Todd Hiestand · Co-owner, Liminal Creative | Todd Hiestand, Co-owner of Liminal, a creative branding agency for nonprofits, is a seasoned nonprofiteer who has experienced his share of change and made it his mission to shepherd for-good organizations through transformational moments.

The winds of change are blowing, and nonprofits, ahem, the for-good sector, isn’t immune. Today we’re talking to a seasoned nonprofiteer who has experienced his share of change and made it his mission to shepherd for-good organizations through transformational moments.

In this conversation with Todd Hiestand, Co-owner of Liminal, a creative branding agency for nonprofits, we touch on the effects that change has on the for-good sector, how to foster these shifts, and the value of leaning into the liminal spaces where change happens.

One change that host David Schwab would like to see could be viewed as semantical—and it’s one that Todd and David air their views on in this episode: the movement from “nonprofit” language to “for-good”. It’s also one that we'd love to hear your views on, so please let us know your thoughts!

Join us now for a discussion on the merits of “for-good” language, the ways change and innovation intersect, and how none of us are alone on the road to better.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit!

The winds of change are blowing, and the nonprofit sector isn’t immune. Today we’re talking to a seasoned nonprofiteer who has experienced his share of change and made it his mission to shepherd nonprofit organizations through transformational moments.

In this conversation with Todd Hiestand, Co-owner of Liminal, a creative branding agency for nonprofits, we touch on the effects that change has on the nonprofit sector, how to foster these shifts, and the value of leaning into the liminal spaces where change happens.

One change that I’m particularly excited to see could be viewed as semantical—and it’s one that Todd and I air our views on in this episode. It's the change from talking about ourselves as the nonprofit sector to proudly talking about ourselves as the for-good sector. It’s a mindset shift that I’d love to hear your views on, so please let me know your thoughts!

Join us now for a discussion on the merits of “for-good” language, the ways change and innovation intersect, and how none of us are alone on the road to better.

David Schwab Todd, thank you again for joining us today. Really excited for the conversation we're about to have. But before we get into that, I do want to give our listeners just a chance to meet you. I want to give them a chance to to hear your background, your experience directly, what brought you to the for-good world. And then after all of these years, what's kept you in the good space?

Todd Hiestand Yeah. So I'd say I've been in the nonprofit space since basically I graduated college. I, I'd like to hide this, but if you Google me enough, you'll see it. I was a pastor for quite a number of years. I like to refer to myself. I was like a local community builder. That just sounds a lot more, you know, nonprofit-centric. But honestly, our church functioned as a nonprofit in, in the ways that we serve the community. And so I was there for 14 years. I left that, I was in Philadelphia. I left that we moved to Portland nine years ago. And I immediately jumped into a nonprofit fundraising organization, much like you guys is a technology company, much like fundraise spent 2 to 2 years or so there, and it was phenomenal. And work with nonprofits every day around fundraising, messaging, websites, you know, crowdfunding, all kinds of stuff. And so I kind of really use that time to, to really kind of like get a good understanding of where I wanted to be. After I left there, I was laid off in 2015, I think it was, spent a few years just consulting, then was a development director for a year here in Portland and then started, I'd made a wise decision of starting a business a month before the pandemic hit, which was and ended up being great, but it was a little nerve-wracking for a bit. So I've been in consulting for the last, this'll be my fourth year consulting now with the nonprofits directly.

