← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
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In a world hungry for change, nonprofit impact matters more than ever. Yet every day, you're asked to do more with less. Less time, fewer resources, and tools that weren't even built for the way nonprofits actually work. What if you could do more with more? That's the promise of Bloomerang, the giving platform built for purpose. Bloomerang integrates fundraising, donor, and volunteer management into one intuitive platform. It connects your data to reveal real opportunity, showing you who's ready to give, when to reach out, and how to deepen every relationship. Because when your tools are built for purpose, your mission goes further. More connection, more confidence, more impact. Now that's more like it. Learn how you can do more with more at bloomerang.
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Com.
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That's bloomerang. Com. Now onto the show. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm gonna with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Nonprofit Nation. Or welcome back. Happy to be here with you today. I'm Julia Campbell, your host. Today I'm talking to Jacob Adams, and Jacob is a former education, now nonprofit leader focused on transforming schools from the inside out so they become places where black and brown youth want to be. And he coined the term disconnection crisis to name what happens when traditional schooling pulls young people away from their purpose, community, and creativity. And in 2017, he founded STEM to the Future now Inner Spark Learning Lab to support schools as they become the places kids and families want and need them to be. So we're going to be talking about what happens when nonprofit stop optimizing for funders, how this is related to education, and how we can combat the disconnection crisis. So, Jacob, welcome to the podcast.
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B
Hey, for sure. Thanks for. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to chat. You're not going to always talk about education. I'm sure that'll come up, but the other part is one of my favorite things to talk about.
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Exactly. So, yeah, let's dive in. So you describe much of what we're experiencing right now in education and philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector as a disconnection crisis. So kind of walk us through what you mean by that.
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B
I think it shows up in a lot of different ways. The overall kind of idea behind it is that, like, within schools, I feel like it manifests itself in ways of, like, we'll see things like chronic absenteeism. Academic achievement is in a lot of places back to how it was prior to Covid. And, you know, we have kids suffering with, like, mental health issues at rates we've never seen before from, like, depression, anxiety, loneliness. Um, you know, I don't want to stay in this sad epidemic story for. Right. For. For too long. But, you know, I think we see those things, and it can be really easy to kind of diagnose those as, like. I mean, they are their own really big problems, but I think they're a part of something much larger, and it's that, like, society is, like, making it really difficult for you to actually, like, learn who you are and what are the things you care about. You know, who do you want to be? What things are you curious about? Like, how can your life revolve around those things? And I think school is a great example of that. Like, you know, we're forced to go there from 4 years old to, like, 18. And so often, like, as a child, you know, as a young adult, if you're in high school, you have very little autonomy over what you learn, what you do with it. School is something that's done to you. It's not something that. That you get to do. And so I think that makes kids. Most kids, like, just disengage. And then even for the kids that are able to, like, you know, figure it out and still get good grades, you know, oftentimes, like, they don't really. I mean, we see it all the time with a lot of the kind of kids we'll talk to in the beginning of the year, like, they haven't been provided, like, the space or the skills to just, like, figure out who they are. You know, they're trying to figure out some answer to some math tests that they're gonna have to take in a few months, and they're not even gonna know how to apply that. That math or, you know, apply that theory in ways that are actually meaningful to them. So I think that's how it shows up in school, you know, in adults. I feel like we're seeing a lot with a lot of the technology. I know. I don't know if it's still true, but I feel like. Six months ago, Harvard Business Review Put out a study that was saying, like, one of the most used, like, the most common use of chat, GPT was like therapy. You know, you got people marrying their AI bots. There's like, one little AI software that will call your parents for you or your grandparents and talk to them so you don't have to talk to them. So, you know, it shows up in technology. I think it's showing up there. And, like, the goal isn't to get us to actually spend more time together and, like, learn who you are and find people who are like you. It's like creating technology to fill the gap, feel like a human gap, and it's ultimately something I don't think technology can do. And so that, like, disengages us from ourselves, disengages us from society, and now here we are. You know, whether. Whether you're a kid or whether you're adult, like, you're not really a part of the process of creating the world that you want to live in. Like, there's another group of people not, you know. No, no, not in, like, as I was thinking it, I was like, oh,
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A
this sounds kind of not like the Illuminati.
