← Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:03]
A
Oftentimes, that's when you build these relationships that lower the dehumanization, that address the polarization because you're rolling up its sleeves and saying, doesn't matter who you voted for. It doesn't matter where you might come religiously or not religiously. If we are cleaning up this park, if we are volunteering at this school, if we're feeding people at the local shelter, we're actually accomplishing a good together that reminds us that we have so much more in common than what we have that separates us.
- [00:40]
B
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the nonprofit leadership podcast, making your world better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All these reasons combined led me to start this show. And it's my hope that through this series, people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better.
- [01:14]
A
Welcome to the nonprofit leadership Podcast with Rob Harder. I'm Mike Lee. I live in Washington, D.C. and I'm a listener just like you. We are all on a leadership journey looking for ways to learn and grow. Each week, I look forward to hearing Rob's latest discussion with his guests. I invite you to join us. Thanks for listening. Now here's Rob.
- [01:37]
B
Welcome back to the show. I'm Rob Harder, your host here for the nonprofit leadership Podcast. I want to take you back to one of those classic kids shows. I know I'm dating myself a little bit, but if you remember Mr. Rogers neighborhood, always the question was, will you be my neighbor? Right? And the show was all about being a good neighbor. And I think about that because there was a recent documentary about his life and just kind of the. The ethos that he brought about during that time in America. And. But his. The kind of the ideals and the themes and the values of that show continue to be something we desperately need today. Meaning we live in a world today that it does seem like we're having less trust with people around us. The studies will show that we're less involved in our organizations. We're less involved. If you're into a faith community, you're less involved in serving the local community. And because a lot of that is, there's this growing lack of trust of those around us, there's a increase in the sense of isolation, there's an increase in loneliness. So there's a lot of different things that we are as a current society today struggling with that, fights against that whole concept of being a good neighbor. And so my guest today is going to talk all about how he's trying to lead a movement to kind of get back to this idea of how can we be good neighbors again to those in our community, on our street, in our local city, even in our local state, and then, of course, our country. But it starts at that local level. How to start by being a good neighbor. My guest today is Walter Kim, and he's head of the nae, the national association of Evangelicals. And one of the things we'll talk about among many is this new movement he's calling the Good Neighbor Day America event. And it's really more than just an event. It really wants this to be a movement of really increasing neighborliness in our culture because we have gotten away from it. And when you start small with just small acts of everyday kindness, he'll talk about the power of how that can replicate and exponentially grow to impact the community, the city and the state, and yes, even the country. So it's an interesting conversation all about how can you continue to be a good neighbor to your community, your city, your state, your country. So thanks so much for joining us today. Now onto my interview with Walter. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox Donor Box, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business. Well, welcome back to the nonprofit Leadership Podcast. So glad to have Walter Kim here today. Walter, thanks so much for joining us on the show.
- [04:15]
A
Rob, thanks for having me on.
- [04:17]
B
Absolutely. Well, there's so much to cover, but I always like to start my first question for my guest to give an opportunity for you just to share a bit of your story, a bit of your journey, what's led you up to this point. So maybe you can give us a bit of your background for my listeners.
- [04:30]
A
So my journey to the particular position that I serve at, at the national association of Evangelicals really is a journey that encapsulates a little bit of the story of America. So my father was a refugee who escaped communist North Korea, met my wife in South Korea, then immigrated to America. I was born in New York City, grew up there for a bit of time in the kind of urban context with a rich Korean community, but then spent a good bit of my elementary into my high school years in small town America in western Pennsylvania. So there's a bit of a journey that I've been on. I became a Christian during those years and through a variety of circumstances, ended up in Christian ministry in various positions and then currently serve in this role at the nae.
- [05:24]
B
What an interesting. I mean, there's so much there. We can spend our whole podcast on just your journey. But. But thanks for giving a little. At least a little bit of background. So, yes, we do want to talk a bit about your current role, because you have an impact now both nationally and internationally in what you do. So let's maybe go into that a bit. You're involved specifically with faith communities across the country and the world, for that matter. You're involved with volunteers, which every nonprofit you know has to deal with volunteers in a good way. Like, we depend on volunteers as nonprofit leaders, but people that give their time. Right, to help bolster and move forward in organization. But you also work with those who choose to give money to, whether it be faith communities or nonprofit organizations. So let's talk a bit about that. There is a decline, sadly, in both generosity and people giving of their time to nonprofits and faith communities. Give me a sense of why is that the case? What are the factors contributing to this decline that you've seen?
- [06:14]
A
Yeah, Rob, we're seeing this in so many different ways. And I think there are a lot of factors. Like any particular problem, it's usually complex in the sources of the reasoning of these phenomena. So I would say one is just the economic stress that people face, you know, all throughout the country. So the capacity to give is less. I would also say whether that's because of student loans or factors that relate to the job market, but those things come and go. So we might be able to say maybe this is a particular ebb and flow issue. One thing that I would say feels a little bit different this time is the ecosystem of trust is being challenged. So who do I trust? When people had longstanding relationships in their community? In other words, they lived in their community, they were born and raised there. They didn't move. My own life story is a story of transition. What happens when you transition a lot? You don't even know who in the community can I trust to be doing the kind of work that I want to support? But we also are in a culture of conflict right now, where we even don't have a sense of, like, what's the source of information that I can trust? And so there are all sorts of reasons that might be just the natural ebb and flow of economics. But there are particular challenges right now that I would say relate to the ecosystem of trust.
- [07:45]
B
Let's talk about that I think you nailed it. I think there is a lack of trust and a growing lack of trust, which then leads to a lack of social cohesion. That idea of that collective problem solving, that when you do have trust in your community or with your neighbors, or with your faith community or with your nonprofit, you can move forward, you can start problem solving, you can start dealing with issues in your neighborhood, for example. So tell me about that. Where's the trust breaking down?
- [08:08]
A
Maybe it's in a kind context in which there's a leadership failure, some kind of mismanagement among leadership, and all of a sudden an organization, a church nonprofit that you had once trusted, you begin to question, wow, if the leader has failed in this way, what does that say about the organization as a whole? Right? So there's a breakdown of trust with respect to institutions, that the visibility of leadership failure has great consequences. The ironic thing is the visibility of leadership failure sometimes is a result of greater integrity of process. So people, the spotlight is being put on organizations, on leaders, as a matter of accountability. So there's a kind of a two sides to the coin to that issue. The other thing is, I would have to say some of the ideological debates in our country right now. At one point you could be supportive of this type of initiative and I'll just use my own faith context. You might support this initiative because as a Christian you think, oh, this is a good thing that Christians should be involved in. But all of a sudden being involved in this issue now is less a function of your faith and more of is this a political statement? Am I aligning with a particular platform by taking up this cause in my neighborhood? That's a different kind of stressor on trust, because that trust now gets at who's my people, what am I going to call my home? And if that is being brought into question, I'm not so sure I want to be involved in an issue that might cause me to no longer have my own place. And then that kind of vying cultural debate has all sorts of knock on effects of, well, can I give to this organization? Can I take money from this person?
- [10:03]
B
Can't all of this, right?
- [10:05]
A
You talk to nonprofit leaders, church leaders, and there are all these complicating factors that it used to be a fairly simple thing.
- [10:13]
B
That's interesting. Okay, so let's go to, yeah, how do you rebuild that trust? And because so many nonprofit organizations, and faith communities for that matter, are so focused, typically on the local level, maybe we can start there. How do you start rebuilding trust on the local level?
- [10:26]
A
Yeah, that local level is both a point of contention but also a point of opportunity. Because the reversal of these things requires relational proximity. You gotta be close because then the problems become real. They're not theoretical, they're not ideological, they're human. You are seeing this person with a need and it evokes a deep sense of response. I want to do something. And whether or not you believe that it should come in this form or that form of giving or, you know, government involvement, whatever your political stance might be, whatever your ideological tribe might be, all of a sudden you are now encountering a human need in the form of an actual human, not in the form of a statistic or a policy, not in the form of a political platform, but in the form of actual flesh and blood, person and community. So one is that relational proximity takes it outside of the context of theoretical debate and it evokes just the human attachment that we have. The second thing is most solutions, they're going to be solved on the local level. This is where change begins to happen. All the great social movements, you know, they may have a national component, but those national components have local expressions. So let's reverse engineer things instead of focusing on how can we change the national debate so that we lower the temperature of depolarization and reduce demonization and we just need to tweet our way into a new, you know, realm of existence. That's not going to happen. You're going to build those relationships in our neighborhoods. Those relationships all of a sudden become a way of expanding the network of people who you call as my own, I care about this group of people. And once those things begin to expand, then you actually have concrete reasons to say whatever might be happening nationally, whatever might be the debate unfolding in the media, I actually know these people and I actually can see a problem start to change. And that becomes a reinforcing incentive structure.
- [12:37]
B
Yeah, I think you're onto it. And I think, you know, here's the. I think another challenge. We live in a 24 hour a day news cycle where we're hearing from all parts of the world, right? And there's always something terrible going on, which typically is on the news, which is the headline, you know, wars and terrorist bombings and shootings and these terror, natural disasters. So we're constantly being impacted by that. Every time we look at our phone or we open up the Internet and we go on our favorite news channel or watch the tv, however you consume that information, you're constantly being hit with this. And I sense that that pulls us Away from that local context, that local connection. Like you were saying, what have you recommended to people when it particularly comes to like trying to rally around a cause that may have national ramifications or even international, but you start locally. Like you said, let's re engineer this. Are there practical, tangible things or maybe organizations that are doing this well, that kind of break through the noise of this 24 hour news cycle.
- [13:34]
A
Yeah. And let me do a little bit of diagnosis first and then I'll dive into answering that question more directly. And one is what happens when we're in the social media context in which all the news that comes to us is from all over the world 24, 7 and every single crisis and moment of outrage is now there immediately in your hand because it's in your phone. Right. Well, it does three things. One, it produces compassion fatigue. There's only so much that you can handle before you just turn off. Secondly, you lose a sense of agency because if the problems are from all over the world, what possible solution or contribution do you have sitting in your living room at home? Right. So there's compassion fatigue, there's a loss of agency because you no longer have access. And that's the third thing is even if you wanted to be outraged and go do something about it, and you're not compassion fatigue, you're activated because you're a problem solver and things rile you up and motivate you. Even if that were true, and even if you actually believe you could change the world, you still have to have a point of access. Right. So you need to deal with the compassion fatigue. You need to deal with the sense of agency and you need to have a point of access. Because most of what we do in life is just learn from points of access. You learn how to love by being on a playground and negotiating the rules of the playground. You learn how to change communities not just from reading a book, though we should educate ourselves. You learn because you saw something happen in your neighborhood, you saw your parents welcome someone in the home, or you just witness something at your church or your parent teacher association, new initiative in a school. So you need to have a point of access. And that's where the reverse engineering happens. When you have a point of access locally, you increase a sense of agency. Now I actually can do something. And then you deal with the compassion fatigue because you've now made the problem sizable. You actually can do something. It's the whole starfish throwing it back into the ocean. It made a difference for that one starfish. Even if the Thousands of others of starfish are still on the beach. Right. So I would say let's deal with the compassion fatigue, the loss of agency, the loss of access by reversing it. Let's give a point of access locally that increases a sense of agency and actually decreases compassion fatigue because you are seeing change happening that it feels good to do good. Like there's neuroscience evidence that it feels good to do good. So we can address the compassion fatigue by getting engaged.
- [16:33]
B
Boy, that is so right. I really appreciate it. I like your model that you just laid out for my listeners. I think that's excellent advice. And then let's. It's a great kind of turning point to. Let's talk about some of the proactive things you're doing. You're a big believer in visible, everyday acts of kindness and the power they have, even if they're small acts of kindness. Talk about why are those so important, even these small little acts of kindness, what have you seen the impact to be, particularly during our time of division and uncertainty?
- [17:00]
A
Again, kindness, it's a virtue that's not simply learned by reading a book. And it's also a virtue that you don't learn by the magnificent, magnanimous great martyrdom complex that we often have. You know, I'm going to be. It's like the New Year's resolution you make to all of a sudden instantaneously become fit, right? That doesn't happen. How do you become fit? Well, I'm just going to show up today at the gym and do a little bit of a workout. I'm just going to move the needle a little bit. And then all of a sudden you begin to realize things change. Compassion, kindness, even developing a strategy on social change. It often comes in the laboratory of little actions. You go out, you do something and you begin to realize that really did make a difference. Smiling at someone produces a smile back making eye. All those things that we teach our little children to, you know, just do these little things and you develop character from them. I would say you can do that individually. You can also do that organizationally. Again, I work a lot with churches and other Christian nonprofits. And rather than thinking about tackling all the social ills that might exist in your neighborhood, can you do one thing? Can you have a clean up the park day where you get a dozen volunteers from your church to go to a local park and work with your town councils and say, what park needs to be tackled? Can we go clean that up? And taking a small step begins to exercise muscles of kindness that you all of a sudden become fit in terms of virtue.
- [18:43]
B
We'll be right back. Are you looking for an easy and effective way to boost your nonprofit's donations? Well, look no further than DonorBox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your fundraising efforts, maximizes donations, and simplifies giving for your supporters. With DonorBox, you can create beautiful donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, track donations, and send auto receipts. And the best part, there are no setup or monthly fees and no long term contracts required. So what are you waiting for? Visit donorbox.org today to get started. That is www.donorbox.org. Well, that sounds a lot like this Good Neighbor Day America that you've really helped to launch this just every day doing something small in your neighborhood, maybe talk about that. Some of my listeners may have not heard about that campaign that you've helped put together. You're giving some great leadership around that. Talk about what it is, when did it start? And then how are you aiming to really strengthen communities through this movement?
- [19:46]
A
Yeah, Rob, you know, when I think about anniversaries, they are often occasions not only to remember, they're also occasions to rejoice, but they're occasions also to renew. So remember, rejoice, renew. You know, when I think about my own, like marriage anniversary, I want to do those things. Well, what about the anniversary of our country? This is, we're coming up on the 250th year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's a time to remember our history. Of course, there are elements of our history that we should lament. Rightly, rightly so. But I would say it's not just a time to remember and rejoice. It's a time to renew. It's a time to renew the fabric of our social life. And for, again, for me, as a leader of a Christian network of churches and nonprofit organizations, I think about the church as being the first network of social good in American history. This is churches right from the onset. We're feeding neighbors. We're involved in transforming educational systems and providing education for those who were around them. The original Sunday school movement was a movement to help educate children in the 1800s who are working in factories and did not have public school education. Wow. So the church actually tried to tackle a very practical need of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic to kids who didn't have access to that. So we thought one of the best ways to celebrate America's history, to remember to rejoice, but also to renew, is to have a day where we just call from Our world churches, but we actually want this to be open to communities generally. You know, a church might take a leadership role in forming a service event on May 16, but we would love to have thousands of churches of communities, volunteers both within and outside of Christian context. Just no religious context in particular, just collaborating to tackle whatever might be a local issue. And whether you're a person of faith or not a person of faith, to see that the opportunity to remember, rejoice, and renew what it means to be an American, what it means to be a good neighbor, really can revolve around a service event. And oftentimes that's when you build these relationships that lower the dehumanization, that address the polarization, because you're rolling up your sleeves and saying, doesn't matter who you voted for. It doesn't matter where you might come religiously or not religiously. If we are cleaning up this park, if we are volunteering at this school, if we're feeding people at the local shelter, we're actually accomplishing a good together. That reminds us that we have so much more in common than what we have that separates us.