David Schwab Todd, thank you for that background. It's so familiar to many of the conversations we have where people kind of fall into the for a good space. I know a lot of people college and coming out of college, they don't necessarily understand all of the opportunities that exist professionally in the good world. The more we dig into it, the more we realize there are so many opportunities to function professionally in this space in any capacity, whether it's marketing or fundraising or leadership or delivering programs or even finance and accounting. And that's that's something that falls under the radar far too often and leads me into, it really gives us a good transition point into the broader conversation I want to have with you today, because I know you're gonna have a really cool perspective on this is a trend that I'm seeing, and something that I really want to bring a voice to and bring attention to is this shift, finally that's happening where our space, our sector, is no longer accepting that nonprofit is an operating model. And I think it's it's about dang time that this comes to light for far too long, too many organizations, too many nonprofit professionals have had to operate with this mindset of, I can't spend, I can't grow, I can't do this because that's not what a nonprofit does when really nonprofit is a tax status and nothing more. We had a really cool conversation earlier this season on our podcast with, an executive director who had implemented the iOS entrepreneurial operating system in her organization. And since that conversation, I've been seeing more and more of this come to light, where nonprofit organizations are dumping the nonprofit operating model and adopting what traditionally has been for profit operating models, which, when it comes down to it, a nonprofit organization is a business, but the business is to deliver good, valuable impact in the world. So that was a very long winded introduction to the conversation I want to have today. And it's I want to talk about how the sector is changing and I want to use the term. And this is this is something that I'm I'm committed to this year and beyond is even something as semantic as the way we talk about ourselves, changing the way we are. No, we're not the nonprofit sector, right? That carries a connotation. I want even such a shift as like, hey, let's start calling ourselves the for good sector, right? That's something to be proud of. There's there's value in that. I am bringing a good thing to the world because I work in the for good sector. Right. Do we have to call ourselves the for good sector? Does it have to be those words in that way? No. But this idea of changing the mindset at which we operate, that's what I want to dig into with you today, Todd, your wealth of background, both directly in leading organizations, but also peripherally, like many of us who've had a hand directly working at a for good organization, but then also stepped out and said, hey, I've learned something. I take this and I see this as a potential and go and become a consultant or work at a peripheral company serving the sector. I'd like to dig in to that side of it. And so my first, first way I want to look at this is talking from a leadership perspective. Obviously, you were a leader at a for good organization, both in, development capacity and in a marketing. Communications capacity. So you have a really good perspective of what it's like to lead an organization. And this year, I feel like this year is going to be a big year of change in our sector. So I'd like to talk about what it's like to lead through change first today and kind of get your perspective on that here a little bit about your experience of what it's like leading through change. What have been things where you're like, hey, this was a really unexpected but good thing. And opposite of that, this was an unexpected bump in the road that that we really struggled with. So that way we can help the leaders and the, the, the people listening today be able to go like, hey, you know, I remember Todd said this or Todd went through this and now I'm starting to step into it too. So let's just kind of dig in there.

Todd Hiestand It's interesting. I was just at my kid's basketball game last month and a couple weeks ago, and I overheard two people talking about nonprofits, and I heard one guy say to the other, he's like, yeah, there are nonprofit. Their books have a zero out at the end of the year. That's what it means to be a nonprofit. They can't make any money. And I was just like, wait, what? Like, that's not that's not how... Nonprofits can't have savings? And I was like, that's not how that works. But there's so much misunderstanding around what a nonprofit is allowed to do and not allowed to what's supposed to be. And, you know, this whole idea, like, I will probably keep using the word nonprofit because it's just familiar. But your concept of saying it's the for good sector is super helpful because, you know, we've we, I've heard this in leadership all the time. You don't want to define yourself by what you are not. You want to define yourself by what you are or like, not what you don't do, but what you do. Right? And so just the word nonprofit itself is just like a it's just like, it's not a great platform to start from which. Well, we're a not we. We are to define ourselves what we are, not what we are, which is a for good organization. Like we exist for the good of the world. And I think once you if if you can change that shift, you can start talking about doing things a little more, things differently and being a little more aggressive with the work of that good work. Rather than always having to worry about like what people think about whether we're going to keep our nonprofit status or not because we're doing too many spend too much money or, you know, or whatever. So, yeah, no, I'm I am right on track with that. I, I don't know that I have thought about that specifically, but it's, it's I'm right on track with that.

David Schwab That's awesome. And it's so funny like that conversation because by that logic, I mean we all we're all here on the fundraising side by that logic, for a long time that would have made fundraise a nonprofit because we were, you know, we were a startup that had capital investment that allowed us to grow and deliver a valuable service to the sector that we served because someone saw someone or a group of people saw value in the goods and services we brought to the market.