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B
Yeah, yeah, not like that. You know, it's too early.
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But the tech companies, I agree. They're shaping the future. They're shaping language, they're shaping the way we talk to each other.
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B
Exactly, exactly. I don't want to get the tin hat bucket too early or get put in that bucket this early in the. I mean, no point in the podcast, but especially this early. But, yeah, you know, there's the people who have the. The power are the ones who get to create the future that we live in. And it's, you know, when we're disengaged from. From ourselves and disengaged from society, it becomes much easier for them to do that because we just let it, you know, we can let it happen to us.
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No, I agree. And I am reading a book about how the algorithms are actually influencing language and the things that we say. I mean, kids now, they don't say. They say un alive know. They don't. There's terms that they use so they can avoid getting dinged by the algorithms on social media. It's just so interesting that we don't even know the influences that we're having. But, yeah, I'll find it. It was on my desk, but it's like language in the age of algorithms. I'll put the. I'll put the link in the show notes. I'll send it to you, it's just really interesting and I completely see this disconnect based on what you just said. People marrying their AI bots, talking to their AI bots, like having relationships with them. It's like you said, it's a root issue rather than simply a system. It's something we need to kind of attack from a systems level, like systems level thinking. So what kind of questions should we be asking? Because you said that, you know, many institutions are just asking the wrong questions. Like maybe we're well intentioned, but what are the questions we should be asking?
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Yeah, it depends. But you know, if I'm a systems leader, I guess some of the questions I'd be thinking about are who is the system supposed to benefit? And for those people, if that system is operating at its like optimal level, what would that look like? How do I know? You know, and once I kind of have an idea of that, of what that kind of utopia or kind of optimal level would be, how do I know that that's what the people who interact with the system the most want it to be? Not what I want it to be, or what somebody else, funders or whomever want it to be like, how do I know that's actually the system that the folks who, who interact with it the most like this is what they want. I would also be curious about what systems within the system do I have in place to ensure that as technology advances, as society changes, just as the world continues to evolve and adapt, what systems do I have in place to ensure that this larger system, listen, learns and adapts with the world as it changes from the perspective of the people in the system, if that makes sense. Because you can see with school, like school technology became a big thing. Ed tech became a big thing. So schools quickly start to adapt, adapt it. But most people didn't ask for that and they for sure didn't ask for it in the way that it has manifested itself, you know, in our schools. And I guess one other question I would look at, what systems do we have in place to ensure that the changes that happen are actually reflective of the people in the community or the people in the system. And within that, a lot of questions start to kind of cascade and arise. But that's kind of the first things I would think about.
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So being more proactive and intentional and less reactive and thinking, oh, we have to do this to, you know, keep up or we have to do this because we saw a news article about this. I'm actually just being, you know, my listeners know I'm on the school board here and reading about the backlash now even to Chromebooks and iPads and having all that technology in class and just going back to writing essays like by hand. Going back to class with completely, you know, tech free highlighting in a book like some. Something about that tactile feeling. So it is interesting how we were so quick to adapt and I think nonprofits as well without really being intentional about what we were doing. So you as a nonprofit leader, I mean you have worked with more than 40,000 young people through Inner Spark Learning Lab. Why did you form Inner Spark Learning Lab and why did you decide to move into the nonprofit sector?
