Stanford and whose board of directors looked like Stanford. In other words, it was all people that I knew. In fact, the board chair was a classmate of mine. I knew all these people, so they took a chance on me.
- [27:44]
Jay Frost
Well, you know, it's funny, because the impression I have of Stanford is that it's, among other things, an incubator for these adjacent institutions with this network of people who are working very hard and much of it has benefited, of course, the Bay Area, but it goes much more broadly around the world.
- [28:01]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
That's right.
- [28:02]
Jay Frost
That was your world.
- [28:03]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
And more recently, of course, it's technology, but at that time, a lot of it was the healthcare, which is how they grew to be this behemoth healthcare organization. And. And we were this little tiny organization that basically offered educational, psychological, neurological intervention for children who had what at that time was inappropriately called, you know, the hidden handicaps. And of course, that language, thank God, is gone, but it is children who are neurodivergent and who also have emotional issues. But it was very aligned with Stanford Children's Hospital, which later became the Lucile Packard and now is back being Stanford Children's Hospital because they don't carry the Packard name anymore. But, yeah, so that's how it happened. And I've never looked back. I mean, this has just been such a joyful career for me. I've met the most amazing people to.
- [29:01]
Jay Frost
Those times, even working as a volunteer fundraiser with, I assume, classmates and different programs at Stanford, because Stanford was also kind of an incubator of modern fundraising.
- [29:12]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Practice the way I think it actually was.
- [29:15]
Jay Frost
So what was that like, being on that side of it? Just, you know, as you say, doing it without being paid, but obviously doing it at a very high level, very high level, very committed to community. What. What did it look like?
- [29:26]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Well, it looked like what I do now. And that's. Your question is so good because I've never. I've never expressed this idea because it just now came to me, the two things I did for Stanford that got me kind of the recognition to be. Continue to be moved into increasing positions. This is, aside from my work at the Children's Health Council, was that I'm a very good strategist and planner. And so they love that with these different programs, because each of. In the annual fund there are programs for. Usually they're bracketed by the amount people give. You know, I mean, it's like the quad program, the inner quad, the, you know, I mean. And the other thing is, is that I became very skilled at asking for large gifts and how I did it, because I was terrified. I mean, the whole idea, because I'm not a big donor, because I chose a different path in my life, but I was able to be a proportional asker. As the late Hank Rosso used to say, the proportional asker is the one who stretches and ask somebody else to stretch. But my stretch might be 10,000 and your stretch might be a million. And I did that well, and I did it with people who then apparently talked about it. And so that is what really, I think did this solidifying of my role as a volunteer at Stanford. And then I maintained that activity even while I was development director, first at Children's Health Council, then I was at Santa Clara University in their major gifts and major in plan giving. So I shifted completely to the higher level. And then my last job as a development director was at the California Historical Society, which was, of course, everything. It was everything from the board work. And that's where I got a lot of my insights into boards. Two places. One was Children's Health Council, which was the best board I've ever worked with in my life, really. And the. The California Historical Society, which had a huge board, 49 people, as in 1849. And, you know, one month it was in San Francisco, one month in la, and you were constantly. Anyway, it was quite a challenge. So I. I think the other thing that I have done well, and I don't know where it came from, is that I can have an experience or read something and I can draw from it what I need for a new idea or a new way to look at something.
- [32:15]
Jay Frost
Where do you think that comes from?
- [32:18]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I think it's the way my mind works, because my mind tends to knit things together to read something and then say, oh, wait a minute, I just read something like that a couple of days ago. Wait, let's see what the match is here. I have a very good memory, and my kids just, oh, they say, mom, how do you remember that?
- [32:43]
Jay Frost
Jerry Panis used to say that memory is a muscle and that you can exercise it, make it better. I don't know if you found that to be true. Maybe you never needed to. Maybe the muscles were already in place.
- [32:53]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I think. Well, I think I use it all the time. I think that because I think when you're a consultant, as I am now and have been for 30 some years, or I guess almost 30 years, is that I get off the phone with one and then 10 minutes later I'm on a phone or zoom with the next one. I have to compartmentalize. But the same time, I think it's important to see patterns, particularly as those patterns indicate the larger conditions for philanthropy at that time. I mean, right now, we've been going through a very interesting and almost contradictory passage. The Giving USA figures that came out in June for 2024 were astounding. And yet there is so much psychic poverty among organizations with which I talk that it's just. It's Almost overwhelming.