Todd Hiestand And if there are a lot of businesses that would be nonprofit considered nonprofits, they're definitely not making money or they're book zero of the year. It's just such a misunderstood industry, I think, from the world community side, like the way that the community looks at nonprofits, but also from the way the nonprofits then lead their nonprofits. I think there's misunderstanding. And then it just it just leads to it unhealthy practices in some unhealthy ways that we we function as nonprofits.

David Schwab Todd, that's a perfect segue into the next question I want to dig into with you is, from your experience being a leader within a for good organization, obviously, if anything is a constant in our sector, it's change. And as a leader, we need to be able to lead through change. So in light of this, what we're talking about, trying to change this, this big shift in in mindset, how would you coach a leader who wants to adopt this at an organization who may not be yet having these conversations, or quite be ready to start adopting this big of a mindset like, what are steps one and two? Or what are some things tactically that someone can do to to become that change agent internally?

Todd Hiestand Yeah, I mean, change is like the the root of our work. So I don't want to be all self-promotion, but, you know, we if you're familiar with the term liminal, liminal is like the study of liminality is like just the study of change in this study, in this, in this space between. Right. So the liminal kind means a space between where you are now, where you want to be. It's that it's that transitional space. And if, if, if there's anything consistent about our society right now, it is change. I mean, like I said earlier, I started me on my business in the start of a pandemic and like everyone in the history, probably says there's more change now than there has been in this world. But like, this is this is crazy. This is pretty tumultuous times we're living in, whether it's whether it's the pandemic or the political scene that we're in or just the societal problems. I mean, we change is the definition of our society, right? And so part of the thing that we're seeing in the nonprofits that we work with every day is like the nonprofits who are kind of accepting that things are different and been flipped upside down are the ones I think who can who can kind of innovate towards something different. So on some level, accepting change, I think, is the first and most important thing you can do as a nonprofit leader is to say is nothing is the same anymore. Everything is different. And so now what? And it almost makes you put your everything on the table and say. Is the way we're doing things working anymore. Is, is the change so much that we need to change our model, whether it's our our service model or the way we're communicating with donors. I mean, the whole I think everything should be on the table at this point. And to me, that's a conversation that is worth having in in leadership spaces, in for good organizations and in boardrooms and in conversations with consultants. And it just should be it should be a constant. The only thing that should be constant right now is a conversation, is a conversation around what's changed, I think, and, you know, and I've spent a lot of time I mean, the idea of liminality is one of my favorite things in the world. And so I've spent a lot of time kind of studying this, this idea of change and kind of how it processes and what the what the process that people go through as people and organizations go through, as they experience change. But I think embracing it and just accepting it, which I think and some of the we think we have, but we still hold on to a lot of stuff from the past, we just want to hold on to things. And so I don't think very many people listen to this will be like, oh, you know, I don't see any change. I mean, we all know there's change, but it's but if we really we're still holding on to some stuff that we probably shouldn't be holding on to, or we're holding things sacred that shouldn't be sacred. It's okay to hold on to stuff, but something's just become sacred. And we have to evaluate those things as well.

David Schwab Absolutely. I think far too often we get comfortable with the things that we can control, particularly because so much of the work that we do is out of our control, right? Our funding, right almost entirely sits on the back of people choosing to give money to get, quote unquote, nothing in return. Now, we know that that's not the case. We know there's value that you give to the donor, right? There's value that you give to to an investor in your for good organization. But you're asking someone to give and get no goods in return. Yeah. And so there's there's so much out of our control.

Todd Hiestand Well and I think that's a it's a good point is we have to, the conversation that we have to have is what is the value proposition of our work. Right. I know when you're like, you know, you're selling widgets or you're selling like, you know, iPhone cables. The value proposition is simple. You know, give us 10 bucks, we'll give you iPhone cable. That'll work for three weeks. And that'll, you know, not work anymore and buy more of them. But for nonprofits and for, for organizations like what is the value proposition? What are, what are like when someone gives us $100 donation, what happens? And, if we can't answer that, that's like the most basic thing, right? Like, if we can't answer that, then who's going to give us any money, but who's going to fund us? But there has to be a value proposition conversation as well. But again, that's going away from business model. Which value proposition in the business world is a very normal conversation. Value proposition in the nonprofit space, are those conversations being has that feel. It feels a little weird to think about value.

