Talk To Almost Anyone: A Conversation with Tim Wilson

Summary

The PM Podcast

Episode Summary: Talk To Almost Anyone – A Conversation with Tim Wilson

Host: Jay Frost
Guest: Tim Wilson, Founder & Host of "People and Fundraising"
Date: December 20, 2025

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Overview

This episode features a candid, expansive conversation with Tim Wilson, a prominent prospect development leader and host of the "People and Fundraising" podcast. Jay Frost delves into Tim's personal and professional path—starting from his imaginative childhood in New England, formative family relationships, career journey through higher ed and healthcare fundraising, and his passion for connecting with the people behind philanthropy. Interwoven are stories of meaningful mentors, pivotal career changes, the importance of memory and family, and a deep dive into what drives authentic human connection—both professionally and personally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life, Imagination, and Star Wars

• Formative Years: Tim grew up in Massachusetts, with a vivid imagination shaped during childhood, often fueled by Star Wars and casual games like pretending to be a teacher or baseball player
 [01:51–04:16]
• Family Influence: His father, a stable and imaginative presence, worked at Bridgewater State University, instilling the value of contentment and imagination.

  “He would drive around and comment on, 'oh, well, if I lived in this house, I'd have this much more of a commute...' Just sort of imagining different flavors of life.” – Tim Wilson [05:07]

2. Heritage, Memory, and Collecting Family History

• Cataloging the Past: Tim keeps binders full of family mementoes, like letters, report cards, and notes, prompted partly because his parents lost much of their own family history through frequent moves.

  “I have a very strong suspicion that these binders are a way to reset family chronology.” – Tim Wilson [14:32]

• Significance: For Tim, both the physical objects and the memories they represent matter:

  “Having Star Wars action figures out...reminds me of, you know, the emotion of child wonder and fun.” [15:10]

3. Personal Growth, Fulfillment, and Career Transitions

• Midlife Reflection: Tim describes a moment of crisis at Harvard Business School, feeling unfulfilled and "dying on the vine," leading to a pivotal career move to Utah:

  “My midlife crisis...would have been we were going to sell our home, I was going to quit my job, we’re going to move to Utah with no plan and dream it all up again, just like U2 did...‘We’ve got to go away and dream it all up again.’” [22:11, referencing Bono]

• Family’s Support: Tim’s wife’s steadfast belief in him played a vital role through these transitions, evidenced in her handwritten notes and encouragement:

  “I believe in you, I believe in us...I know how hard you have worked to make this happen.” [20:32]

4. The Power of Connection: Teachers & Mentors

• Teacher Influence: One of Tim's most influential early experiences was his kindergarten teacher, George Mitchell, who shaped not only Tim but many others through deep, individual connection. Tim honored his legacy by interviewing his classmates and presenting a commemorative book to Mitchell's family:

  “He literally got down on each student’s level...he didn’t believe in teaching by a manual.” [26:32]
  “It was a way to honor him and also to show his family that, you know, he’s still widely admired.” [30:05–33:33]

• Professional Mentors:

  • Val Roberts (“took a chance on me...encouragement, confidence, their sometimes righteous shaking of my shoulders” [47:21])
  • Tim Enman (“He gave me a spark in my career that carries to this day...someone else seeing something I had of value to contribute” [50:18–52:27])

5. Career Path & Prospect Development

• Findings Fulfillment in Research:

  • Started in prospect research at Harvard Business School after helping a frontline fundraiser, recognizing the appeal of storytelling and narrative (“How do I craft a narrative about who this prospect is…” [42:12])
  • Learned that even at top institutions, embracing change and understanding individuals’ stories is critical—not all “HBSer’s” followed expected paths [43:31]

• Leadership in New Environments:

  • Led and built prospect development operations at Intermountain Healthcare and later at Weber State University (“I got to build the prospect development shop from really the ground up” [58:37])
  • Valued the opportunity to stretch professionally and for his family to have a safer, more stable environment

6. Personal Values and Philosophy

• Relationships & Curiosity: Regret about not connecting more deeply with colleagues in his early years led to a personal transformation—now he seeks to connect and learn from everyone he meets.

  “Relocating for a job cracked open who I was as a person and as a co-worker.” [64:44]
  “[My podcast] is also proving to myself that I can talk to almost anyone, and for a lot of my life, I couldn’t say that.” [80:30]

7. The "People and Fundraising" Podcast—Mission and Impact

• Origin: Sparked by a desire to understand the professional and personal journeys of peers in nonprofit work, and by a regret of not knowing earlier colleagues better [67:35–67:44]
• Approach: Conversation-driven, question list provided in advance but embracing tangents (“Well, no surprises on paper. We often do have tangents which are great.” [79:40])
• Aim: Spotlight diverse roles, particularly in nontraditional and small nonprofits; strive to feature underrepresented voices (e.g., goal to interview 40 people of color in a row) and bring in international guests [76:14–79:17]
• Notable Moment: Marcy Romney’s story of children in Malawi leaning through open windows to hear lessons—profoundly moved Tim, highlighting global disparities and the impact of passion in nonprofit work [73:27–75:53]

8. Identity: Past and Present, and the Star Wars Analogy

• Youthful Inspiration: As a child, identified with Han Solo’s sense of adventure
• Now: Relates to Luke Skywalker—navigating expectations, generational pressures, and personal choices as both child and parent:

  “As a young kid, I was drawn to the adventurism of Han Solo...Now I can identify with Luke Skywalker...facing pressure from his aunt and uncle to stay on the farm, but wanting to go off and see the world.” [81:25–84:04]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On learning from others:

  “For me, what I would get—why do I do it? I just enjoy spending 30 minutes, 45 minutes learning about someone and genuinely seeing where the conversation goes.” – Tim Wilson [79:40]

• On the gift of memory and emotion:

  “The thing I remember, it’s tied to an emotion. And I think certainly as I get older...I want to remember the last moment of a piggyback ride or, you know, a baseball toss in the backyard.” – Tim Wilson [11:40]

• On honoring mentors:

  “If there’s been a mentor or someone who has opened a door for you, a handwritten note—it makes a tremendous difference to that recipient.” – Tim Wilson [52:27]

• On the core of prospect research:

  “How do I take the information I can find and craft a narrative about who this prospect is and what funding needs we have that may be attractive to this person based on what we know about—And I loved that…” – Tim Wilson [42:12]

• On change and reinvention:

  “Either they are actively looking to make a change or change comes to them. And that is definitely a commonality of most of these conversations.” – Tim Wilson [71:09]

• On seeing oneself and being seen:

  “A lot of the commonalities of the people I was going to mention...they saw something in me that I did not see. And because of their encouragement, their confidence…they’ve certainly propelled me to where I am today.” – Tim Wilson [47:21]

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Major Timestamps

• Childhood, Star Wars & Family: [01:35–10:45]
• Cataloging Memory, Family Records, and Imagination: [12:42–15:50]
• Career Reflection & Transition to Utah: [19:00–24:25]
• Remembering a Teaching Mentor & Classmate Interviews: [24:47–33:54]
• Prospect Research; Finding Fulfillment in Storytelling: [39:25–46:03]
• Mentorship and the Power of Being 'Seen': [47:21–52:27]
• Moving to Utah: Family and Professional Considerations: [55:00–58:37]
• Building New Development Programs (Weber State & Intermountain): [58:37–64:11]
• The ‘People and Fundraising’ Podcast—Origins & Aspirations: [67:35–80:30]
• Star Wars Characters—Personal Analogy: [81:20–84:04]

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Closing Reflection

The heart of this episode is Tim’s belief in the redemptive, connective power of genuine conversation and paying homage to those who shape us. He urges listeners to foster curiosity, treasure memory, honor mentors—and to realize that talking to “almost anyone” can open doors not just in career, but in our own self-understanding.