- [33:59]
Jay Frost
What do you mean by psychic poverty?
- [34:00]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Psychic poverty means that even though conditions might be improving or better, or they may have raised what they need, they still feel poor. And I first was aware of this thing called psychic poverty during the recession when organizations, even after they started recovering, and particularly around here, because, I mean, San Francisco is like the northern tip of the Silicon Valley. And in fact, I mean, big companies like Salesforce and Meta are right here. I mean, they're here in San Francisco and they're also down the peninsula. But there is that psychic poverty that, like this is going to last. I'm not sure we could count on this. A lot of planning was done not from a position of strength, but from a position of how do we prevent another crash?
- [35:01]
Jay Frost
But you can't.
- [35:02]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
No, you cannot. And that's what I would tell them. I said, these are external economic things that are out of our control. So what we have to do, and I hate this phrase, we have to get over it and move on. So as I look now at organizations that I'm working with that are really in three different categories post pandemic, they're either still wallowing in psychic poverty for no reason at all, they're slightly encouraged and beginning to think, or they're just saying, wow, let's go for it. There's all this stuff going on. And then, of course, you layer on the changes in the federal funding which then drifts down into the state and in California. Getting back to the uniqueness of California again, is that our governor had written out a sizable infusion of funds for the arts before the changes happen, and he wrote it back in into the budget. So that has been a big relief. But I worry sometimes that our sector, after all, we're based on optimism, right? We think we can fix it and that our sector is too quick to say, oh, tgio, thank God, that's over. And instead of saying, what do we need to do to be ready for the next tremor that happens here? I think that one of the biggest things that I have seen over these 30 or 40 years is that where we're going to have to make almost the seismic shift is that we're going to have to think, are we serving the problem or are we solving it? Do we really want to solve the problem that we are addressing, or are we content to serve it? Because that way we stay in business and it gets to almost like a marketing issue, because the old drill and hole story, you know, why do people buy a Black and Decker drill when they buy a drill? Because they want a drill. No, they don't. They buy a drill because they want a hole. And Seth Godden, who is this amazing marketing person, I'm sure you're familiar with him, in his new little book called this Is Marketing, which I just love. I keep it right here by the side of my computer, he takes it one step further. And he said, but it's more than just wanting to make a hole. You want to put up the shelf so that your wife will get off your back about that shelf that she's been asking for for four years. And not only that, your family or friends are coming over for a barbecue and they're all going to say, oh, my God, Jay, that shelf, it's fabulous. So I think we fear solving the problem because we don't want to lose the engagement we get. But what if we could engage people in that solved problem in a different way? And I'm going to be giving a keynote next week at a conference. And then we're doing the conference again in the first week in August in New York. And then I'm also speaking at a conference in Arizona in August. And I think that what is critical right now is that we need to come together, we need to consolidate. Because even though the numbers from Giving USA were staggering in terms of their size, we don't know what's going to happen this year. We don't know what is going to happen. And we cannot bank on the fact that there's all this money out there and people gave it last year. Instead, I think what we need to do is say, where can we get together? And I've often used the story that right after Hurricane Katrina, the AFP chapter asked a whole bunch of us, Mal Warwick and some others to come down to speak at the AFP conference there. They, you know, they clearly had hotel rooms to offer us because nobody else was there. We paid our own airfare. And but one of the. And we visited with nonprofits who had all kind of corralled in some buildings that had not been, you know, destroyed by the flood, and what had happened in New Orleans was a third of the population was gone, as we know, but not a third of the gay population. And so the man at that time who was head of no aids, which is New Orleans aids, got the rest of the group, there were five other AIDS organizations, got them together and said, you know, let's come together, let's consolidate. And, you know, you do research and you do food and you do all these things. Well, but why don't we do it under one umbrella. Umbrella. And it's made a huge difference. And likewise, there were seven different land trusts in Ohio. And they got the idea, what if we came together so that the rivers and the mountains and the meadows and the farmland all talk to each other. And it doesn't mean losing your identity. It means losing your redundancy, which is in your fundraising, in your overhead costs. And I remember years ago, Jay, I mean, it was so long ago, and there were four and little tiny environmental organizations in a town down the peninsula. And I was, you know, I just thought I was pretty super smart. And I just went down and I said to them, you know, why are two people under one roof? You know, why aren't you doing shared services? Because shared services is a big, big deal then still is. But I mean, it was hot. And they looked, they said, what? What? Share our records, Sarah? No, no, no. And I didn't get the job, obviously. I did not get that consulting job. Five years later, I was at a conference and I met this woman. I said, oh. I said, whatever happened? Well, you know, we brought it all together under one roof. And we.