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B
So I started my career as like a. I did teach for America and I ended up getting placed at this school in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Like super high performing charter school, like blue ribbon school. Some days there'd be like 50 people there watching us, watching the kids eat breakfast and they'd follow us, you know, start there and then follow you, follow you around for the rest of the day. But it was ran like a prison. They use that like no excuse model, also known as teach like a champion. Kids are sitting with their hands folded like people can't see, but their hands are together like this all day. I taught first grade. They didn't have recess. You'd probably be more likely to get a boat through the straight of hermuz right now than you would to be able to take those kids outside to recess. It was unreal. Yeah, everything was so controlled. But because the. I guess one other just so people can really wrap their mind around what it looked like in there. Like the kindergartners came to school two days early before everyone else. Basically the initiation, they call it first days. But basically they're getting jumped into the, the gang and they're eating breakfast and like their hands have to be together and they're supposed to look at whoever's speaking. And if a kid's hands were apart, this is their first moment. Like their first moments of school. This is breakfast. If their hands are apart or they're not looking at whoever is talking, an adult would come over there, take their breakfast from them, tell them to do the thing they weren't doing and then they would give them their food back. Like that's how school was ran and people loved it because test scores were so high. I never liked school. I was in fourth grade. I got this, this award. There's an AB honor roll with the exception of conduct. So I did my work, but I was getting trouble. So I could care less for School. But I did like working with kids. I love to learn. So I ended up finding out about Teach for America, ended up getting placed at this spot. So I didn't study school, so this was, like, brand new to me. I mean, I said school. I didn't study education, so this was brand new to me. And I remember, like, whoa, this is wild. But the school is different now. After, like, a couple of months into that, I was like, ooh, I don't really want to be a part of this, not in this way. So I, like, found ways within the school to kind of do my own thing. And then I end up leaving after the second year and went to the school in Harlem, like, way more chill. But during professional development, it's like, me and the people I was just teaching with, like, they showed the videos of where I just came from. So I was like, damn, can't get away from it. So I ended up leaving there after a year. Then I end up moving to LA and was training teachers. So now I'm seeing like 30, 30, 40 schools over the course of a year. And I'm like, oh, not just my schools were whack. Like, school in general is whack. Like, kids, you know, even the good teacher, quote, unquote, good teachers I was supporting, like, the class wasn't relevant. They weren't. The kids had no control over what they learned or what they did with it.
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Yeah.
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And so, you know, I wanted to make something that could still recognize the brilliance in the community and in the kids, but do it in a way where the kids have control over what they learn, and it's less about us telling them what success looks like, and more or less like creating a program or experience that allows the kids to figure out, you know, who they are, what they care about, and the skills to figure out how to navigate that road. And that has evolved a lot over the past nine years since I started the Org. But that was, like, always the kind of underlying gist of it. Like, how can we school at that point? Like, just make learning. You make a program, and now it's turned into, like, how can you make schools? But how can we make that process something that kids and families have a lot of control over? Because I think if you want to fix chronic absenteeism, you want to get kids reading and doing math on grade level. You want kids that can communicate and, like, social, emotionally doing well. The first thing we have to do is make school a place they actually like in a place they actually enjoy.
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I completely agree. And I also See, sort of some of the themes that we're going to talk about in terms of how nonprofits can be very disconnected from the communities they serve, or the leaders or the board or the higher ups making the decisions can sometimes be, you know, disconnected from actual communities that they aim to serve or aim to provide services to. So you do a lot of fundraising. I bet as a nonprofit leader you have a lot of criticism of transactional fundraising. I completely agree, even though I teach digital fundraising. So it's a lot of donor acquisition and it might seem transactional. But to you, what's the difference between transactional fundraising and relational fundraising and how do we sort of shift our mindset here?
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You know, I think within a relationship there can be transactions. Like, that's cool, that's a part of, I mean you just could be a part, as a part of a relationship. Like if you're, if I'm not getting something or you're not getting something, you know, what are we doing? But that relationship defines the terms of which, like what those transactions are, what they take place and what happens, you know, in between. So, you know, I feel like even a standard like cultivation, stewardship cycle could end up being very transactional. You know, you got 30, 40 donors. That's a lot. Well, you know, let's say you have 20 individual donors and you have all of them on the same cycle. Like everyone gets the same update and you know, everyone's getting hit up at the same time. Like nothing is personalized. Sure, you're keeping them in the loop maybe more than you are. You are like your annual donors, but everyone's getting the same thing. So like it's not really relational. And you, the development director, the ed, whoever, the, you, the fundraiser, you decided the terms, the other people had no say in that. That was like a one sided thing. And you know, it could be flip where the funder decides all that for you, which is often the case with foundations or maybe a really, really large individual donor. But either way, that plan wasn't created together. It was either like is mainly dictated by one party or the other. So I think that is what makes it transactional as we're running as relational. That's something you figure out together. Yeah, that's something you can figure out together and you could do that and it's still be disconnected from the community. Like that's another piece of the puzzle. But just in terms of like transactional versus a relational kind of fundraising, those like that's like the first thing that comes to mind.