David Schwab It almost feels dirty to have that conversation.

Todd Hiestand It almost feels wrong. Yeah, almost feels like we're like committee the great non-profits in, value proposition. That doesn't seem like it's safe, a safe conversation half what it it needs to be ad right.

David Schwab So in that in that light, how do you foster that conversation?

Todd Hiestand Yeah. I mean frankly, like our our conversations with our nonprofits again, our four good partners, I will try and change my language for.

David Schwab I see at least I see you try.

Todd Hiestand I'm trying. My conversations with those partners is like, it's so where do you want to be in three years? Like what is what are your hopes? So three years from now, you're sitting around your boardroom, what are you hoping your reporting and like? That conversation usually leads into a larger conversation around not just fundraising, not just branding, which is what we know. We do branding work, but like it's where are we now and where do we want to be in the future. And you have to start thinking about value proposition. You have to start thinking about growth. You have start thinking about like income levels and revenue streams, and you start thinking about things that nonprofits don't necessarily want to think about very much. But if you think like three years from now, five years from now, ten years from now, you have to start thinking about some, you're kind of forced into thinking about some of those things. Now. For us, a lot of those conversations get that lead back to branding, lead back to messaging lead back to, you know, marketing type things. But there's also conversations around, like, you know, the way that the nonprofit is structured, you know, where the where where are the revenue streams coming from? Is it 100% donations? Is there models for revenue that we can build into our work? And so I think that conversation is is a good start of like, okay, if we're going to get here one day, how are we going to start then building a roadmap to get there and it's business plan and stuff?

David Schwab Yeah, that's such an interesting trend. I hate that I keep using the word trend, but it is a trend that's coming to the forget sector is identifying additional revenue streams.

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Todd Hiestand Yeah. It's yeah it's interesting. You know I we we talk a lot about you know when we're nonprofit startup especially like donor focused nonprofits where like don't you know, somebody starts a nonprofit and then they have some influence. They have a wide circle of friends and their nonprofit grows. And at some, like, you can grow a nonprofit on a circle of friends, depending on how great your circle of friends is and how great your privilege is to a fairly large size. And I've seen we've seen nonprofits grow from grow to $1 million based on a great network. Right. But at some point your network maxes out like I see a lot nonprofits that's like they have like, you know, $10,000 of revenue and they're doing some great work, but it's like it's got low impact, right? You have nonprofits that grow $1 million on a network, but the network maxes out. You either need to figure out ways to expand that network, which is what marketing is and what. Communications is and what? You know, like there are there are ways to expand that network or look at grants or look at whatever or like look at alternative ways. This is to have business, the other business models like that, because at some point you hit a max if all you're doing is individual donor dollars, unless you can get big enough somehow where like you become a massive individual dollar dollarization, you just have like you just have market share at that point, right? Like, you know, like charity water just they just have mass market share. I print they're pretty well funded by individual donors. And then they've just figured it out, but they're like, they're a unicorn. I mean, that's not that's not gonna that's doesn't happen to the average nonprofit. It's so it's not a model that we can count on. But it's it also interesting is we have we work at a few, community development organizations that are kind of identified as community development corporations, which is really interesting. And there's 1 in 2 in North Carolina we work with and one here in Oregon. And they are terribly funded by donors. No one, no donors fund those organizations. They're nonprofits. They do nonprofit things. But their name, Community Development Corporation, I think, really confuses donors. And so nobody donates to them. But they've had they've therefore been forced to think, how do we fund this thing? Because we can't the donors don't understand it. And so they're very similar things were, you know, like, I've got a friend in Sacramento who was running that, very similar thing around a food hall, like they're basically starting a food, a food cart pod for their entrepreneurs that they're serving. And it's a business revenue stream for their entrepreneurs. Obviously, it's a living wage for them and and very profitable for them. And it's also a revenue stream for them as a nonprofit, you know, like food food networks and food food collaborative. And like it's just those organizations have had to get creative because they are built on a model that that donors to understand. And so if you're looking for innovation around, like, how do we build revenue streams? I mean, community development corporations are interesting place to interesting place to start, how they do interesting things in housing, you know, interesting things around, just especially around housing and food is an interesting place in that kind of in that world. But they've been forced to because they don't have donors, they don't donors or they I don't know, what do you do? It doesn't make any sense.