- [41:53]
Jay Frost
I have to ask you, Kate, when you think about all this, you started by talking about this kind of psychic poverty, which is one of the reasons, if not the principal reason, why this happens. And people focus on the feature, not the benefit, like the shelf on the wall. But where are speaking of bringing people together. And you've been on both sides of this equation. You talked about that. As you know, your volunteer work at Stanford those years ago. Where are the donors in all this? Don't they also expect us to come together? I mean, what are you hearing from people who are considering whether or not to support our work? Like you said, those numbers are staggering. There is giving going on, but especially at the top end, not so much at the bottom. Would donors like to see us get our act together and come together?
- [42:38]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yes, they would. They'd like to see us solve a problem. And that is when I look at the giving, particularly of Melinda French Gates and of Scott McKenzie Scott, they are seeking solutions. So look at what they've done. I think it's Mackenzie Scott that has done the most amazing work there with Boys and Girls Clubs. She is infusing them with money so that they will come together. And they've always had a good national organization. I've spoken at their national conference, and it's a. It's a very simpatico organization. But it's the duplication of services and the failure to kind of have the what are the shared services you can draw down on, even as a national organization? And I rather suspect that although that giving is always very confidential, but where it goes is not confidential. I think what they're looking for, they're looking for results. And we give them results. I think we give. Let's set Boys and Girls Club and mackenzie Scott aside. We tend to give results that are about the organization. What they want is, how have you changed my community? And this is where I think we are still myopic. We still think it's about us. And you're familiar enough with my work to know that. I mean, that's one of my principles, that fundraising isn't about money, it's about relationship. And get over it, because it's not about you. And there was a charming little story that happened years ago when I was traveling in Myanmar, which nobody can go to now, and our plane was delayed in Mandalay. And so the guide said, well, she said, let me take you out to my village, which was wonderful because we really got to see something that wasn't pre prepared by Smithsonian for us to see. And so we had to walk into the village because there were no roads. You just kind of walked on this path. And there was a school there. And the school was typical Asian school in that it was rote. And so everybody, you know, was talking all at the same time. And so we chatted with the. The guy spoke perfect English, and he said, oh, if I just had another wing to the school, if I just had another couple of classrooms. So one of our travelers said, well, what would it cost? And the guy smiled and he said, 100 U.S. 100.
- [45:25]
Jay Frost
Not 100.
- [45:26]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
$100. 100 million. $100 U.S. this was 2001, $100 U.S. and he said, but I can't take dollars because our government doesn't allow it. So it's got to be in our currency, or I forget what other currency they would take. Maybe it was Thai. I think it was a Thai baht. And so we kind of pulled what we had. And then the second group came out after we went back to the airport, and then the second group came out and he said the same thing. And by golly, we came up with the equivalent of $120. Our guide took it to him after she got us safely on the plane back to Bangkok. We all sat on the plane. We're never going to hear that, you know, about that again. Well, about four months later, he sent this letter to the Smithsonian to be sent to us, talking about the impact Not a bit about the wing. I have no idea what the wing looked like. For all I know, it could have looked like a bird wing. But the impact and what it's meant to the children, and that's what we don't do enough of. We are always talking about what we need. What we need, what we need. I think we exhaust our donors.
- [47:02]
Jay Frost
You have been consulting for a while.
- [47:04]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yes, I have.
- [47:06]
Jay Frost
And preaching this message, not just in the books, but with your clients, those who are willing to make a change and do what they need to do. So you've seen both why that occurs. You were describing it, but you've also seen what can happen when they make a commitment to that change. I'm wondering where that decision really occurs. You just talked a few minutes ago about the board, the best board you were ever a part of, and then contrasted it to maybe other experiences. I know that not all of life is top down or bottom up, for that matter. But is there. Is there an inflection point in our sector where we can say, that's it. That's the button we need to push so that people will do this thing that you've described.