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Are you familiar with the community centric fundraising movement ccf, I'll send you some information about, was created sort of in reaction to this, like, donor, the donor's the hero, love on your donors, the donor's always right kind of model that we've always been taught. So I think you'd really like. I just thought of that now. You'd really like it. So I'll send you some information. It's just. Or Google community centric fundraising ccf. They do webinars and events and have a blog. And I've had, you know, a few of the founders on the podcast. It's just really interesting. I actually think it really aligns well with your thoughts on how the disconnection crisis is affecting philanthropy and funders and how they're really, really disconnected from what's going on in the ground. And you even talk about saying no to funding. So that might be something that people are just shaking their heads right now. Like, why would I say no to funding? How can I refuse funding? Could you maybe even give an example or tell us how. How that works in practice and maybe something that you had to deal with in terms of misalignment?
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Yeah, for sure. And at a time where fundraising seems. I know the past nine years since I've been doing it is harder than ever. Like, this is a. Could be a very, very difficult thing to do. But if folks are actual leaders, like, you're supposed to make difficult decisions. So we gotta figure it out. I think a lot of it can start from the beginning. Like, I oftentimes hear, you know, in these different groups, hopefully I don't get kicked out of them, but if I do, it's okay. But I'm in these different groups and I hear people talk about like, you know, they're. Let me make up a place. So no one, like, I'm gonna say Kansas because none of these people are in Kansas. And they'll be like, oh, yeah, we just got a donor who is like, interested in. In having programming in Nebraska. Well, those are too similar, like, you know, in North Dakota. So we're like figuring out how to get program in North Dakota. It's like, have you ever even been to North Dakota? Like, why? Why? Yeah, like, why are you moving over there? Like, what's actually going on? You've perfected whatever you're doing in Nebraska or can. Wherever I started so well that it's time to go to a place you don't even know that well. So I think the mission drift in the beginning where there's like, location Based or adding some AI thing to your program, even though you don't like it, doesn't make sense, which happens a lot right now. Or just like, adding a new program because you've seen a grant for it, like, yeah, it's money in the door, but if you're actually going to do the thing that's. That takes a lot of work. Like, it takes a lot of work to create a new program. Took a lot of work to take something to a new place. And that work is typically not the person out there raising the money. Like, that's going to fall on other people within the team. And now you get a nonprofit that becomes disconnected not only from the work, but also from each other, because they're not even on the same page. And people are overworked and overburdened. Not getting paid, paid enough. You know, we know how it goes. So I think that's. That's one way, and then I think another way to saying no to the money, which is a little. It's probably a little more outside the box, is like, speak up. Like, I feel like I. I mean, a lot of the stuff I'm saying, and I'm sure keep saying that just as the conversation goes, like, also say it online a lot. Like, we'll write stuff. And just this past week, I was at a conference, and someone came up to me, and they were like. And we were talking to a third person who we just met, and he came up and he was like, man, this guy's always talking about stuff on, you know, about stuff on LinkedIn, with. About funders. And I. He's like, I like everything he says. And I was like, well, why don't you say anything? And he was like, because I need to get the money. And I was like. And there goes the problem. Like, you can't just come over here and acknowledge that there's something wrong with the fundraising system, there's something wrong with philanthropy. And you just click a little button online, but you're too afraid to say anything. You don't have the courage or whatever it is to say anything or critique it because you need to get money. Like, got to figure it out. You know, you have to step up. So that I think the mission drift and also just the calling this stuff out as we see it, like, don't be. Yeah, they're going to be consequences, but there's also consequences to doing work that nobody asked for. Well, only that the funders asked for as well.