David Schwab Yeah. I think what you're touching on here is a valuable output of the mindset shift from traditional nonprofit operating to what I've termed the, you know, poor good operating model. Again, doesn't have to be that word, but I think we understand the context with it. But is the this output of innovation, innovation has not traditionally been a core value of the nonprofit sector. The nonprofit sector has. Hey, we've we've found a model that works, and we're going to work the model until the model doesn't work anymore.

Todd Hiestand And we and and we have enough people who still think the model works, that we just kind of it's like one of those things is, is a phrase we always use. Like it works just well enough to think you should keep on doing it. Like, you know, it's like the bears quarterbacks, they work just, well, just well enough to think we should keep on having them. Right. Like, you know, it's never going to grow your organization into the future, but it's just going to sustain it. And we're going to keep having jobs. And like I'm going to be able to go to work every day, which is exactly a way to live, which is not that's not that's the purpose of our nonprofit.

David Schwab Well, that's not why the the why the organization was started, the organization wasn't started to to stagnate in delivery of services. The organization was was started to solve a real world problem. Yeah.

Todd Hiestand I think you look at the going back to change a little bit. Like if you look at what like we were what we would refer to as the dinosaurs of the industry, right? Whether it's nonprofit space or whether it's the business space, like the inability to, to recognize and like admit changes have become afoot is, is why we have dinosaurs. Like we like they just they had an inability to recognize change, adapt and reinvent themselves. And so that is to be like we look at change and this conversation around change and and innovation. Like if you cannot admit that change has happened, that the world is different now, you will not innovate and you will kind of eventually become a dinosaur of sorts. And I don't want to get too far into, like, you know, nerdy stuff. But like, liminality is is a super interesting field of study. It, you know, they talk it talks about separation, right? There is this moment of separation where everything changes. There's this moment of a season of margin where like it's you're lost in the desert, you have no clue what's going on. And then there's a regression that comes through. Right? So it's separation, merge and resegregation. And like if you can faithfully walk through that process both either as an individual whether I you when I was on when I was on laid off, it was a season of separation margin. And then I decided to reinvent myself and become a consultant. It was like, but like, I would never be sitting where I am now and leading the the company of it. Now, if I didn't just accept and embrace that and I fought against it really hard. But like innovation happens in that season of margin, innovation happens in that place where you're like, I have no clue to clue which way is up. I feel lost in the desert and like, I don't know what to do. That's when innovation happens. And people hate margin. People hate that space where it's confusing. So we get out as fast as we can. We do whatever we can to, like, push against it, and get back to some sense of equilibrium, right. And the more we try to get back to the equilibrium of what used to be, the less we can innovate, because we just are not looking forward, just looking backwards. And so I, I'd say like the ability to like sit in margin is what I think brings about some of the most innovative situations. Not not even just admitting there's change, but sitting in the margin. Sitting in like, the unknown and the confusion and saying like, okay. I accept this craziness. Now that we're here, like what actually... because everything's on the table when that happens. I got I was unemployed for a couple of years and like you go from thinking I'm going to get a job in one place to, like, I'll take a job anywhere at this point. Like, I almost took a job building websites for credit unions. And I was like, I'll do whatever it takes. You have to start getting more and more creative. Now, if there's anything wrong with building websites for credit unions, but they're not. They're not nonprofits. There might be for good, I don't know. But like, being able to sit in that margin allows you to think is super creative because you just everything's on the table and you have to start innovating or else you'll you'll never get out or you'll go back to what was comfortable and just do the same old thing and, you know, kind of like have no impact and it might not be for good.

David Schwab Today, there's so much meat to what you were just talking about, sitting in the margin and finding ways to creatively innovate. How would you coach someone who may be finding themselves sitting there right now, like facing that out of necessity or wanting to step into that someone finds themselves there? How can they start to navigate that? What kind of questions can they ask either themselves or of the people around them, to foster that innovation that will deliver opportunities like new service models, or new revenue streams, or new ways to provide impact?

Todd Hiestand Sure. Yeah. I think the most important thing someone can do when they're sitting in that like margin, whether it's personally or organizationally, and sometimes those things are tied directly together, right? I think guides are one of the most important things in that journey, like finding someone who's been there before, who is not judgmental and isn't going to try and solve your problems for you who can, like, sit with you and be like, it's okay. Welcome to the real life. And then almost normalize that what you're experiencing and let you know that, like, you're not alone. I don't mean to make everything back to me personally, but I remember when I was going through my season, Rodger and I sat down with a couple friends and we were, this guy had just met this other guy, and I was kind of telling him my story. And they're older than I am, and and they both kind of laughed at me and not in, like, a judgmental laugh, like, you're such a loser way, but just like, welcome to being 40, man. Welcome to leadership. Welcome to entrepreneurship. That's this is your you are in the right place. And it's there's something powerful, I think when you're in margin, when you're in the unknown of just kind of knowing that like, this is not this has been done before. You are not like this unique butterfly who's experiencing this for the first time now. The experience itself might be very unique, but like the reality of that separation and margin and like the brokenness is so normal.

David Schwab I love that when you're choosing to find ways to innovate, choosing to step into change and embrace change, it changes it from a scary thing to an exciting thing, right?

Todd Hiestand Yeah, it takes it from like, I'm going to do it safe to I'm going to take a risk, right? Like when you're reacting to things, it's usually you do it safe. But when you're like when you're able to sit and be like proactive, it's like, okay, I'm going to take this reaction, that risk now. And I don't I don't mean to make this whole podcast like some like a therapy session, but like on some level, like leadership is therapy, like leadership and therapy probably should go hand in hand. And healthy leaders make healthy decisions and healthy leaders are able to sit in margin and healthy leaders are able to find their ego is checked and their ego is gone. And we make better decisions as leaders when we when we are healthy people. Right. And so yeah, again, I, I think that that kind of direction puts us the right direction and we're able to kind of be more proactive than reactive.

David Schwab Well, Todd, this has been an awesome conversation. I think we've covered so much between leadership and change and innovation and mindset shifts. So I'm going to close us with with one final question. And this is a bit of a broader question, but in light of our our conversation on change and innovation and what is a change you see coming to the for good sector that you're really excited about?

Todd Hiestand Yeah, that's a great question. I think on some level, these conversations around nonprofits taking themselves more seriously, and it's almost it almost goes back to your original comment around nonprofit and for good. Right. Like now. But the Dan Pallotta, a video that popped up, you know, it's like I felt like it was in like 2004 right of around like, you know, capacity and like staffing and, and and how much we spend versus how much we like percentages and all that kind of stuff. Like the more that nonprofits can take themselves seriously and present themselves seriously, I think we're going to be better off not just as a industry or like a sector, but like the world will be better off, like I we I have a genuine belief. And this is I don't say this because I think our business depends on it. But like, I have a genuine belief that nonprofits are most able to address society's problems that anybody like, they're the ones who have who are closest to the ground. They're the ones who are dealing with, like my wife works for a an emergency shelter, or she works for a for for folks like who are. We're dealing with house house issues. And like if you want to know about like, Portland has a significant problem. You know, in this, in this place. And if you want to know about that problem, go ask those folks, like, don't ask the politicians. Don't ask the people in power. Don't ask people in Salem or in Washington DC about it. Go ask my wife and her coworkers around housing, housing challenges, right? So in every single sector we have, whether it's housing or food security or you vulnerable populations, whatever it is like, I think nonprofits are most equipped to solve our problems and they just have to take themselves seriously. Like, it's I just it just really frustrates me sometimes. This is a bit of a rant, I think, but like when I look at nonprofits and I see, I hear about their work and then I like go to their website or like look at their marketing, I'm like, wait a minute, doesn't make any...  It looks like you're doing incredible things, but you obviously even are taking yourself seriously on some level. And so like this conversation around, can we spend money on branding? Like, spend money on branding the marketing. I love seeing a movement where nonprofits like begin to spend money on presenting themselves seriously, and getting clarity on what they do, so that people can invest more money in their work. I always say like, why should like the consumeristic goods that probably make society worse be all slick and branded and nonprofits that are doing incredible work look like they were created in 1994 with clip art? And I don't think it's just about cool branding, It's about let's present ourselves professionally and be a professional industry that says, listen, we're doing great stuff. We're doing great work. Take us seriously. And so to me, there's a move, I think, we see more organizations who are saying, no, we really need to make sure our marketing, our messaging and in our in our brand matches our work, and they need to kind of level up a little bit. And we're seeing I seen more of that. But just whole conversation around like, hey, let's take ourselves seriously as an industry and not just be like the little cute... Oh, it's so cute running that profit to where like, it's, oh, you're you're working in the for good space. Like you're... Like, what you do actually matters in our society more than like my company that, you know, sells window blinds. Again, nothing against window blinds salesman if there's anybody listening. But but that's that's probably the biggest rant that I could go off of. And so I hope I answer that. But that's a good direction in my mind if we can see more of that. And I don't just mean because that makes my business work better, it's because I think that our world needs that our world needs to be moved to like recognized nonprofits and organizations as change makers in our society and take them seriously.

David Schwab Todd, I think that's I can't think of a better way to close. Is that an inspiration of inspirational thought, of being proud of the work that we do and not feeling like, oh, yeah, I work at a nonprofit is somehow admitting to being a lower tier of a professional or a lesser professional, but in fact, like I work in the for good sector, like it's.

Todd Hiestand Not at all. It's it's.

David Schwab Exactly.

Todd Hiestand Yeah, it's a better tier of professionalism, I think honestly, I mean not better. Maybe, maybe maybe we shouldn't like put values on it, but like it's it's extremely important.

David Schwab When we change our mindset and say, every day I go to work and make the world a better place. This is the only sector that can confidently say that. Right.

Todd Hiestand Yeah. Hundred percent. I hope so. And if it's not, then maybe it's the organization that's the problem. But like but yeah, like. Absolutely. It should be the only sector we can say that across the board. Some businesses do that. There are a lot of great businesses that are that do work for good. Like yes, there is you know, that like there's a lot of that out there. And I we applaud that and I love that. But that's more rare than it is. It's they're not doing negative things right. There's a lot of businesses are doing they're doing fine things. They do important things. They're not doing negative things. But like there is a for good side of the nonprofit work that is different. Yeah.

David Schwab Stands out. So, Todd, as we close here, if our listeners are nodding their heads like I've been or ready to lean in where some good places for them to connect with you.

Todd Hiestand Yeah. So we're on new of the internet. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. I.

David Schwab Don't know what that is.

Todd Hiestand Pretty cool. Just go to Http that I don't even not do anymore. No, our website's beat liberal.com. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on all the all the platforms. I'm sure I'll probably be in the show notes, but, you know, I we're trying to get to a few conferences this year. So if you're going to attend in in Portland here in March, we'd love to see you. Awesome. But yeah, I mean, I'm a Gen Xer, so I'm in every platform possible, but I don't post as much as I used to, so. But I'm definitely paying attention.

David Schwab Awesome. Well, Todd, thank you so much for your time today.

Todd Hiestand Yeah. Thank you. This is great, David.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Nonstop Nonprofit! This podcast is brought to you by your friends at Funraise - Nonprofit fundraising software, built for nonprofit people by nonprofit people. If you’d like to continue the conversation, find me on LinkedIn or text me at 714-717-2474. 

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