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For more from Tim Wilson, listen to "People and Fundraising" on all major podcast platforms.

Transcript

[A]

For me, what I would get. Why do I do it? I just enjoy spending 30 minutes, 45 minutes learning about someone genuinely seeing where the conversation goes. I do. I always give them questions ahead of time so they had no surprises. But, well, no surprises on paper. We often do have tangents which are great, I think. I think for me, it's also proving to myself that I can talk to almost anyone and for a lot of my life, I couldn't say that.

[B]

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. Tim Wilson is the founder and host of People and Fundraising, the podcast spotlighting the people who fuel the nonprofit sector. With more than two decades in prospect development across higher education and healthcare, including leadership roles at Harvard Business School, Intermountain Healthcare, and now Weber State University, Tim brings deep expertise in data research and donor strategy. He also serves on the Board of Directors of APRA International, reflecting a long standing commitment to advancing the profession. In this episode, we trace Tim's journey from growing up in New England to building a new life and career in Utah, explore what drives his passion for elevating the voices behind philanthropy, and discover which Star wars character best captures who he is today.

[C]

So, Tim, I'm just going to begin by asking you about something that we did not prepare to talk about and that is Star Wars.

[B]

Awesome.

[C]

So what's the deal with Star Wars? It's all around behind you. It's is that some kind of touchstone? Is that family or is that you?

[A]

That's a great question, Jay. It's me. So I was two when the first Star wars came out. My dad took me to the theater. We didn't last very long. I obviously didn't know what really was going on, but it stuck with me as I got older in my early elementary school days and there were two more movies, a lot of my friends were into it, so it was something to bring me together with friends and a very pivotal marker of interest and fun in my, in my early years. So being able to relive that in a sense with my own boys, they're now 14 and almost 12. But when new content was developed in the late 90s, early 2000s and beyond, to be able to sit down and watch it or play with my old action figures and there's two of them above my head was very meaningful for me. Really tapped into sort of personal identity and bringing me back in a tangible Way bringing me back to a time I can't actually access. I'm. I'm no longer five or six, but I could feel, in a sense, like I was.

[C]

What's special about that kind of time in your life when you're five or six?

[A]

The world, at least for me, the world was just full of imagination. And there were no boundaries to my imagination. And I have a very good memory, always have. And also kind of creatively having an outlet to think about, you know, what if I were in a Star wars set? Or what if I were a major league baseball player? And, you know, these are my favorite players. I can name them. I can name them now, but, you know, just imagining a different life, and I've always kind of drawn to that. We get. We're blessed with one life. Even within that, there are limits and constraints on our time and our energy and whatnot. So very grateful for this one life. It also makes me think and imagine, you know, what else could I do or would I do?

[C]

I'm imagining what it's like to take your child to their first movie. Was it your first movie at the age of two? Yes. And obviously you don't remember it, despite your great memory and recall, but it says something about your dad, doesn't it, that he was willing to introduce this kind of big, amazing world of fantasy to his young son. Were you, first of all, were you the only child at that point?

[A]

I'm the oldest of two, and yes, I was. My sister was born a year later, so 1978. She actually now lives outside Baltimore, and my parents are still in southeastern Massachusetts, where I'm from.

[C]

Okay, all right, so you and I know we'll dig into that, but. But your father sounds like kind of a special guy to have done that at that early an age.

[A]

Absolutely. And I think. Well, I know even into my teenage years, we had three ways to bond. One was going to the movies, another was playing catch in the backyard, and the third was we'd go for drives just in the car and kind of get lost. And I think maybe I inherited some of that imagination and wondering from him because he would drive around and comment on, oh, well, if I lived in this house, I'd have this much more of a commute, and who would my neighbors be? And I think just sort of, again, imagining different flavors of life in a way than what the reality is. And he was very. Is very content with his life. He's also had a very stable adulthood. My parents have lived in their home, same home, for over 50 years. He's worked at the same university since getting out of the army, so.

[C]

Wow. Which university?

[A]

Bridgewater State University. And so I grew up with that as my backyard. Literally I could see it from my backyard and I loved that. And I think that subliminally had an influence on where I wanted to work, whether that was in a library at a university or ultimately landing at universities in development.

[C]

Yeah, because you've spent a lot of time in the university arena. Yes. And that's also a place of imagination, or at least it can be.

[A]

Can be, yes.

[C]

So you were looking over growing up there, seeing the university, that's kind of interesting too because a lot of times with their parents, we, I guess we have a vague idea of what they do, but we don't necessarily see them doing it or walking off to it.

[A]

That's true. And that's where I might be a little different from others. My parents house again, very, I mean, a block away from the university. And my, so my dad had great flexibility even in the 80s when it wasn't really a thing career wise. He would, he was a morning person, get up at 5 in the morning, go over to the office, work for a few hours, come back, get the house going. My mom was a stay at home mom, like a lot of moms in my neighborhood. And this is again early 80s. And so then he'd come back and you know, take us to school or you know, he'd be home when we got home sometimes. But it also meant that he was working nights and working weekends because he was in public relations, so taking photographs, taking video, interviewing people, which is where I get some of my interviewing interest. But he would take my sister and me over to the university on Saturdays and Sundays to give my mom a little bit of a rest. And so we'd go in the dark room when my dad would be developing film and we would just, you know, he's like, hey, you know, there's a candy machine on, on this floor and you can go into this classroom and we just write on the board. And it was really fun and again, very imaginative. Like I could pretend to be a teacher, my sister would be the student and vice versa. And so that was really special and just made me get a little bit of an insight into what his day to day was like.

[C]

And this is the, the early 80s. You were born when, what year?

[A]

January 1975. So I turned 50 this year.

[C]

You're almost a Stranger Things kid.

[A]

Almost.

[C]

And the world wasn't that dangerous really. For those who are watching the series and don't know, it wasn't that dangerous at the time. The world was not, you know, two different planes or anything, but there was a world of imagination. So the games that they play in that show kind of reminiscent of all the things we're talking about right now where you invent your role and then you play it out. But it's also done within the cocoon of a, of a kind of a decent, you know, it sounds like a decent life for you.

[A]

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But that imagination also led me to, you know, some very, you know, anxious moments. Like, my dad loved to watch the news when he'd come home from work. So. Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News. It was on and, you know, again, early 80s, there was a lot of talk about, you know, nuclear war and see it depicted in movies and, and whatnot. And I was, it's still a big part of me, my makeup. I just watched House of Dynamite on Netflix recently and remarkable, sobering movie. And it reminded me a bit of the person I was back then. But I couldn't articulate my fears. I, I, you know, why didn't I tell my dad, hey, you know, I'm seven or eight. This is kind of freaking me out to watch the news and not really having a broader concept of world events. So, yeah, imagination and, you know, in all ways.

[C]

Yeah, I think that was the, the day after was around 1981 or something like that.

[A]

Yeah, it was November 1983 when that came out. And I still remember seeing the next day, the day after, the NBC, the morning show. They had people on, talking about it. And I mean, I was in third grade and, and I don't know if any other third grader, at least in Bridgewater, was aware even of the miniseries Let Al the story it was trying to portray and warn us about.

[C]

It's amazing that you have that recall about the date of the release of that show. It really did make an impact.