- [47:48]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
If, for me, if a person will accept a relationship with the organization, a genuine relationship with an organization, that's when I see the evolution. I'm on a board here in San Francisco. We have a fantastic development director. She's new, but she's extremely skilled. She comes from a big, big background, and I've worked with her for years. The CEO of this organization does a coffee hour once a week, once a month, virtually. And she's always there to kind of see who's on the screen. And there was somebody she'd never seen before. And being an excellent development director, people are registered for this. It's got a name and it's a definitive program. She called him. Well, let me tell you that he is extraordinary. But what she has done is build a true relationship. She has had him meet other trustees, given him access to the CEO and to the board chair. He has lots of ideas about philanthropy because he comes from a very wealthy philanthropic family and he's just moved up from Southern California. And he ended up at the end of year, fiscal year, offering two challenge gifts, one to the congregation and one to the trustees. And we more than met them, and he was there, but he is so involved. And I think that's the piece we miss. You know, if you go through the sequence in marketing, it's awareness, involvement. I've forgotten all the steps. I used to know them by heart. But he is very involved. And we are also willing. I've met with him. We are also willing to hear him. Not just to listen, but to hear him. And he's had some big criticisms and some bold ideas, but he's really getting involved.
- [50:18]
Jay Frost
You just talked about the difference between hearing and listening. And we've had a big discussion in our field for a while, but especially the last few years, especially during COVID when you've devoted so much time to kind of listening to the fabric of whole lives, actually, in your own family. But one of those debates, the biggest debate, I think, has been about how whether we should or we shouldn't be listening to the people who can make this big difference and whether or not there are some people who have too much power over others. And I wonder if maybe that's exacerbating this inability to hear one another.
- [50:52]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
I think that's a very interesting idea. I'm bullish on listening. I'm on the board of an orchestra. It's a regional orchestra, but it's got national prominence because it is of the kind of music that it creates. And we, because we were dark for two years, we had not listened. Oh, we sent them 140 virtual messages with little snippets of music and interviews with the musicians, but we didn't ask them anything. We didn't listen to what they were saying. And so when we were trying to put things together to get back into the theater and into performing, and I said, let's do some listening. And we did it the traditional way, the clipboard in the. In the. In the foyer during intermission. We did it electronically and we did it by phone. And did we get an earful?
- [51:59]
Jay Frost
What were they saying?
- [52:00]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Oh, they said, you know, where were you during the pandemic? Well, we were virtual. Yeah, but couldn't you have picked up the phone to see how we were? I've been a subscriber for 30 years.
- [52:10]
Jay Frost
They really felt that neglect, I guess.
- [52:13]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Well, they did, because we have always had the brand of being this small, very nimble orchestra that we are always the family we would refer. When we did a big campaign, it was. They were part of the Philharmonia family. Well, where were we when that family may have been suffering? And on the other hand, the other board that I'm on, the. The cathedral board here, in the first month of the shutdown, they called every single parishioner. Every single one, yeah, the team did, you know, the. From the. Across the clergy. And it's not that big a team, but they just divided up the list, and there's about. I guess there's about 1500 families. And they called them all. So we did not reach out. We didn't hear them. We didn't hear what they were saying. And we expected them just to come back, and we expected them just to give. Well, this year they are giving. But let me tell you that we have done the most amazing personal outreach to people. Absolutely. We have called them, we have dropped them notes. We have, you know, at the beginning of the season last year, and for all the performances, we had a little card on their seat, you know, that just said, welcome, we hope you enjoy. I mean, and all that sounds kind of hokey, but you know what? It makes people feel good. And isn't that our job? Shouldn't I feel good about my investment in the community? And, you know, I mean, I have just pounded on that word investment since I wrote Beyond Fundraising. And people were just shocked. They. I mean, I got calls after that book came out. What do you mean putting the word investment on the front of a book about fundraising? I said, well, I said, read the title. The title is Beyond Fundraising. And I said, Beyond Fundraising is investment. And that's where we have to go. Because what is my return? And it's not, sorry about that hand. Well, what happens. Is that it when I hold my hand up, It. Yeah, anyway, is that the return on that investment is feeling good. It's joy, it's gratitude. Also, here's where I think we are very, very deficient. One organization that I work with, I said, so I understand you're having trouble, you know, getting people back again. It was a performing arts organization. I said, tell me how you thank people. Well, we send a personal letter to people who give $2,500 or more. I said, and for the rest, well, you know, we just send them, you know, the computer generated acknowledgement. And I said, you know what you're going to do? I said, you're going to write to everybody. I don't care if they gave $5 on top of their subscription, and every single board member had to take about 40 letters. And I mean, they printed the letters on nice Monarch stationery and they addressed the envelope before they gave it to the board members. And then the board members added a note. But I think it's made a difference there because they're seeing a surge in engagement. But none of us likes to feel neglected. And I think that part of the criticism historically about philanthropy over the years is that you're only interested in Me for my money. And you know that old saying, you know, if you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice. And the point is, is that when are we going to fully engage them as true partners in solving a problem? And if the problem in the arts is just to maintain the stability of the arts, that's the problem you help solve. How can we keep the arts stable in our society? Something like cancer research or AIDS or HIV or anything like that is going to be easier because you can track it. My friends who founded the Alzheimer's program that has really identified and worked with existing researchers. It's called Cure Alzheimer's. They came to me long ago, before they started, and they said, tell us the organizations that are working on Alzheimer's, because we've got this foundation. That's where we want to put our money. Because both their parents, parents on both sides had had Alzheimer's. So I gave him the name of several organizations, and he came back and he said, no way. They're not making any progress. And he said, we're going to create another organization. I said, oh, God, please, no. And he said, I have to. So what they do is they work with existing researchers, and because they had this foundation, they were able to not have any overhead. They were able to. To absorb the overhead in the foundation. And they have had, you know, they had the most amazing results. But that's what they wanted, and that's what the people who invest in them want. I had a former board member of an organization I worked with for many years who died of Alzheimer's last year. And I noticed with interest that the memorial gifts were not her church affiliations or anything else. It was Cure Alzheimer's. And I think people want solutions. We fear solutions. Because after all, I mean, if we solve the problem, then we might go out of business. Yeah. I mean, in an ideal world, it would be our places of worship, our universities, our hospitals, the keystone. The keystone organizations, the arts. But I think our arts, our smaller arts organization, should figure out ways to do that shared services model. They don't have to lose their identity. They just have to lose their overhead.
- [58:31]
Jay Frost
I do want to ask you about this through an even broader lens, because we started talking about California, then we talked about really this is going on across the country. But you just mentioned Myanmar a few minutes ago. I know you were away on a trip just recently. You travel and you don't just travel for you. I know you did that too. But you also meet with people across Europe. You've served on those Boards and trained people across the world. CEEE I think is among them.
- [58:58]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yeah, CEE is coming up in October. Yeah.
- [59:00]
Jay Frost
And so I know that my bias is that there's generosity everywhere, but it doesn't take the same forms for a whole variety of reasons. In part because we don't necessarily have professionalization of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy and fundraising, but it does exist everywhere. But the things you're describing, the impediments that we kind of place on ourselves, are you seeing them in environments where maybe it's more like the wild west of philanthropy? Are organizations taking.
- [59:32]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Yeah, I'm seeing it to a lesser degree. In fact, before I got on with you, I was on with a guy, Darrell Upsal, who actually lives in Spain, and his organizations in Spain, you probably know Darrell. And we're talking about what we're going to be doing at the IFC this year, which is those of us who are very experienced are going to be offering Ask the Expert and doing some sessions with people who are rising in this field. And what you see is the good thing you see is that they observe our issues and they're much better at not doing them. You know, they, they don't allow themselves to be kind of trapped in the, kind of the, the, the process because it has evolved. So it's like you've got this continuum. I started back here. They can pick it up here where they can. And one of the sessions that I'm doing at the CEE kind of the Central and Eastern European Conference is with a young man who just finished his Fulbright at University of Oregon. He's from Romania and I mentored him for a year as part of that leaders program. And we're doing a session on principles you should retain and the things that can help you in the moment, but don't sacrifice the important things in figure out how to use AI not as the way you maintain relationships, but every once in a while and free that time so you can have the true relationship. The issues that we see in Central and Eastern Europe are different. There is more of a built in bureaucracy just in their countries because of the heritage of totalitarianism that they endured, whether it was socialism or communism or fascism. And so they have that, but they also have some because they have a lack of the knowledge that we have evolved. So we're here on our evolution. They pick us up right here. And that's what to me was so refreshing about Australia. And I've been to Australia 22 times because I did so much work there. And Hank basically inspired the center, Hank Rosso, basically inspired the center for Philanthropy at Queensland University of Technology, which really is for all of Australia. I mean, people from all over come. But again, you pick up the trip at mile 60 instead of mile 0. And so the learning that has been aggregated is helpful, not to dismiss it. In fact, in building this program I'm going to be doing with Laszlo, we're not going to dismiss these things, but we're going to say this is what you need to know about them, is that at the end of the day, it's going to be the relationships that matter. Our Leaders of Tomorrow program, you mentioned about the profession we. It's a leadership development program. It's not a leadership training program. It's development, developing their leadership skills. It starts with leadership of self, needless to say, and then it's leadership of community, and then leadership of the organization. And then the last is leadership of profession. And that's the biggest struggle for them because there is no profession as such in many of these countries. And we've had people from well beyond the post Soviet countries. I mean, we've had people from Brazil, we've had people from Africa. But I think that where we benefit now is that, first of all, communication is so easy. Best practices are so known and communicated, and if we can only get people to search for results rather than just techniques that feel good to them. And that's where the artistry of development comes in. And I. I get frustrated sometimes. I was saying to Darrell this morning, you know, it's just like I said, I'm so tired of mechanics. I want artists. I want people who are going to see the blank canvas or see the empty dance floor and imagine what could be on it.
- [64:20]
Jay Frost
Okay, this is quite a journey. So where is that journey going for you? It sounds like you've already again, pulled out one of the many canvases out of your closet and painted on it. And that's this new book. But what else is coming ahead?
- [64:39]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
Because you're going, I'm in a mode where I'm really giving back as much as I can. I'm mentoring. I. You know, you've opened up LinkedIn, and usually it's the same stuff, you know. And then here's this young man from. Well, he lives now in Kenya, but he's from Congo and he's a refugee. And he has really pulled himself up to where and he's found it. He's concerned about the refugees not getting work. And so he's created an organization and he became familiar with my work. Somehow and just wrote to me, and he said, would you mentor me? So I'm mentoring Isaac an hour every month, and he tells me what he wants. So this Friday is going to be on volunteering because his volunteers are losing their, you know, kind of their. Their excitement about this. And I feel if I can give back. And, you know, Thursday I'm having lunch with the young woman from the theater company and who had Beyond Fundraising as her textbook when she was getting her master's at nyu. And I think if I can give those gifts, then what I have worked so hard to create and strengthen will not be gone when I am. And I think that's the way I look at it. And in a way, it is rather like the book, because, you know, that's a book. I remember a very, very good friend of mine who was extremely successful in the banking business. I mean, beyond successful. And he wrote a book that was called the Soul of the Corporation. This is after writing 15 textbooks on banking. I mean, if you want to cure your insomnia. And so he wrote this book called the Soul of the Corporation, and it was both for profit corporations and the non profits that he had been involved in. And I said, what inspired you to write that book? And he said, I didn't want to die with those words inside me. So, you know, this book, which is now called and I'll give you this, you can puzzle over. The book is now called the Butterfly, the Farthing, and Omar Khayyam.
- [67:13]
Jay Frost
Wow.
- [67:14]
Kay Sprinkle Grace
And that it's all in the book. And why. The Butterfly, the Farthing, and Omar Khayyam. And I'm still finding out things, but I have a couple of other books. I have a memoir that my kids are just insisting that I write. And then I have another book about my travels, which is called Take Luggage Not Baggage, which is what I've learned over the years. So I've got promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. And part of the way that I stay renewed is by being able to share with people coming along some of the knowledge, the learning that I have had. And it's not to save them the experience of screwing up, but it is to tell them that if they do, you can still pull truth and learning out of even the worst experience.
- [68:14]
Jay Frost
Well, that's it for this episode of the PM podcast. You can learn more about kay@kaygrace.org Our thanks to our sponsor, Donor Search, the world leader in AI powered fundraising intelligence solutions for the nonprofit sector. Our producer is Jack Frost, and our theme music is Moving out moving in by Jay Taylor, and it's provided courtesy of Epidemic Sound. If you like what you heard, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen. Check out our sister shows, Front Lines of Social Good and How to Raise. And come back next weekend for another conversation with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me.