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Right. So I had Douglas Jackson, who is the founder of Project Cure and they're a huge, like, international relief organization. And he echoed that same thing about Mission Drift. He said, look, he's like, we get asked all the time to build hospitals, to host vaccine drives. He's like, we are. We provide medical equipment. That's what we do. We provide gloves and needles and masks and gowns and X ray machines and whatever people need. But we don't build hospitals, we don't build wells. We don't really dive into. You know, there's other organizations that do that stuff really well. So, you know, partnering, collaborating with other organizations could be a solution for the Mission Drift. But, oh, I used to see it all the time when I was a grant writer and like, oh, there's this. Because funders love new. They love shiny and new. And, you know, they don't want to fund your program for 20 years, even if you rely on their funding. So how do we. Or how do you balance, you know, accountability to funders while still really remaining true to the community voices that you serve?
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Yeah, that one. That one is tough. Yeah, it is hard. Some of it is being proactive on the front end and, like, just trying to find funders who have a similar philosophy. Like, that's the easiest way. Excuse me. Because you could talk about all that on the front end and figure out, like, what the terms are gonna. Like, how restrictive is the funding? Like, what's the reporting gonna be? You know, is it. Is it Mission Drift, or is it actually, you know, supporting what you want to do? That's the easiest on the front end. Another thing you could do is just tell the funders what they want to hear. Sometimes, depending on the funder, if they want the relationship to be transactional. But the people in the neighborhood, you know, the people that your program serves, actually need something that is different than what you know. A new need has emerged, but they don't want to change the grant. Do the thing. Send a grant report. Keep it moving. They're not doing anything with the grant report. It's just sitting on a folder. It's like homework. They're just, okay, cool, they did it. Put it over here. That's another thing you could do, which I don't see why not. And also, too, like, you need to make sure that your systems within your organization and your programs, depending on what you do, are ones that are meant to adapt to the needs of the people the organization serves, not whatever new fad or new thing that philanthropy decides they want to fund on. On, you know, any given quarter or any given year. So we use this thing called, like, listen. Like listen, learn, adapt. And there's a shared part, but that don't sound as catchy. And the share happens throughout. So it, It's. Yeah, never mind.
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A
Sort of like a Venn diagram where share is always a part of it.
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B
Exactly. We're making a one pager right now. We haven't quite figured out how to display that, but we need to without trim people out. But yeah, we. We listen to the kids and the families, depending on whatever the thing, like the hypothesis or thing we're trying to learn at any given time. You know, we have these systems where we listen to the kids and the families. We'll take what we heard to like, create some adjust some program or create some experiment that's based off of what we heard, consult with them to make sure the thing that we've come up with in another program, the kids come up with the thing, but we'll make sure that thing is actually aligned with what we heard from them or what we think they heard. And then we'll do the thing. We'll learn. We'll tell them what we learned and we'll let them know. Here's what we want to do differently now based off what we heard or the. Again, sometimes it's the kids doing this and the kids, oh, this is what we're going to do differently in the school now. And then we do the. And then we do the whole thing again. And so, you know, our work is always changing to a certain degree, but it's not changing because so and so, you know, this funder is cool, is excited about this thing, and now they're excited about that thing. And, you know, we know how it goes. Like, we're not listening, learning and adapting to them. We're listening, learning and adapting with the kids, with the families, you know, with the. With the teachers and the staff within the school. And so I think that is like the big thing. It's like, make sure your org is set up to actually know what the people you work with you, you know, the people your organization is built for. It's actually doing the thing that those people needed to do. And you asked about questions earlier. And one question I always say I like to get people to ask, like, how do you know for sure? Or who knows? Yeah, I guess you could be for sure. But how do you know that your program or your initiative is actually what the folks need or the folks want and then be real about that analysis and kind of go from there?