[A]

It did, yeah.

[C]

But do you just recall everything like that? Are you one of those people with almost an eidetic memory, or is it just the emotional moments that you have this kind of recall about?

[A]

I think you're right. It's more the emotional moment. The thing I remember, it's tied to an emotion. And I think certainly as I get older and life gets busier, I'm not able to, you know, retain as much or not maybe not as present as much even to be in the moment to say, you gotta remember this moment. And I think as a parent, you know, my kids, my youngest is now almost 12. My oldest just moved up to college, about an hour away in. In the summer. And as a parent, I get into a trap, that mental trap of, like, this is the last time that X thing will happen. And my wife doesn't have that at all. She's like, it's great. You know, milestones come and go. These are stages of life. And for me, it's like, no, I want to remember the last moment of a piggyback ride or, you know, a baseball toss in the backyard.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's why I showed you this kind of earlier. And you can't see it in the video, but I've got a bunch of colored binders behind me. And one of my hobbies. I don't jump out of airplanes or go on safaris, but one of my hobbies is cataloging moments, family life experiences. So the binders are full of report cards and letters and. And just kind of the ephemera of family life.

[C]

So just your. Your. Your nuclear family now, or is that also your life and the life of people before you?

[A]

Mostly my nuclear family. The six of us, yes. And I think I get it again from my parents. My mom grew up in South Boston. My dad grew up in Dorchester. She had a very Irish Catholic upbringing. My dad kind of secular Protestant. And they were only like three miles away from each other, but very different worlds in the 1950s in Boston. But they both moved around the same time when they were about 17 years old, moved one town away from each other, still didn't know each other. But they both have commented on the fact that with that one move, they lost so much of their own family records and photographs and artifacts. And my dad's family actually moved a lot more over the years. So I have very little. And then they have very little, even from their own childhoods and. And certainly before them. So I. I have a very strong suspicion that these binders are a way to reset family chronology.

[C]

And cataloging it just reminded me of something that Jerry Panis used to say, which was, at least among friends. He would say, three moves to a fire. He would say that if you had three moves, it was pretty much like having a whole house fire. That's how much you'd lose. I never totally understood it at the time, although as I get older and I see the things that we can't find in our house that we've lived in for 20 years. I can imagine when you move, you lose things, but it sounds like it's what the things represent. It's not the things Themselves, Right?

[A]

It can be both. Yeah, it can. Yeah. Like, for me, having Star wars action figures out, it's tangible, but it also reminds me of, you know, the emotion of child wonder and fun. And I think, you know, as an adult, when I was a young dad, I loved being a fun dad. And I think as my family gets older, I'm losing that element of fun in that sphere. And so I'm trying to. Or it's changing. Certainly it's changing. I'm trying to find fun in other ways for my own self. Like, what is fun for me?

[C]

Oh, wow. So what is it? What is it now? Because if it's not going off, well, maybe it is still some of these same things. Do you still take drives without a destination in mind? Do you still just go to the movies, whether it's with family or just on your own? What rewards your desire for fantasy and imagination?

[A]

It's all of those things. It is going for drives, it's going to the movies.

[B]

It's.

[A]

My podcast is so much fun, and I've certainly learned a lot from your generous and strong example, Jay, of the fun, the sincerity, the curiosity that you bring to the PM podcast, to the philanthropy masterminds. And that has been a real benefit for me. And I just so appreciate your example, and it's something that makes it fun for me.

[C]

That's very kind of you to say, because I'm just having fun when I get a chance to talk with people like you. And that's. But it. I do experience something that maybe you do as well, which is that sometimes the conversations are what this one feels like to me, which is just in the moment and unguarded. But other times it seems like people might be thinking I have to accomplish these specific things and get a certain message out, and then that has value. But I never feel as enriched by the conversation when it goes that way. I don't know which closet we're going to open up next in this conversation, which to me is like going to the movies not knowing what it is. Like a mystery movie night. You've probably done those, you know, so thank you for the compliment, but I want to throw it back to you because that's what I get from everything that you do and from this conversation specifically. And I'm almost intrigued to ask you to open those binders, which I won't do, but besides report cards, I guess we keep those for our kids until they can't stand it anymore or they find it in a box. In 60 years when we're all Gone. But that's right. What else is in there as a kind of a touchstone that you try to keep, especially because you know it's going to be you and your wife. Right. And the kids. So it's the joining of families. Like the joining of your father and your mother was the joining of families. So what kinds of things there are important to this family that you've created together?

[A]

That's a wonderful question and one that comes to mind as an answer is I've got a specific binder of handwritten notes or letters from my wife. And like even this morning she left me a note. She's a public school teacher now, part time.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

At her alma mater, high school, which she never expected.

[C]

Wow. Really?

[A]

Yeah. So she's up by about 5:15 and out the door around 6, depending on the day. So she wrote me a note this morning and said, I didn't want to wake you, but you know, have a good morning. So I have a binder just of like sticky notes and, and such from her. But this, I think that that's one direct answer to the question. But maybe tying into a specific theme of today's conversation, there are a few letters from her that she gave me. About 10 years ago. I was at a real low point in my career. I had been at Harvard Business School, my first employer, for about 15 years at that point. Great benefits, you know, reasonable commute. I could bike to work when the weather was nice. I broke my collarbone doing it one time. And then that led. It led to a blood clot scare and I almost died. And that was in 2013. And I. My wife and I had three young kids and a fourth on the way. So thank the Lord I'm still here.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

So that was a tangent. But there are some letters from her. Around fall 2015, 2016, we were weighing some decisions about job opportunities out here in Utah, where I am now. And I just felt, I felt this rush of like, I can build up a prospect development program. We know Utah because my wife is from there. We've got a lot of family. It's a very family friendly environment.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So it wasn't like us moving to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, not knowing anyone.

[C]

Nothing against the Upper Peninsula.

[A]

Nothing against it. I haven't been there and I'd love to go.

[C]

It's a beautiful place. There's not a lot of people up there either, but.

[A]

And so for, you know, from all the personal reasons, it felt like really this is the next step. And then. And the career reasons, it felt good. Enough. Certainly the opportunity salaries didn't quite align with what we needed. And so there are a lot of notes in there from my wife about, you know, I believe in you, I believe in us. I don't think this is the right opportunity. I know how hard you have worked to make this happen. You've been very thoughtful. You're. You're kind of putting all the eggs into this one basket, but the financial egg is going to crack if we go forward. But I was desperate. I was just. One of my notes here is I kept telling my wife around 2016 that I was kind of dying on a vine career wise. I was, again, very blessed. Certainly had a great job, health care, all of that, Great team, but, you know, embarrassment of riches. We had a pretty big team of prospect researchers. I was just kind of doing the same thing over and over again, like reactive event bios and whatnot, and.

[B]

Just.