- [22:50]
B
Yeah, well said. And I feel like that kind of effort comes down to leadership. Right? And this is a show on leadership, all about helping nonprofit social impact leaders go further, faster, and really to grow their organizations and lead by example. And I'm a big believer, and it's obviously not original with me. We both heard the phrase speed of the leader, speed of the team. Talk about how you've seen leadership, particularly when it comes to setting an example of showing compassion, service, empathy. How can leaders continue to model what inspires other people to do that really speaks to what you're just talking about on a community and national level when
- [23:25]
A
you're doing it yourself. I mean, there is a way that I would say a leader needs to demonstrate humility by actual involvement in the front lines of the issues. So never to forget that we are called to be practitioners, even as we're called to be strategists, that the art of delegation for a leader is absolutely essential to develop, but the practice is what keeps us deeply grounded. So I would say do it yourself, be involved yourself. Because that helps you not only model, but actually helps you be genuine in that modeling. It's one thing to put on the modeling act in order to persuade people to say, oh, yeah, I'm signaling to you what you should be doing. It's another thing when it rises out of a deep, deep sense of conviction and practice yourself. So, one, I think you need to model it and do it yourself. Secondly, I would say it becomes a part of your ongoing strategy. It's not simply a technique, but it's part of the DNA. Right. So to move something from a technique or a strategic initiative to a part of the DNA of your organization, and that could show up in what you do as a staff. Do you do things together as a staff with respect to service? Are you engaged in ways in your local community that it represents who you are, not just what you do? These are the sorts of people that live this way that I think is monumentally more important than a particular initiative. It's a demonstration of organization's culture. Right. So we often know this. Right. Culture, each strategy for breakfast every time. And I would put that a little bit further. Character. Character is even more foundational than culture. And so if service is part of your character, individually and institutionally, it forms your culture. And if it forms your culture, that it informs your strategies.
- [25:45]
B
I think you said that very well, and there's no doubt. Yeah, character, really? Then from character, you build your culture. And so that's a really good reminder to all of us as leaders that it starts with you. It starts with self leadership. And setting that example, as you mentioned, and you had this great example of this Good Neighbor Day America concept. Maybe for my listeners who, like, may be interested in getting involved, what are some of the practical ways that people can get involved, help their neighbor out, whether they're officially a part of this movement or not? What are those things that specifically, I think about food insecurity, I think about other resources that people can't access because of transportation issues or whatever. Are there things that you're already seeing as you roll this out that people can help with again, whether they're officially part of the Good America Day or not? What are some of those key things you're seeing are big needs right now?
- [26:36]
A
Yeah. Go to goodneighbordayamerica.org and you will see. Look up Good Neighbor Day America and you'll see a whole toolkit of resources and ideas that you can even sign up to find what's happening in my neighborhood. Or you can sign up your own event, your own organization, and say, we're going to host a service event. You'll see in that toolkit template letters that you can write to local leadership on. Is there a project that you need? There's just so many wonderful resources there. And it could take the context of, again, not a huge thing, but it could be as creative as what your organization is already doing. Just Offer what your organization is already doing, offer the set of resources and relationships that you have, and on that day, begin to realize that what is an event that you might participate in or even host actually becomes a set of relationships that endure beyond that particular day. Right. And it is an opportunity for you perhaps to initiate something, to get involved in something, but it is even more importantly, a way of becoming part of the fabric within a local community of relationships and resources. So again, it could be cleaning up a park. It could be volunteering at a shelter. It could be. I know one church that in the past had run the first ever science fair for the local public high school. I mean, a public elementary school. Because that church had a lot. It was a church in Boston. It had a lot of scientists in it. And they're like, well, what can we do? What can we offer? And the local public school said, we've never had a science fair. I said, okay, that's your.