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A
Right? Or is it just because this is the way things have always been done. This is the status quo. This is what a funder wanted 10 years ago when we created this organization. That's so hard. The innovating piece, the adaptability, you know, iterating can be incredibly challenging. You know, people are putting out fires. Like you said, the fundraising climate is so challenging right now.
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B
And I think it becomes really hard because folks try to scale. Well, there's pressure to scale all the
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time because the demand for services is so high, but we are getting less money.
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B
Yep. And so it's really hard to adapt when you're already spread thin because you're increasing your numbers, when another way we could do about it is to go deeper and be within the thing that, you know, there you're mentioning earlier around mission, I think it was around Mission Drift, but it remind me of something my fundraising coach brought up a while ago. She was like, you know, back in the day, if you needed shoes, you went to the cobbler. Like, if you needed, you know, furniture, you went to the carpenter. Like, now I'm running out of examples.
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But you went to the dairy farm.
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B
Exactly. Like, everyone had the thing that they did well and you went, you had. Everyone had a special, you know, folks had a specialization. So we had some generalists, but, like, there's also folks who specialize in that thing. I feel like the whole world would look different if. If non profits were incentivized to become specialists, and not specialists in scaling and doing mediocre work, but with, you know, ten thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, but, like, specializing in doing that one or two things that you do really well, just do that and learn and then share it. And then the other specialists can learn from what you're doing and they can adapt as well.
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And.
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But whenever, you know, you're trying to, the philanthropy is incentivizing you to double the number of your kids or triple the number of schools or whatever the thing might be. It's really hard to adapt because like you said, you're always putting out fighters, not learning.
- [26:38]
A
Exactly. Oh, I love that. I think that also nonprofit leaders, they don't have the opportunities to come together as much. They're certainly in person conferences, but there can be prohibitively expensive and travel and all of that. And, you know, even locally, I think we have one group, but they just get together for breakfast and then there's a talk and then everyone leaves. And there's a mix of funders and nonprofits in the room. So it's just sort of like you said before, a lot of the times the nonprofits don't want to be truly honest. They can't be. Or they feel like they're going to offend someone or they're going to step on a funder's toes if they talk about what's really going on. So there's that huge disconnect there. And that just got me thinking, like, we should separate the nonprofits from the funders so we can have some honest, honest conversations of what it's like to be a nonprofit leader today. This really tough. It's really, really challenging.
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B
And get the funders to, you know, fund it.
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We can get them to fund it. Get them to pay for it.
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B
Yeah.
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Or just get unrestricted funding.
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B
Yeah. And be down to listen to, like, yes. If you want your work, your dollars to be invested, you know, you know, you want those to be strong investments, you need to hear the truth from the folks on the ground, because they're going to lie to see. And that's. I'm glad you said that, because that is like kind of the underlying thing, that one of the underlying things that creates the disconnection, like, and non profits are. Are not incentivized to be truthful to your program officer or to your major donors could be a little different, but because they're just. There's so many individuals that could. It's just like some more unique. But a lot of these foundations more or less are. They're so similar in terms of this part, at least. But, like, whenever we feel like you have to report back, you know, positive things or said you achieved everything in your grant to the funders, it makes it like the whatever's in these grant reports, whatever is in the annual reports. If everybody was telling the truth, the world would not look the way it does. So people are lying. And I get it. They're incentivized to lie because they need to get funding.
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So it's just the system is broken.
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B
Exactly. And it incentivizes, like, us making though our work seem like it's doing better than it is, which creates problem.
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A
What I think is also interesting is I also think that, you know, give to give people that are working at a foundation or that are making funding decisions some credit. There are so many of them that want to hear the truth. I think it's just been this. This power dynamic for so long that's created this big disconnect, this disconnection crisis. And philanthropy where nonprofit people feel like imposter syndrome, and we have to just, you know, Put our heads down and do the work. And we can't really complain, and we can't really talk about it, or we're not as passionate about it as we want. But I do think that foundations would really listen. Not all of them, of course, but they'd be down to listen to the reality on the ground. And I also think this is something that I get on soapbox about in terms of nonprofit communications to donors. We cannot just say everything is great all the time. Right? We can say we're doing great work and we're making great strides. But donors want to know what's going on. I want to know what's going on with SNAP benefits. Like, if I'm supporting, you know, no Kid hungry or a different organization, I really want to know what's the reality on the ground, what's going on. And I just think we treat our donors almost like children a little bit, where we don't want to offend them or tell them too much or we want to protect them from the realities, but they've got to know. They have to know what's going on.