[A]

Felt like it's starting to bleed over into other parts of my life, and I can't have that. So either we go forward with moving to Utah, or I've got to figure out something else. And one of my fun notes here, like, during that time, my wife, you know, was concerned and she said, you know, you're 40 years old. You've got, you know, you've been one place. It's great. Lots of good things. What am I missing? And I would tell her, I just don't feel fulfilled. I don't feel challenged. I see other people advancing and they're managing teams and. And later on, once we moved to Utah in 2018, my wife at one point said, you know, those are really hard times around the fall of 2016, and she had just turned 40, and the conversations were so deep and again, all encompassing. And she said, you know, at the time, I thought you were going through a midlife crisis, and I worried about what you would actually do if you felt that way. And so she said, I was worried about you getting into alcohol or drugs or having an affair or all of the, you know, kind of trademark Hollywood midlife crises. And when she told me that, again, we were already living out here in Utah, I said, no, my midlife crisis, if I had, if I were going to go through, it would have been we were going to sell our home, I was going to quit my job, we're going to move to Utah with no plan and dream it all up again, just like you two did in the late 1980s, coming off of Joshua Tree and rattle and hum. And then they're like, people don't like us. They don't like this musical direction we're going in. We might break up. And Bono, on a New Year's Eve concert in Dublin, said, we've got to go away and dream it all up again. And when I heard that at that time of life, I felt like that's what I need to do. I need to just dream it all up again. And what does that look like?

[C]

Well, for context here also, I don't know what you're. There are so many things I don't know that I want to ask, but the first is what your dream was as a kid. I mean, you told me about some of the things you did and how they fed the imagination, but I don't know what you imagined yourself being. What did you imagine your life would be like?

[A]

I imagined I would be a public school teacher.

[C]

And where did that come from? Was that. What was that?

[A]

I. I feel like there were. Well, I know there were a handful of teachers that a. Absolutely loved teaching. And these both. They're both elementary school teachers. Yeah, absolutely loved it. And one of the teachers, he. He piloted this program as a full day kindergarten in my town for children that weren't emotionally ready for kindergarten. And his name is George Mitchell. He looks exactly like Fred Rogers. Sounds like him. One of the most considerate, kind people I've ever met. And about five years ago, I interviewed almost every student that was in that class.

[C]

Really?

[A]

And. Yeah, and found, you know, from Facebook, found people, and it was 18 students. I talked to 15 of them and just asked, what do you remember about Mr. Mitchell in that year? It was called Readiness was the program, and where are you now? And every student just spoke so warmly about George Mitchell.

[C]

That touches you. What was special about him for you?

[A]

He. The common theme was he literally, you know, got down on each student's level. And one of the. One of the kids in the class I interviewed said, you know, if you were the principal or if you were the administrator, and you walked into the classroom, it was total chaos. There was no lesson plan. There was, you know, he didn't believe in, you know, you know, teaching by a manual. But as I heard those stories, you know, there was one young woman, now she's my age, always been the same age as me, but one woman in the class who said, you know, both of my parents were working at the time when she was 5 or 6, and I have older siblings considerably older than me. So Mr. Mitchell taught me how to read. He taught me how to accurately write out my whole name. And so in. In very Specific ways. For each of those 18 students, he touched their life at a time when, you know, I think a lot of people don't remember a lot of what's. What their life was like then, but every single person had very specific and heartwarming anecdotes about George Mitchell. So I think I looked to his example and thought, you know, I certainly couldn't connect in the way that he did with a hundreds of students over time. But I loved the sentiment of, like, connecting kind of at that person's level, knowing what they need. He actually came to the house. He came to each student's house for parent teacher conferences. He wasn't at the school.

[C]

Wow, that's like a. Yeah, a house call from a doctor. It just doesn't happen. He's. Is he gone now?

[A]

Yes, unfortunately. So In May of 2002, he passed away in his sleep. So the year that he was our teacher, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and he actually missed about half of the year. And this was 1981, and then he got remarried to another, a woman in our town that was really involved in the schools as well. So kind of a blended family. All of the kids were in the Bridgewater school system and very kind, very kind people, all of them. So, yeah, he passed away in his sleep. And, yeah, that was May of 2002 and the day of his funeral. So school was still in session, theoretically, but all the schools in Bridgewater were closed that day.

[C]

So I know that there are other teachers, I'm sure, who were profoundly influential in your life, but you decided to go and interview your classmates. Classmates who were your classmates when they were 5 and 6 years old. Why did you choose to do those interviews? Was it just for your own edification? Was it for a project to honor him? What. What was the. The. The driving force behind that?

[A]

A couple come. A couple things come to mind. One is something that you shared in. When I interviewed you earlier this year, and you mentioned how you have. And I'm paraphrasing and correct me if I'm wrong, please, but you mentioned that you have a very strong interest in maintaining relationships with a lot of people, even if the thread is pretty thin. And when you said that, that was like an epiphany for me because I felt very similarly. And I think, you know, getting to know you a little bit, talking to you as a guest and vice versa, I feel like, you know, we may be cut from the same cloth in some of these really important ways. So that was it for me, too. Was to. Was to pull on that very thin thread and see what is there still. And then I. As much as I could, I kept it a surprise from his wife and children. I turned it into a book. Very light editing and transcribing. And each of the guests, each of the students sent me a photo of their current family dynamic and. And whatnot. So I turned it into a book and we met on one of my trips back to Massachusetts and gave the books to his wife and some of his kids. And I had a couple of the students actually be at the school with me when I did that. So it was a way to honor him. It was a way to, you know, it was 40 years when I did that, since we entered his classroom. And so it was a way to honor him and also to show his family that, you know, he's still like, widely admired. Thought of, you know, he wasn't a high school teacher when we could. You remember more about that person's impact for good and for bad. And yet, you know, we all still have specific memories, anecdotes of him. And so that made a real. Obviously made a real impact on my life and thought I would like to do that and haven't. But what.

[C]

How did his. His wife, his widow and his children react?

[A]

They were very appreciative. Yeah, very appreciative. I got a nice note from his widow and just some nice, very nice comments in. In person and on social media afterwards. I posted about it with the. The class photo from that year and just to thank the people for participating. And then his son commented as well and shared it. And so it was just. It was very. Was really meaningful for me to do that in a lot and for a lot of different reasons. I don't. I honestly don't care. And this may not sound, you know, like people may believe it or not. I honestly don't care for the recognition. It was not about the recognition for me. Oh, you put in all this time, it was worth it. That's what drove me. I didn't. Yeah, that's what it was.

[C]

I think about this a lot, actually, about remembering people, not just when things happen, not just at that moment in time, but later. And how. How that, you know, how that can be so impactful because this was 20 years after he. More than that, I guess, or close to that. After he passed.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

So for people to remember one's father or whomever, you know, after they die, at a memorial service or for a few months, it's one thing. But to remember them 20 years later, it's. That's powerful.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you.

[C]

So you. You were obviously inspired by this. Plus, you saw. I know your dad wasn't a teacher, but he was going off to Bridgewater every day during your formative years, and so you thought you might be a teacher, which is funny, because you were telling me about the drives and Star wars and playing catch, and I was thinking, well, maybe you wanted to be a baseball player. But anyway, you made your way through school, and then you went off. You didn't just go to Bridgewater, which would have been great, you know, I'm sure good school, but what. What happened?

[A]

So there are a couple of times when I know that I've disappointed my parents profoundly, at least in terms of what they wanted for me. My mom, again, you know, a woman of immense Christian faith, at one point said, I was probably in seventh grade or so. It would just be an honor if you became a priest.

[C]

Oh, my.

[A]

So I didn't take that route. And, yeah, not going to Bridgewater State, I think, was another one of those kind of disappointing moments. I went to UMass Amherst, about two hours away, and had a great education, and it was close enough that we could visit. I could visit. So, yeah, I've always had some tie to a university setting in my life.

[C]

And you were not studying theology there. So what. What were you studying? How did this. Which. How did this lead to what you ended up doing? What were you studying?

[A]

I. I had a double major in history and Germanic languages and literatures. So my junior year, I lived in Southwest Germany for one year.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Ryberg and Bryce. My dad was a U.S. army soldier in the. The height of the Vietnam War. His unit was actually supposed to be deployed to Southeast Asia. And at the time, he didn't know much about what was going on. This was 1966, and he's like, oh, okay, we're going to Vietnam. All right. And then I don't know how close it was from that moment to where they actually found out where they're going, but my dad remembers that, oh, no, this unit's being shipped to West Germany near the French border. He had an amazing experience there. And so I think, you know, growing up, he would try and teach me some German, and I've always liked languages, and I liked the idea of, at some point, can I parlay that into living in Europe? So that was. I. I think I had a pretty natural aptitude for German, at least learning it. I mean, if you dropped me in Berlin right now, I'd be able to get around without speaking any English. So, you know, he influenced me in that way as well. So. Yeah, and then, you know, graduates call. I graduate College in 1999 and think, well, maybe I'll be a teacher. Maybe I'll go into library science and.

[C]

But then something else. But before you go away from that, I just have to say that the Nibelungenlied is what comes to mind when you, when you talk about Germanic languages and literature. So the literature of that region, there's a lot of epic literature, among other things.

[A]

Yes, you are exactly right.

[C]

So again, this world of imagination used for good or for ill, depending upon who's holding onto it. But pretty extraordinary stories of what you know, of this kind of mystical realm. I'm sure that must have what was attractive about that to you.

[A]

You have hit it on so well. Yes, it was that mystical element and again, that fascination, the imagination. Because my university town was right on the edge of the Black Forest, the Schwarz.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Which is where a lot of those Hansel and Gretel stories either, you know, emanate from or adapted from that area. So I just loved it. I met, I met people from all over Europe and elsewhere and felt, felt really at home, honestly, in some ways that I've never been able to replicate.

[C]

But you left. I left.

[A]

Well, I had to. Yeah.

[C]

Well, you could have gone back, but you, you chose not to.

[A]

I. Yes. And. And you know, again, kind of marrying, going back to Europe to being a teacher. I did think about going back and teaching English probably in Eastern Europe, which at the time was still in those, you know, toddler steps, baby steps, coming out of communist rule and. Yeah, open markets and such. But yeah, life just happened in other ways.

[C]

So you then made this change in direction and so when did you start doing this work?

[A]

I was 25 and it was the fall of 2000 and I got a full time job after temping at Harvard Business School for a few months and I got a full time job in prospect research. Knew nothing about it.

[C]

Okay, so how did you get introduced to it? Because this is the story. I know you ask people a lot and everybody has this story. Or was it just looking at an ad in the paper? And by the way, there were newspapers back then for people who were just listening to this. But how did you hear about it?

[A]

So I was helping a frontline fundraiser by the name of Paul Callahan, who was a Harvard undergrad when he was younger, and he slipped on the gymnasium floor and was paralyzed. So he was in a wheelchair.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And went on to Go. Graduated Harvard undergrad, earned his MBA from Harvard, worked at Goldman Sachs, then came to Frontline Fundraising, founded a non profit in Rhode island that it's called Sail to Prevail. It helps other mobility impaired people, particularly.

[C]

Youth.

[A]

Learn new skills and teamwork by putting them on a boat and teaching them how to sail. Yeah, I'm working on getting him on my podcast. So Paul, I was kind of just helping Paul manage his office and like you mentioned, newspapers. Yes, this is a. We still had newspapers and Paul loved paper printing out, email printing. So there's stacks of paper that he wanted me to organize. And at some point, a younger Frontline fundraiser, Kerry Satano, who still works at hbs, just saw me in the hall and said they're hiring down the hall for front for a prospect researcher. You should talk to Val Roberts, who was the head of prospect research. I had never been to that side of the hall. It was the same floor. Hadn't even known, like you mentioned earlier, Jay, opening doors. I literally, you know, opened a door to get the other side of the hallway and that, that act opened the door to my career. I found something that I wasn't even looking for that fit with my, my skills, my interests. I wasn't going to be traveling. I didn't want the pressure of asking for money and engaging prospects. I even knew that then. But I felt like this, this feels really good to me.

[C]

What was attractive about it?

[A]

Well, at that point in my career, doing a lot of research, bios, it was the writing, it was, how do I, how do I take the information I can find from reunion books and online and craft a narrative about who this prospect is and what funding needs we have that may be attractive to this person based on what we know about. And I loved that, the idea of, you know, painting a narrative that, you know, suits all those purposes and, and just learning about people too. Like, this is amazing. I still remember like there was there was a Harvard Business School graduate who in one of his later profile books, like his 40th reunion, it was a photo of him, black and white, and he was carving a table or a chair, something like that. And that's what he had done most of his professional life. After graduating, he did not become a titan of industry. And I just thought that that is an amazing story because certainly lots of people have expectations when you come out of a top flight university, including your own. And he just felt like, no.

[C]

The.

[A]

Germans have a word for it called Zeitenwende, which means the turning point. And you know, that was that man's Zeitenwende. So I just. Very curious about that.

[C]

That just reminds me of your Bono quote from a few minutes ago. Yes. It's funny because a lot of places, when they do any research at all, it's on a limited number of people, unless it's done en masse now, because we have tools to enable that. But it really does dance across the periphery rather than trying to find out why that person made that change in life and why they spent their life carving wooden tables and chairs.

[A]

Yes, it's fascinating.

[C]

Getting to the heart of that is really appealing. Did the. Did Harvard Business School and other places that you know and have worked at or worked with, do they always understand the importance of carving below the surface and understanding who these people are?

[A]

I would say I think it depends more. I would answer that more in the sense of, does the. Does the frontline fundraiser understand that part of it? You know, do they, you know, do they take it and run with it, or do they take it and discard it? I think, you know, yes, you can have the corporate culture that says, hey, these are. These are important strategic intelligence research reports. Use them, glean what you can to inform how you're going to engage. But then it's really up to the personality. Even with training and, and, you know, being mentored, I think it is still a strong element of. It's up to the personality of that frontline fundraiser to see the value. They're going to see the value, I think, in most cases anyway. But then do they act on it? Is the other piece of it.

[C]

And this is a really successful program. I mean, people can tell that by the name of the program and where it is, but also just within. At least that's my impression, always has been that the HBS development team, that the advancement team there has always been very strong and their process is really good. But even there, it's dependent upon who takes the content that's created, however it's created, then goes out into the world to build that relationship. And that's highly variable.

[A]

Absolutely. On that note, I will say that HBS has, at least in the time I was there, such a strong methodology of donor engagement from when they're still students through their 70th reunion, not just, you know, engaging for donations, but for volunteering. And. And a lot of the people that work there take that knowledge out into the world, just like you said, you know, taking it out into the world. They've taken it to future employers and said, here's what I've seen Work really well. Let's adopt some of this to our needs here. And I think that's just been a really, been a really good benefit for a lot of the people I worked with over time there.

[C]

Before we walk too far away from it, I just want to point out that the door you walk through and the person you talk to, Val Roberts, is a mutual friend, although I haven't spoken to her in a long time. And she's an extraordinary person. She is. And now, now very far away. And she was a world traveler and is a world traveler. I assume she's still doing a fair bit of traveling. So she's a person with a rich imagination. But she was there working in that office.

[A]

She was.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And took a chance on me. And in one of my notes I was writing for preparation today, a lot of the, A lot of the commonalities of the people I was going to mention, you know, George Mitchell, Val Roberts, they saw something in me that I did not see. And you know, because of their encouragement, their confidence, their sometimes righteous shaking of my shoulders, like, get your act together. Like, they've certainly propelled me to where I am today. Could not be here without so many of those people.

[C]

But as you say, you stayed there quite a while and you were talking about, of course, your family earlier and this big transition. And before we get back to that, this means that you met your wife somewhere along the way and she wasn't from there. She wasn't from that little place in, in Massachusetts. She was from Utah. How in the world did you meet her when that must have been a part of how you decided to keep doing what you were doing because you had again, this, I guess, wonderful life at home. Where did you two meet?

[A]

So I'll try and be very quick here. I was working at Harvard Business School and became friends with a different young woman who was from Idaho, was the very first Mormon I've ever met in my life. And so we talked about all sorts of things and, and faith was one of those topics we talked about. And I was still Catholic at the time, so I eventually converted through my friendship with this co worker to the lds. To the LDS faith. Yeah. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the, the full long.

[C]

Forgive me for the abbreviation, but everyone.

[A]

Uses it, even people in the church.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

And I felt I was drawn to it. Certainly there was, there was, you know, doctrinal reasons, but that just the sense of community was really attractive to me and it still is to this day. We, we take very good care of our own People, you know, our own.

[C]

Ward, congregation, the family, the community and beyond. Yes.

[A]

And ideally, yes, if we take it beyond there, know that we are not meant to confine it or be selfish. So my wife graduated from college, was teaching, and decided, I've got a cousin who lives in Boston. I'll go visit her. That visit turned into my wife moving out to Boston. We met at church. I ended up dating the girl that, you know, introduced me to the church. We broke up. My wife, my soon to be wife, moved in as a roommate with that now friend.

[C]

Wow, that is complicated. I hope they all got along because that was tricky.

[A]

And then my wife was dating a guy in California. When he would come to visit her, he would stay at my apartment.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

So eventually those relationships ended and my wife and I got together. And it's been 20 years of marriage this year.

[C]

Wow. Okay, so, so you were married while you were working at Harvard and, and then continued working there for a long time.

[A]

Long time.

[C]

This was 16. 16 years.

[A]

Just a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. And it was, I, I've got to mention him by name, too. Tim Enman, who works at Memorial Sloan Kettering as a data scientist. He was on the Nedra board. And again, that idea of seeing something in me. I was a volunteer on a committee he was managing, and I felt like, Nedra is full of the brightest stars in the Milky Way. Why would they ever want me? And at some point, Tim said, you know, you really should be on the board. I want to encourage you to be on the board. I, I, if I thought about it more than a second, it was like, I've got to do this, then this, then this, then this, then this and this. And then like 10 years down the road, I'll apply for the board. But Tim Andman fast tracked it, and I honestly feel like he gave me a spark in my career that goes, it carries to this day. Again, it was someone else seeing something I had of value to contribute, and it really gave me a boost in my career. I've told them as much. I wrote him a note and mailed it to him. And I, I highly encourage people to do that. If there's been a mentor or someone who has opened a door for you, a handwritten note, it, I know we can do text and phone call too, but I just think for someone that likes to hold on to a lot of stuff, as you can see behind me, that makes a tremendous difference to that recipient.

[C]

This is the New England Development Research association, if that's still the full name of Netra that you're talking about, which was kind of a brain trust of researchers in the country and was not a chapter of apra. And then it was eventually amalgamated into apra, but it still has its own unique identity and leadership. So you were doing that work and now, of course, you're also serving on the APRA board. So.

[A]

Yes, just started in September.

[C]

Yeah. So you were in that role and I guess you kept satisfied in part because HBS is a great place and good people there and I'm sure lots of work to do. And also you had a chance to work with people within Nedra in that realm. But at a certain point, obviously that was where this conflict came from. The thing that your wife thought was a midlife crisis, that you were going to buy a Corvette and drive off somewhere or something, but you weren't going to do that. You just wanted something else. What was the something else?

[A]

The something else was feeling challenged and fulfilled and stretched professionally coupled with a safer community for my family and community for my family. So we lived outside Boston. We had great next door neighbors, but it was a very transient church community. Like, you know, people would come to Boston for an internship, medical school. Yeah, they'd move away after a couple years. So our kids every year, and they were still relatively young, but it's like every year, oh, we. We going to say goodbye to this family and that family and you won't see the kid, your friends anymore. That started to get hard even for them at that age. And I took that on and my wife's like, no, this is great. Like our kid, honestly, our kids are one of only two fam. Caucasian families in their school. Don't you see the value in that and for them as they grow up? And yes, I do. Honestly, I saw the value in it. I also saw the other side of. Not the diversity piece, but the other side of aspects of where we lived that were really not good. I woke up one morning, took the trash out, and there was blood stains on a car in front of our house. So that was just. I'm like, we gotta get out of here.

[C]

So you saw that and then your first reaction was.

[A]

Unsafe.

[C]

We need to move for the kids. Right.

[A]

All of us. Yeah. And we actually did.

[C]

We had a.

[A]

We had a woman break into our home to escape confrontation in our front yard.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And my kids woke up to that. So, like, there were some times that were really tough and I thought if we just move to a different neighborhood or if we move. And then it then became a ripple effect. Well, if we move to a neighborhood, new house, new school. I'm still going to have a long commute. And so for me, I was not able to separate, though the personal, professional. Other people certainly can. But for me, I thought, I want to be a present family man. I don't want to be commuting an hour and a half each. Way back when we commuted every day. So there's a lot that I, that I put into it my, myself.

[C]

I'm also imagining that, you know, that there weren't. It wasn't a large church community necessarily in Utah.

[A]

Yes, would be. Yes, totally true.

[C]

But it sounds like your wife wasn't banging on the door and saying, let's go back. And kids would go to byu. So this is interesting because that was not how you grew up. But you, I guess you made that commitment, not just religiously, not just a faith commitment, but obviously to family and then to finding an environment where you could get all these things kind of satisfied. So had you been to Utah? Had you ever been there before you made this decision to move there?

[A]

I'm laughing in part because I, I can tell you exactly how many times we've been to Utah. Before we moved here, it was 16 times.

[C]

Oh, okay. Seeing her family, right?

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

You know, from, from 2005 to 2018, it was 16 trips.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

And so. Yes, and that was, that was one of my selling points. Well, look, we can actually take vacations somewhere else if we move to Utah.

[C]

All right, so you did or didn't have to sell her on the idea of Utah specifically. Forget all the jobs and everything else, because moving back home sometimes is fraught. So for her was this, oh, wow, I get to go home or oh, no, I'm going home.

[A]

It was, it was the latter. Oh, no, I'm going home.

[C]

I. We.

[A]

None of the six of us will have the diversity of, okay, demographics. You know, we had a lot of people from Latin America in our neighborhood. It was, it was a really rich cultural area to live in. And our kids had first generation Guatemalan friends, Guatemalan American friends and such. So my wife's like, we're going to lose all of that. We're going to lose all of the religious diversity, including, you know, people that don't believe in anything. We're going to lose xyz. What are we gaining? I don't know. Because I haven't lived in Utah since 2002. And I'm like, well, it's probably changed in the know, 15 years since you lived there. She did not want to. She did not Want to move out of Boston?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So hard for her.

[C]

You did, but you.

[A]

Yeah, we did.

[C]

And so now where are you exactly? I mean, I know you're at the university, but where. Where are you?

[A]

I am in a town called Kaysville, which is kind of equidistant between Salt Lake City, the capital, and Ogden, which is a very old railroad town, seen as better days, like a lot of, you know, industrial towns and cities in America. And that's where Weber State University is, my employer. So the lure for me to go to Weber State was I got to build the prospect development shop from really the ground up. I think that's a pretty rare opportunity, at least in higher education development these days. There was literally like they were using one vendor and they had no one to analyze the data. The frontline fundraisers were kind of on their own to experiment with filling some gaps in research. So I had three great years at Intermountain Healthcare. I know you recently interviewed my. My boss's boss, David Flood. Just an energetic and such a passionate fundraiser and advocate for the mission of Intermountain. David Flood took a chance on me. I. I applied for a job. This. This is a good story. So, you know, in the depths of my career wanderings in 2016, 2017, I one night was just Googling non profits in Utah because I knew. I knew I had been trying it in Boston too. I'm like, I was recruited. I proactively, and nothing happened. And I felt like the longer I stayed at Harvard Business School, the less appeal I had even to Boston nonprofits, because you've only seen one system, you've been there so long, why would you leave? So I felt like we've got to broaden our search and. And look beyond. So Googling Utah nonprofits. And I found Intermountain Healthcare on Wikipedia. This was like January 2017. And then I go to the Intermountain website, the HR website, and they had a director of Prospect management position open right then. So I'm a man of faith, and I've been praying about direction in my career and felt like, okay, this could be. This could be an answer. I applied, sent them, sent the application materials to the wrong person because I couldn't find David Flood or his. His direct report who became my manager anywhere. There was no org chart, didn't know where to look. I was at the Nedric conference in the spring, and I somehow I found David Flood's name and I emailed him the information, and he could have just never opened the email. He could have never responded. It could have gotten lost in the busyness of his life. It could have just been, oh, I'll get to it at some point. No. He passed my materials on to Nancy Gregovich, who is the chief operating officer. And Nancy said, hey, the next time you're in Utah, I'd love to meet with you and just talk shop. So she kept her word to a total stranger. And then she introduced me to the man that actually got the job because he sent the materials to the right person. And. And then it was two years from there, and Nancy's like, this was the fall of 26, 2015. Nancy said, you know, we're just starting a strategic plan. We'll be doing a campaign eventually. Let's just keep in touch. Again, she was true to her word. Around the day that the strategic plan was finalized, I felt impressed to email Nancy. She wrote back and said, the strategic plan is done. Let's talk. Because the job is going to be open for a junior analyst. And so it just went from there.

[C]

Three years there, and then over to Weber State. And you've been there ever since, building the shop. And now it's built. How many people are working with you now?

[A]

We have 10 frontline fundraisers, we have campaign manager, vice president of advancement, and I have a halftime research analyst. So it's pretty. Pretty small shop.

[C]

But. But did this satisfy that. That itch?

[A]

Totally. Absolutely. Absolutely. Intermountain was amazing. I got to. I got an opportunity to manage a team of researchers, recruit. I built upon the. The prospect development shop that my predecessor who recruited me, Jason Befort, started because he also. They didn't have prospect management research functions before Jason got there in 2015. So I saw what he did, saw what worked well, including how he interacted with frontline fundraisers. And I just tried to adopt that to where I am now.

[C]

But that didn't satisfy all the urges, because the interview piece that you've talked about throughout and that you do religiously with your own podcast, and then you did with, obviously with your elementary school teacher. Maybe you've done other projects too. This is a different kind of piece. This is almost tapping into that. Not just the curiosity, but also the history piece that's been a fabric of all of this work. How did that all start? Why did you start doing that? When and when did you start doing that?

[A]

I had the idea out of regret. That's. I think. Well, that's one of the ingredients of it. When I relocating. I wrote this down, relocating for a job, moving my family across the country. Cracked open who I was as a person and as a co worker. I, you know, again, because I, you know, one place so long, kind of felt that I was seen in a certain light by my co workers. Oh, you know, that's the research team down the hall. I was. And I, you know, and a lot on my mind. I had four young kids at home and a wife who was a stay at home mother. So socializing with my colleagues back then wasn't really an option consistently. But moving here, I just felt like I want to enjoy work and this is a chance to enjoy work and build my skills. And so I'd go out once a month to all the different hospitals, meet with frontline fundraisers, learn about them, and just felt that I am more extroverted than I probably imagined I ever was. I think I leaned heavily into the introverted identity and just talking with people, you know, hey, you're also not from Utah. Tell me how you ended up here. Or you are from Utah and you're not Mormon. What's that like? Just learning what makes people tick and why they make the decisions they do to get to where they are at that point in life. And certainly was easier. As much as I really didn't like being in an office five days a.

[C]

Week.

[A]

That environment enabled me and others certainly to get to know your co workers a lot more deeply, consistently than hybrid and fully remote. So that was when I'm like, so the regret piece of it is I'm learning all about these new people. What did I miss? Learning about my old co workers and could I have developed some friendships if I had just taken more time? So it was kind of a regret. And so I just vowed to myself, you know, talk to people more and, and learn about them.

[C]

You.

[A]

You, Tim, have a natural curiosity for it. So that's when I'm like, okay, I'm learning about Jay as a coworker and what he does and why he's living where he does, but I want to know the story of your career too. So that's where the podcast idea came from.

[C]

And when did that launch?

[A]

It launched in March of 22.

[C]

So you had already been through also the period. I don't know what it was like right there. But around the country, we were also largely working from home, again in a state of isolation. And so coming out of that, then you. I'm sure we're even more fueled to talk to people who have lived through this collective strange experience too. You're how many episodes in now?

[A]

I just aired my 159th yesterday with Mario Hernandez from Venezuela.

[C]

And what was the first one?

[A]

The first one was Tabitha Butler and she was a co worker friend of mine at Intermountain Health. And right before I left, she went up to Idaho State for a similar reason, like the ability to build up leadership giving, annual giving in a place that didn't have it, that, that lure of I can make it my own. And that is so challenging and exciting. So I wanted to talk with her and she also was one of the first people that liked the idea. I pitched it to a couple of coworkers and former coworkers and, you know, people were, you know, either genuinely supportive or cautiously supportive, but Tabitha said, no, I want to do this, let's do this.

[C]

So, yeah, you've had all these interviews now. Are you seeing a common thread anywhere like a hero's journey? Because if you didn't really necessarily know, like you said, you worked with people, but you didn't necessarily know their origin story. Yes. Now you're learning their origin story. Are a lot of them having this Bono moment?

[A]

I think so. I do, yeah. They would, you know, they would use maybe different terms, you know, hero's journey, certainly, or resilience. I fell into xyz, part of fundraising, non profit work, and felt that it aligned with my skills, my identity. Giving back to the world in some sense, that definitely is a through line just of how they can in their own ways, professionally give back. I. I don't go as deep into the personal as, as you so graciously do in your PM podcast. I do try and keep it. Tell me a little bit about who you are as a professional and your story, a little bit about who you are as a person. But I really appreciate the time you give. You've been doing this PM podcast for about the same amount of time since 2022.

[C]

That's right, yeah. Because we were doing other programs before that, but not like this. And I'm interested also in this kind of, you know, what are people's backgrounds, what do they want, how do they want to be remembered? But also, is there a point of reinvention? You know, that same thing that we'd find in a book, frankly, the same thing that you would have found in the Nibelungen that you would have found in Star wars, that you find when you're driving on the road with your dad when you're a kid and saying, what if we took that road instead? That's always of interest to me to find out what is that? And I was wondering if you run into that a lot, even if you're not necessarily asking about it. If people are at some level hungry to say here's a change I made and this is why.

[A]

Yes, yes. Either they are actively looking to make a change or change comes to them.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And that is definitely a commonality of most of these conversations because I think most people have that experience of. So Mario Hernandez, for example, he was in for profit sales and business development and he decided to come back in a nonprofit. Val Roberts, you know, longtime prospect researcher and then had this, as you mentioned, what fills her bucket is traveling the world. So now she's at a point where she's living in Panama and like that she has reinvented her life. She has totally uprooted who she was. You see that? I mean, Valerie Anastasio, a long time prospect, research veteran and she, I mean arts, higher education, hospital, health care, those are the employers that she has. I'm just very struck by people that have that diversity of career journey where they're not just, oh, I'm working at xyz, put down my stakes, I'm here for the long haul. And the list goes on. I mean, so many guests, you know, do look for that change because it fuels their own creativity and it keeps things fresh for them in their life. I mean, I, I know a lot of people tend to shy away from change, but it actually is a great, a great personal development and learning vehicle.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you would have heard about a lot of people's changes through the course of doing this. I'm sure you also read about a lot of it and researched it with all these prospects over the years. But it's something different when people are telling you their story directly now because you're a good dad. I'm sure you don't have any favorite children and you don't have any favorite podcast interviews. But is there something when you think about them right now, something that sticks out when you think of all these interviews that really, really hit you emotionally?

[A]

I could name a few specific so one of my earliest guests, back when I was cataloging the episodes as seasons, so season one, actually a friend of mine, Marcy Romney, she and her husband knew them in Boston. They're members of the same church and they've been involved with a non profit called CO Africa, which builds schools in Malawi and Botswana. And so I had Marcion talking about CO Africa and at some point she, she told me she and Matt, her husband, went on site to some of these projects where they're building schools and they're very Basic school structures. You know, they still have bathrooms outside. You know, the kitchen is rudimentary. It's like a fire pit. They only build the school and they look for other people and non profits to supplement the infrastructure around the school. And Marcy said, you know, we, we got to a school and there were, there were no seats left in the school. And the older kids from the village or the villages were leaning in the window, the open window, leaning in because they were tall enough so they could hear the lesson and give the younger kids the space inside and the covering the roof over their head literally. So the younger kids could learn right from the teacher too. But they all were just so excited to be there and they were waiting outside the school. And she just said that was such a remarkable and humbling experience to see that and to reflect on the privileges we have in this country where kids aren't fighting to get into a school and they're not walking miles to get to the school and they're not, they're not trying, they're not, they don't need to build their livelihood and sustain themselves in addition to school. It was very eye opening for her. And yeah, like I, I remember getting emotional.

[C]

Yeah, when you go through all these experiences of talking to all these people, it does have an impact on you. And I'm, I'm wondering where it goes from here for you. I mean, you can't interview 8 billion people and you probably aren't going to be at Weber State for that matter for the rest of your life. So where is all this leading?

[A]

That's a great question, Jay. I would say in the short term I have said this to a few guests. I am looking for ways to keep the podcast fresh for me and fresh and relevant for the people that kindly tune in in any form. And absolutely nothing about your prior guests. You know that I really have genuinely enjoyed talking with each person. I've just noticed the through line. Again, the threads of a lot of my guests are from healthcare and higher education nonprofits because that's my network and that's so, you know, again, nothing, nothing about them in a negative way. For me to keep it fresh, it would be interviewing people, more people a. Who are wearing multiple hats at a small non profit. So I have, I have a list. I think you may, I think at some point you talked about having a spreadsheet of your own, you know, ideal dream guests. I have a similar list and yeah, like there's a ventriloquist museum in Kentucky and I would love to interview whoever does Fundraising for that museum. Wow. That would. That would give some life and oomph in a way that I think would just be fascinating to hear. Yeah. You know, the Ringling Museum of Art in Florida is another one that comes to mind. I did talk to a fundraiser at the North American Bison Discovery center in North Dakota. I loved that. So those types of. Spotlighting those types of nonprofits would be. Would be really awesome. Again, I. I had three, so that's one. Where does this go from here? So interviewing people, places like that, I have. I've. I've long had a goal to interview 40 people of color consecutively and air their interviews. So almost the entire year, calendar year, would be people of color in nonprofits. That would be really meaningful for me. I genuinely want to spotlight those voices across our community. And for me to say, here's a whole year worth of people of color who work in nonprofits, and this is their experience, I think would be really meaningful. The third is more international guests, however. I wanted to find that.

[C]

That's a lot right there. And I can imagine it's not 8 billion, but it's certainly many, many, many people. And so the thing that keeps you at it is ultimately, what. What's the reason for doing it?

[A]

Some of it, I think, you know, could be, what do I get out of it? And other parts of it is what do the guests and the audience get out of it? So for me, what I would get, why do I do it? I just enjoy spending 30 minutes, 45 minutes learning about someone and generally seeing where the conversation goes. I do. I always give them questions ahead of time, so they had no surprises, but, well, no surprises on paper. We often do have tangents which are great, but also like. Yeah, I think. I think for me, it's also proving to myself that I can talk to almost anyone, and for a lot of my life, I couldn't say that.

[C]

But now you feel.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That you can.

[A]

Yeah, now I feel like I can. And again, it's like I mentioned a lot of people who, over the years, have seen something in me, and now I'm seeing something in myself, too, through this podcast.

[C]

All right, so I've got a totally crazy off the question. So think about who you were as a kid watching those Star wars movies, and then think about who you are today, given what you just told me about how you see yourself in relationship to the world, questions you ask, the people you seek, the adventures you. You pursue. Who were you then? Who. Which character were you in Star wars back then? Or do you identify with. And then who is it today?

[A]

Oh, boy.

[C]

And has that changed?

[A]

Wow. I think, man, that is a really good question because as a young kid, I was drawn to the, the, the adventurism of Han Solo, you know, and he just, you know, made his own rules and, and came and went as he damned well pleased. But I would, I would not identify like, I would not identify with him, that character now or then. It was more the spirit of swashbuckling adventure and whatnot. Boy, I, I guess now I can identify with Luke Skywalker in the sense of, in the first movie, A New Hope. He's, he's, he's torn and he's facing pressure from his aunt and uncle to stay on the farm. And he's like, no, I wanna, I wanna go off to the academy and be a starfighter. And his uncle says, I just need him for one more season. And I think that, that, that intergenerational conflict, you know, what does one per. What does the older person want versus the younger person? I see that with my parents and me, and I see that with me and my kids, you know, moving out here to Utah. My parents are still in Massachusetts. They did not pull a, hey, just one more year here. They didn't do that. They've been very supportive, but as the oldest child, it's still hard to, you know, not be around. They've been very good at saying, you know, this is your life, this is your choice, this is your family responsibility. So, yes, you know, we understand. And then for me to see that I'm playing the uncle, just give me one more year. Yeah, I see that with my children, about trying to suggest influence, you know, where they go to college, what they, what they might want to study. Weber State has a great tuition break for dependence of employees. And so my oldest daughter looked at that and said, no, thanks, I'm going to Utah State. So I think that's probably the, the, the character I identify with. So for those reasons.

[C]

I don't know if it's helpful, but thank you, Tim. That was great.

[B]

Well, that's it for this episode of the PM Podcast. You can learn more about people in fundraising at people in fundraising.wordify sites.com or listen on Spotify podcast or other major platforms. Our thanks to our sponsor Donor Search, the global 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 is 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.

[C]

Thanks for joining me.