- [28:20]
B
We can do that.
- [28:21]
A
We can run your first ever science fair. So it could be as creative as running a science fair for school.
- [28:28]
B
Yeah, that's a great example. Well, and then to kind of take this practical example, which I encourage, I'll put my show notes, a link to the Good Neighbor Day America movement site. But also going back to that culture, and you're creating culture in your organization, whatever nonprofit you're leading, whatever social impact organization you're a part of of, you talk a lot about being neighborly or neighborliness in modern society. And so kind of moving beyond whatever one believes. How can people do this? Well, and are there people that you. Or organizations that are doing this consistently? Well, they're just a great example that you've run across.
- [29:04]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, again, from my worldview, you know, Jesus said there are two great commands. If I were to summarize all the kind of scriptures you know, he said, love God and love your neighbor. And the very concrete example he gave after giving that command was, you know, a person that stopped and took care of someone that had been beaten up by robbers. This great story of the Good Samaritan and the historic enemies that existed that time because of racial and ethnic divides, religious divides. And he took what was viewed as the enemy and made the enemy the hero of the story who stopped by and took care of this person who had been beaten and robbed and took care of their needs. I think there are all sorts of ways that we can very creatively cross boundaries of difference. And again, to find some concrete act that regardless of what might be your perception of you Know that side of the neighborhood or this group of people. What does it mean? Mean to take a step forward and to say, no, I can choose to do good. I can choose to transform culture. And it could begin with this local access point. This is incredibly important in our time. You know, the epidemic of loneliness, the fact that the social fabric of society is fraying. You know, people move, they're not growing up in their neighborhoods. There isn't a deep sense of place. We know all these things to be the case. You know, let's reverse these trends.
- [30:49]
B
Boy, I love what you're saying, and I think you're absolutely right. There's so many things that kind of emerge out of what we've been chatting about, whether it be the loneliness epidemic or certainly the disconnect from our neighbors. So a lot of interesting conversation going on here. So for my listeners who want to learn a little bit more about you or again, learn more about this good neighbor day for this movement that's happening, tell us where they can go, what is. And I'll put some links, of course, in the show notes. But is there any other information you want to send on to people that are listening?
- [31:16]
A
Yeah, go to our website, the nae.org you can get information there. Learn a little bit more about the organizations. Rob, you had asked, you know, what organizations are doing work. I think of the Salvation Army. They're a member organization. Look up your local Salvation army chapter and they will have have tons of opportunities. There are Christian community development associations that are engaged in all sorts of very practical work. You can do local prison visitation. I mean, this is a constituency that your very presence there and a conversation would have inordinate impact. So there are all sorts of organizations, whether it's Prison Fellowship, Salvation Army, a local community development organization that is just doing really good practical work. And there are all sorts of on ramps. You're not giving away your entire life. You're just on ramping on a day to do some good.
- [32:17]
B
Well, again, I love that you're charging all of us in a good way. You're encouraging all of us to be that good neighbor and you're giving us a real easy way to do that. And again, thanks for your leadership and what you're trying to do in terms of creating this sense of we do belong to each other and we are to serve those around us and start local. And you never know where that may end up. And so many nonprofit leaders that listen to the show that I've had on the show, you're right. Like these movements that start small. They do. They start at a local level and then eventually they can grow if they continue to, you know, have resonance with so many people. So, anyway, just a great reminder today, breaking it down to your neighborhood, your street, your community. Start there and you never know what will happen. So, Walter, thanks again. Thanks for taking time to be on the show and thanks for inspiring us with what you're doing.
- [33:05]
A
Rob, thanks for having me on.
- [33:06]
B
You bet. Absolutely. Hey, friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to, like, subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the nonprofit leadership podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website, nonprofitleadershippodcast.org well, thanks again for listening, and until next time, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.