- [30:15]
B
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think our newsletters and communications that, you know, there's categories of them. One category that consistently does well is when I'm vulnerable and being honest about something that didn't go well or something went left. Like, those tend to do the best,
- [30:30]
A
especially with engagement, because no one sees that. I love it. I'm constantly saying to organizations, send letters from the executive director, the desk of, and talk about something that didn't work or like you said, went left or failed or didn't perform as well as you had thought. People, you know, they, they don't want vulnerability for vulnerability sake, but they, they want to know there's a human behind this. And they also know, like, not everything is rosy all the time. Like, it's, you know, it's not very realistic. Oh, my God, this has been fantastic. Okay, so what I usually though my. Usually my last question or my second to last, because I want people to connect with you. What gives you hope right now?
- [31:08]
B
Honestly, I think whenever I see this, the stuff that our kids and families and the educators are coming up with, and we're already coming up with, like, as, you know, whether, whether we're there or whether we're not, like, folks in the neighborhood, folks in the community are consistently trying to figure out how to make things work for them. So I think just seeing some of, like, the ways our kids are coming up with, how they can easily be like, oh, here's the things that make me feel disconnected at school. Here's when I feel like I belong the most. And here's different things that we want to create or build or try within the school that would make it feel more relevant, that would make us feel like we belong, that make us want to be here. Like, they have ideas, you know, they see the thing every day, they deal with it every day. And they're constantly. Whether it's like within the structured programs that we run or whether it's on their own, they're figuring it out. And so I think just seeing that we, I mean, the community has never given up and they continue to be persistent gives me hope. And it does feel like there's a growing number of people who are down to going this, like, longer bump. Well, honestly, just more transparent, like, so there. Therefore, it feels like a bumpier ride to create change. Because again, if we're talking about school, none of these systems, whether it be school, health care, housing, like these things were built hundreds of years ago. And they're going to, it's going to take just as long, honestly, to create a new one. And so you need. And so I'm, I'm seeing a growing number of people who can acknowledge that and are down to kind of go on that ride and learn together. So I think just seeing the innovation coming from within and then kind of seeing the, the, the community around people who want to support that is growing. That's what that's. I say that's to give me hope right now.
- [33:01]
A
I love that. Where can people connect with you, learn more about you and the Inner Spark Learning Lab.
- [33:06]
B
I need to think of a new name for it. It's a newsletter, but I feel like people have a, an aversion to that, to that name. And I, I get it. I have a, A weekly newsletter where, I mean, I write it. It's like coming from me every week. It's not the, not the rosy, like
- [33:23]
A
spark insights or something. Inner Spark.
- [33:25]
B
See, that's why I like. Because now it's just the, it's like the spark. But when I'm talking about it like this, I still call it a newsletter because people know what that means, but it's not the thing that people think it is. Folks just subscribe to that. I feel that's a really good way to like actually be in, be in dialogue, you know. But to do that, you can go to innersparklab.org podcast that'll get you on it. I'm also on LinkedIn. Jacob Adams. Those are the main two places.
- [33:52]
A
Great. Well, thank you.
- [33:54]
B
And then we're on Instagram too, I guess that. Oh, sorry.
- [33:56]
A
Oh, on Instagram. I will put those. I'll put those on the show notes. But I know you're super busy and doing amazing work and I just really want to thank you for taking the time and being on the show today.
- [34:06]
B
Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Always love to have these conversations. These are always really cool. It kind of pushed me to think differently about all of this and just further my thinking. So thank you.
- [34:24]
A
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show and you're favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then, you can find me on Instagram. Juliacam bowl77 Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn.