Transcript
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You're listening to the nonprofit power podcast.
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In today's episode, we reveal the number one block that most decision makers have that keeps them from fully valuing your work.
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So.
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Stay tuned.
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If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick and I've helped dozens of progressive nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are.
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To have them seeking you out as an equal partner.
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And to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to another episode of the nonprofit power podcast.
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I'm your host cath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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The frustration I hear most often from the nonprofit leaders I work with, is that the money and policy decision makers in their world don't seem to get the value of what they do.
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And that comes In a lot of forms and flavors.
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One that can be especially frustrating is the decision-makers not understanding the full scope of the problem.
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Or why the ways that the problems manifest for your clients are as difficult to solve as they are.
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Part of the issue is that money and policy decision makers are always looking for the easiest way to solve the problem, which is only human.
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But that desire for simplicity, that desire to take the easy route wherever possible.
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Tends to lead to frankly, some pretty lousy decision-making around policy and around how resources should be allocated and invested.
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And very often it leaves the most effective programs and the most effective services short of funds.
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If we want to solve this, we have to get at a more fundamental issue.
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Which is that most decision-makers have a significant mental block that keeps them from seeing the complexity of the problem.
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And until we break through that mental block we're not going to make a lot of progress.
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There is an inherent block that keeps most money and policy decision makers from actually understanding the full scope and complexity of the problem as it is experienced by your clients.
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And that block comes from how the decision makers are living their own lives.
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And how they're solving problems in their own lives.
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Until we get our heads around that and address it.
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We're going to continue to run into that same brick wall.
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And I don't know about you, but I'm tired of that brick wall.
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So let's do something about it.
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All of us humans, to a certain extent, filter the world through the lens of our personal experience.
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Right?
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It's only human.
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Now, some people find it very difficult to wrap their mind around anyone having a different experience than they've had.
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We've all met those folks.
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While others, and I like to think most, are pretty good at practicing empathy on a regular basis.
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And, you know, decision makers fall into both of those camps and everywhere in between.
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But even when you have someone who has a strong capacity for empathy, it doesn't mean that their lens and their filters of their life experience won't shape how they hear information.
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Unless we prompt them to see things through a different lens.
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So let's talk about what this lens or this block is and how it works.
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The biggest thing is that most money and policy decision makers are operating from a daily lived existence and experience, in which most problems are relatively easy to solve.
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And so they may have trouble understanding why a lack of resources completely changes the experience of the problem for the people we serve.
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Let me give you a really easy to understand example that is super relatable.
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Any parent knows the experience of getting a call at work that their kid is sick or got hurt at the playground or whatever.
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Something's happened.
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And the parent needs to come and get them.
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And either take them to the doctor or take them home or whatever's appropriate.
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Now from the decision makers perspective.
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Here's how that goes when they experience that problem.
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They hang up from talking to the school.
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They go to their boss or their colleagues and they say, Hey, my kid's had a health issue.
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I need to go get them.
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I'll be gone the rest of the day.
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And people are like, okay, cool.
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Hope everything's okay.
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See you tomorrow.
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And then they get in their car.
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Or they call a ride share.
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And they drive to the school and they collect the kid.
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And then they may drive to the doctor's office.
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And when they get there, they're not worried about whether their insurance will cover this visit at all.
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And whether they'll be able to cover whatever the copay is.
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They're not worried about if their kid's going to need a prescription or some treatment.
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They're not worried about whether they're going to be able to afford that.
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And, you know, if the wait in the doctor's office was kind of long, they can always answer a few emails on their phone or keep up with work that way So kids sees doctor.
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Doctor says kid's going to be fine, but they're going to need XYZ treatment.
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And/or XYZ prescription.
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Okay.
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For the decision maker.
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That's a simple matter.
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Great.
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Let's do it.
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They plop down their credit card to pay for the copay for the visit.
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And then they get in the car again and they drive to the pharmacy on the way home.
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Pick up the prescription.
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Pay their copay there and off they go.
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And then they go home and take care of the kid.
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For a parent who is living on the economic margins this scenario plays out very differently.
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As we know.
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First of all, they're probably not working at a job where it's easy to just say, oh, well, got to go.
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And even if the boss is understanding, chances are good they're not going to get paid for the time that they're not working.
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They don't have sick leave.
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So in the back of their mind, they already know that this is lost wages.
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That's not going to stop them from going to get their kid.
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But in the back of their mind, is that ouch.
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Okay.
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I just lost a half a day's pay.
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That's going to hurt.
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And chances are good they don't have a car to get into, and they don't have money for a ride share.
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So they need to get on a bus.
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And they take the bus from work to school.
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If they're lucky it's only one bus.
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Maybe they have to take two buses.
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And so first of all, it takes them a long time to go get their kid and they're stressing out about that.
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And they're worried about the kid.
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They get to school.
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They collect the kid.
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Now the two of them need to take the bus to the doctor, if they have one.
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Or to the emergency room or the urgent care center, wherever they're going to go.
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And so now that's another bus ride.
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And another chunk of time.
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And then they get there and they don't have insurance, or it's not good insurance.
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So they're worrying the whole time about what's this going to cost?
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And this is not about do they love their kid.
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They adore their kid, just like the decision-maker adores their kid.
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The difference is that everything that costs money is a worry.
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Because there's no room in the budget for emergencies.
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There's barely enough room for essentials.
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In fact, the only way they have enough food to eat at the end of the month is because they get help from the food pantry.
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So the whole time they're at the doctor's, part of what's going on in the back of the parent's mind is, what's this going to cost?
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How are we going to pay for this?
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I hope there's no extra expenses besides this visit, because I don't know how we're going to pay for that.
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But it turns out the kid does need a prescription.
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Hopefully there's a pharmacy within walking distance from either home or the doctor's office.
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But if there's not, then that's another bus ride.
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And then there's the bus ride home.
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So, a sequence of events that took maybe two to three hours out of the decision-makers life, may have taken twice that long for the low-income parent.
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Simply because of the transportation issues alone.
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And if the decision maker is in the doctor's office and there's a surprise expense, decision-maker plops down a credit card and doesn't think much about it.
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They might whine a little about the co-pay, but it's not going to break them.
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All the trappings of ease that come with a middle or upper middle class existence, that make problems so much easier to navigate.
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Are very easy to take for granted.
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Especially if this has been your experience pretty much your whole life.
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Now if you're relatively new to that experience and you have fresh vivid memories of having that not be the case.
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Then that's different.
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But most decision makers, quite honestly, they've been in that situation long enough that mostly they just take it for granted and that's just how the world works.
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If there's an emergency, you whip out your credit card and you solve the problem.
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If you need to get somewhere in a hurry, you jump in your car or you summon a ride share and you go.
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And that's just one small example of a typical scenario from daily life.
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A minor emergency.
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This isn't major.
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It's a common thing.
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But for someone who's living on the margin economically, all those problems are massively magnified and compounded by a lack of access to the simple problem solving facilitators that come with resources.
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Access to a reliable car.
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A credit card with room on it for more charges.
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The ability to pay the credit card bill at the end of the month.
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Decent health insurance.
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Flexibility at work.
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Paid leave.
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All that stuff is just not part of the reality for most of the people that we serve.
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But it is the reality for the decision makers and their families.
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And so it's super important that we understand how much that daily lived experience of the decision-makers can shape their thinking, without them realizing it.
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They're not trying to be insensitive jerks.
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And mostly they're not insensitive jerks.
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But unless it's their job to pay very close attention to the specific problems that you solve.
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And to become deeply knowledgeable about all of the minutia of the ways that the clients you serve, experience the problems they experience.
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Unless that's their job to have a deep understanding, the way it's your job to have deep understanding.
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If it's not their job and it's not their lived experience.
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Why on earth would we expect them to understand it at the level that we do?
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That's not reasonable.
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And that is a mistake we often make.
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Because it's so obvious to us we assume that it's obvious to everybody else, and to the decision makers in particular.
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Because on one level, it kind of is their job, right?
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This is their domain in some way or another.
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They're not a random anonymous decision maker in the world.
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They have some connection to the issue that you work on.
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So they should have, probably most of the time, a deeper and better understanding than they do.
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And in the abstract, they may.
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But if we don't account for, and address, and break through that inherent bias and mental block that goes to a core belief somewhere inside that decision maker.
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That you know, really these problems really aren't that hard to solve.
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I don't know why it's such a big deal.
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We have to get to that.
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Because if we don't deal with that, that is going to affect their decision making in ways we do not want.
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It's going to cause them to under-invest.
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And undervalue our programs and our services.
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And it may lead to some really bad policy that is harmful to the people that we serve.
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Which is a whole other conversation.
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So we got to help the decision makers understand, that the problems that are easy for them to solve become a struggle for people who are living on the economic margins.
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And who may be dealing with other problems as well.
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If they're also dealing with a disability or a chronic illness or any number of other things that further compound the difficulty of basic problem solving, then that is another layer of challenge.
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And then throw on top of that, the reality that for many people who've grown up in severe poverty and in a chaotic environment.
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That very often their executive function has not developed properly.
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And so again for a decision-maker, who by definition, their executive function works pretty well, or they wouldn't be in a decision-making role.
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Generally speaking.
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We can all think of some exceptions, but generally that is the case.
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So they already have that built in bias, which is very difficult for them to be aware of and detect.
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Unless they're doing some pretty deep introspection about how they understand the world versus how other people understand and experience the world.
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But if they're not doing that, they're like most people with strong executive function skills.
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Which is that they assume that's the norm.
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And when someone who does not have strong executive function skills, for whatever reason.
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But often it's from childhood trauma that interrupted the development of those skills.
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And that also caused the development of alternative skills grounded in survival.
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And those survival skills may have worked okay for them as children in a chaotic and scary environment.
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But they don't work for them at all as adults, and can cause real problems for them.
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But if you're the decision maker and you've never known that kind of chaos and trauma.
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And you're not given to studying these things or given to a lot of introspection about how do I experience the world differently than others.
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And why is that?
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If you're not doing that work, which most decision makers are not doing.
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Then you go around assuming that pretty high level executive functioning skills are the norm.
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And that if somebody isn't solving a problem in a way that a person with high-level executive functioning skills would solve them.
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They start making assumptions and judgements about the person.
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They assume it means they're not trying very hard, or they're lazy, or they're stupid, or whatever.
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And that's just not so.
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But you see how a couple of core biases on the part of most decision makers.
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Can create a huge barrier to them understanding at a deep level, what your client's daily lived experience looks like.
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Why the services need to happen at such a deep and personalized level.
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It's what leads decision makers to think that a simplistic and surface solution should be sufficient.
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Because it would be sufficient to solve it for them.
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Don't have a job that pays good money?
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Go get some training.
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Go back to school.
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No problem.
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Here, we'll pay for your school.
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That's the only issue, right?
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No.
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There are possibly a dozen other issues that are in the way of that person being able to successfully participate in education or training.
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And then go on to a high wage job that's going to be a longterm opportunity.
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Some of those issues are about possible learning deficits and or learning disabilities.
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Past deeply negative experiences with school.
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Not to mention things like childcare.
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Who's going to watch my kid while I go off to education and training when I'm not earning any money cause I'm in training?
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The list goes on and on and on.
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One of the biggest mistakes you can make when this disconnect is happening, is to continue to talk to the decision maker as if they understand what daily life is like for the client.
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When they don't.
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When you're talking about the problems you help your clients solve, the decision maker's thinking about how they would solve them.
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With all the resources and tools they have at their disposal.
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So it's hugely important that we help decision makers understand that all those tools and resources that the typical middle or upper middle-class person has at their disposal.
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The people we serve do not have those tools and resources.
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If they did, their life would look very different.
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But because they don't have them.
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That is why the problems are so much more impactful upon them.
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And why it's so much harder for them to get out from under those problems.
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Until we get our decision makers to get that, we are swimming against the tide here.
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Now when we engage decision makers around this, to help them understand the reality of what a typical client's set of problem-solving resources and tools tends to look like.
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We're not going to talk about class.
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Generally speaking.
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We're probably also not going to talk about race and gender.
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Even though all of these things are very relevant to this conversation.
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But they also have the effect of causing many decision-makers to stop listening.
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If you know that your decision maker is aware enough, and their analysis of issues is developed enough.
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That they understand the intersectional effects of class and race and gender and sexuality and all those things, on how a person experiences the world.
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And how they get treated, and what resources are available to them and all of that.
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If you're dealing with a decision maker who already has that analytic framework in their head, then by all means, have that conversation with them.
00:18:57.916 --> 00:18:58.696
Hallelujah.
00:18:58.906 --> 00:19:02.176
That's a great place to be having this conversation from.
00:19:02.926 --> 00:19:05.987
But a lot of decision-makers aren't there.
00:19:06.616 --> 00:19:09.869
And you know, do what you feel you must.
00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:15.180
And if you feel you must also raise their consciousness about that, have at it.
00:19:16.013 --> 00:19:22.594
But if your goal is principally to get them to get their head around what's going on for the clients.
00:19:23.013 --> 00:19:28.124
And why the problems that they have are so difficult for them to get out from under.
00:19:28.730 --> 00:19:38.930
It is sufficient to help the decision maker understand that they don't have at their disposal, the kinds of tools and resources that most of the rest of us have.
00:19:39.349 --> 00:19:42.079
And that really changes what's possible.
00:19:42.349 --> 00:19:47.886
Unless we help them by giving them some of the tools.
00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:51.319
We want the decision maker not to shut down.
00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:52.670
We want them to engage.
00:19:53.403 --> 00:19:59.076
So the way we do that, is we talk about how the client experiences the problem.
00:19:59.636 --> 00:20:08.346
And while we're doing that, we take into account how the decision maker with the tools and resources they have would be likely to solve the problem themselves.
00:20:08.856 --> 00:20:13.267
And we call out the fact that that is not an option for the people we serve.
00:20:14.124 --> 00:20:21.773
They may not know that most low-income people don't have credit cards, or that if they do, there's no room on those cards.
00:20:22.523 --> 00:20:24.923
That simple fact alone is a game changer.
00:20:25.779 --> 00:20:30.279
They also may not have genuine awareness around transportation challenges.
00:20:31.089 --> 00:20:35.680
In rural areas that may center around regular access to a reliable vehicle.
00:20:36.339 --> 00:20:39.700
In urban areas, it tends to center around public transit.
00:20:40.380 --> 00:20:43.619
Be careful because the decision maker might go, oh yeah, I know.
00:20:43.619 --> 00:20:44.819
Well, they just take the bus.
00:20:45.467 --> 00:20:50.507
When the last time the decision-maker took the bus was when they were in college maybe.
00:20:51.017 --> 00:21:08.503
They don't really have any concept of what"just take the bus" actually translates to in terms of the amount of time and pain in the neck logistics that can be involved unless you live in a city with some super awesome bus systems.
00:21:09.696 --> 00:21:16.324
The best way you get a decision maker to understand what this looks like, is you describe as I did a little bit earlier.
00:21:16.923 --> 00:21:21.963
A common problem faced by the people you serve that is also relatable for the decision-maker.
00:21:21.963 --> 00:21:22.233
Right.
00:21:22.233 --> 00:21:24.693
They can imagine themselves having that problem.
00:21:25.237 --> 00:21:26.017
If possible.
00:21:26.017 --> 00:21:27.866
There are certain services you could be dealing with.
00:21:27.896 --> 00:21:32.696
If you're dealing with addiction services or domestic violence services.
00:21:33.477 --> 00:21:36.477
Then that could get a lot trickier.
00:21:37.064 --> 00:21:45.374
So you may not want to draw too many close parallels for the decision-maker because you don't know what their exposure or understanding of those problems is.
00:21:45.864 --> 00:21:51.763
But if it's things that are related to health, if it's things that are related to employment, training, education.
00:21:52.423 --> 00:22:04.069
Even housing actually is a really good one because how one experiences the housing market as a person with resources and tools is a very different way than how you experience it if you don't have those.
00:22:04.930 --> 00:22:12.009
So many of the common services that we all provide, as a core concept is quite relatable for the decision-maker.
00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:18.930
Some other aspects may not be, in which case you may not try to go the extra relatedness piece with them.
00:22:18.930 --> 00:22:22.680
And just go ahead and explain how the client experiences the problem.
00:22:23.650 --> 00:22:24.970
So you describe the problem.
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:28.750
You describe how that plays out in the course of a day.
00:22:29.334 --> 00:22:33.804
And without ever mentioning class, you can say to the decision maker.
00:22:34.163 --> 00:22:36.953
Now you or I could solve this problem quite easily.
00:22:37.433 --> 00:22:39.624
We get in our car and we go do the thing.
00:22:39.953 --> 00:22:46.554
And then when we get to the doctor's office, we plop down our insurance card and our credit card and keep working on our phone while we sit in the waiting room.
00:22:46.794 --> 00:22:47.394
No biggie.
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.480
It's a minor inconvenience.
00:22:50.253 --> 00:22:59.284
But if you don't have those tools and resources at hand, then all of a sudden this gets to be a much more complicated and fraught situation.
00:22:59.584 --> 00:23:01.624
And it becomes much harder to solve.
00:23:01.983 --> 00:23:05.703
And most definitely costs you way more time and energy.
00:23:05.973 --> 00:23:08.763
And then you can describe what that looks like.
00:23:09.707 --> 00:23:11.416
Story is your friend here.
00:23:11.416 --> 00:23:23.153
If you're helping paint a picture for them of what it actually looks and feels like to take three buses just to get a simple thing done, that they could have done in 20 minutes in a car.
00:23:24.054 --> 00:23:29.663
To be focused on worrying about the price of the doctor visit instead of just focusing on your kid.
00:23:30.547 --> 00:23:34.984
Those are things that when you call them out are pretty easy to visualize.
00:23:35.698 --> 00:23:38.518
And they start to make the decision maker think a little bit.
00:23:39.404 --> 00:23:40.904
And begin to realize.
00:23:41.968 --> 00:23:48.830
Our goal here is not to make anybody feel guilty about having resources and tools to solve problems.
00:23:49.221 --> 00:24:00.498
What we want is that everyone will have a good set of resources and tools to solve problems so that we can all live lives that are not constantly fraught and stressful.
00:24:00.948 --> 00:24:03.087
That people can truly thrive.
00:24:03.904 --> 00:24:08.596
So we're not trying to tell the decision maker they should feel bad because they can solve problems easily.
00:24:09.015 --> 00:24:16.724
What we're trying to do is help them understand that a client is not in a position to do that because they specifically lack those resources and tools.
00:24:17.025 --> 00:24:19.305
And that that's what our services help with.
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:25.520
We address that gap and help make it possible for them to get to a place where they can thrive.
00:24:26.211 --> 00:24:28.367
But they need to understand what that entails.
00:24:28.730 --> 00:24:33.428
Because otherwise we're back to well, but this is an easy thing to fix.
00:24:33.428 --> 00:24:34.208
It's simple.
00:24:35.337 --> 00:24:36.718
So here's your assignment.
00:24:37.347 --> 00:24:40.198
And the first part of this will take you not much time.
00:24:40.851 --> 00:24:46.941
First thing is to list out the common problems that your clients are dealing with.
00:24:47.275 --> 00:24:47.575
Right.
00:24:47.875 --> 00:24:52.664
And so with this, first of all, there's the problem that you specifically solve.
00:24:53.105 --> 00:24:56.224
If you're in healthcare, you're solving a health-related problem.
00:24:56.224 --> 00:24:59.151
If you're in housing, you're solving a housing related problem.
00:25:00.055 --> 00:25:06.744
But adjacent and connected to that core problem of healthcare or housing or employment or whatever it is.
00:25:07.397 --> 00:25:16.038
There's all the problems that are part of their daily existence that are because of the lack of resources and tools.
00:25:16.548 --> 00:25:18.708
And so there are transportation issues.
00:25:18.708 --> 00:25:20.057
There are childcare issues.
00:25:20.087 --> 00:25:22.755
There are work flexibility issues.
00:25:23.345 --> 00:25:24.095
On and on.
00:25:24.125 --> 00:25:25.714
All the stuff they're dealing with.
00:25:26.451 --> 00:25:40.575
There may be issues of not living in a safe neighborhood, and what kinds of additional stress and problems and gymnastics that creates that they have to deal with to keep themselves and their kids safe.
00:25:40.944 --> 00:25:47.275
Whatever is going on for the people you serve, you know very well all the things they're dealing with.
00:25:47.758 --> 00:25:49.768
So list all of that out.
00:25:50.161 --> 00:25:54.181
So that you're like really clear about it and you've got it all in one place.
00:25:55.137 --> 00:26:07.137
And then think through how a decision maker, armed with all their wonderful available tools and resources, would go about solving those problems in their own life.
00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:09.030
How are they dealing with it?
00:26:09.240 --> 00:26:12.540
How are they dealing with their healthcare issues or their housing issues or whatever?
00:26:13.290 --> 00:26:15.540
It's not that they don't have problems in those arenas.
00:26:15.540 --> 00:26:16.351
They totally do.
00:26:17.115 --> 00:26:19.335
It's just that they're so much easier to solve.
00:26:19.934 --> 00:26:27.694
So map out in a little sketch, how the decision maker would be likely to be solving those problems for themselves.
00:26:28.448 --> 00:26:30.184
Not for your client, but for themselves.
00:26:30.627 --> 00:26:32.968
If that problem happens in their own life, what do they do?
00:26:33.464 --> 00:26:34.365
How do they respond?
00:26:35.065 --> 00:26:38.065
With all the resources and tools that they have access to.
00:26:39.244 --> 00:26:42.845
And then you draw a detailed contrasting picture.
00:26:43.300 --> 00:26:49.211
Of how solving that particular problem would play out in your client's life.
00:26:50.050 --> 00:26:52.901
In the absence of those resources and tools.
00:26:53.580 --> 00:26:55.800
And paint a vivid picture.
00:26:56.711 --> 00:27:04.750
And it's that vivid picture of the client's experience that you're going to lead with when you start talking to help the decision maker understand this.
00:27:05.191 --> 00:27:08.191
But what you're going to do is you're also going to say.
00:27:08.790 --> 00:27:09.570
Out loud.
00:27:10.167 --> 00:27:17.371
Some version of, you know, it can be a little mind-boggling because you or I, we could solve these problems.
00:27:17.371 --> 00:27:19.830
If they happen to us, we can solve them so easily.
00:27:20.550 --> 00:27:21.810
We do this, this, this, or this.
00:27:21.810 --> 00:27:28.837
And then you list out some of the things that you identified that the decision maker might likely use to solve the problem.
00:27:29.488 --> 00:27:32.605
And then say, but that's because we've got a credit card.
00:27:33.025 --> 00:27:34.555
We've got good health insurance.
00:27:34.555 --> 00:27:35.934
We've got work flexibility.
00:27:35.934 --> 00:27:37.194
We've got this, that and the other.
00:27:37.734 --> 00:27:43.964
And so when you don't have that, then this just becomes so much more complicated and so much more challenging.
00:27:44.768 --> 00:27:49.897
And then you talk about, so that's why your services do what they do.
00:27:50.404 --> 00:27:57.875
To help make up for the absence of those tools and resources to make it possible for that client to thrive.
00:27:58.454 --> 00:28:00.704
Initially to thrive in spite of that.
00:28:01.365 --> 00:28:09.377
But then also to help them move toward a place where they are closer to being able to have those tools and resources themselves.
00:28:10.167 --> 00:28:18.295
When you frame it that way, you can get at this very pervasive and common bias in decision maker's heads.
00:28:18.835 --> 00:28:22.545
And the hardest thing about it is most of them do not know they have that bias.
00:28:23.545 --> 00:28:33.494
And if you just do this little three prong assignment, it will position you to be so much more effective in cracking open that bias.
00:28:33.974 --> 00:28:40.775
And getting the decision maker to see why the problems are as complex as they are for your clients.
00:28:41.141 --> 00:28:46.585
And why your more complex solution is the one that works.
00:28:46.795 --> 00:28:50.575
Because the stuff is really a lot more complicated than it looks on the surface.
00:28:51.184 --> 00:28:52.474
And that's your way in.
00:28:53.590 --> 00:28:55.401
The biggest caution.
00:28:55.730 --> 00:28:57.050
And I know you know this.
00:28:57.050 --> 00:29:07.907
But when we get really frustrated with these decision makers sometimes, it can be tempting to get a little scolding and a little judgy.
00:29:07.907 --> 00:29:10.577
And be like you and your privilege, you should understand that.
00:29:10.698 --> 00:29:11.117
Nope.
00:29:12.178 --> 00:29:13.738
They will stop listening instantly.
00:29:14.498 --> 00:29:22.625
Again, unless they're a member of the small subset of the universe that is ready to have that conversation and is actively doing that work.
00:29:22.625 --> 00:29:24.125
In which case, yay.
00:29:24.365 --> 00:29:28.025
But then you're probably not having so much trouble getting them to understand the rest of this.
00:29:28.931 --> 00:29:37.434
But leave the judgment out of it and just focus on, we need to crack open that bias and break up those filters a little bit.
00:29:37.644 --> 00:29:43.931
So that the picture of reality of what life is really like for the people we serve can penetrate.
00:29:44.290 --> 00:29:49.871
And they can begin to take that in as a picture that they see in their mind.
00:29:49.871 --> 00:29:53.681
And that they think about regularly when they think about your services.
00:29:53.951 --> 00:29:56.830
And when they think about your organization and the work that you do.
00:29:57.790 --> 00:29:59.560
That's where we're going with all of this.
00:30:00.268 --> 00:30:04.607
We want those decision makers fully getting what it is that you do.
00:30:04.607 --> 00:30:06.288
What problem you solve.
00:30:06.840 --> 00:30:09.750
And why your solution is the right solution.
00:30:10.441 --> 00:30:14.550
Because it really gets to the heart of the matter and it makes real change happen.
00:30:14.790 --> 00:30:18.097
It changes clients' lives for the better in profound ways.
00:30:19.798 --> 00:30:21.357
So these are the first steps.
00:30:21.538 --> 00:30:27.178
But the really first step is understanding that that bias exists in the first place.
00:30:27.857 --> 00:30:36.131
And that typically the messaging we've been using has been grounded in assumptions that they already understand the client's daily reality.
00:30:36.131 --> 00:30:37.780
When very often they don't.
00:30:38.325 --> 00:30:41.865
And that daily reality includes not only the problems they experience.
00:30:42.377 --> 00:30:53.875
But the limitations they face in trying to solve those problems on their own, because they simply don't have the tools and resources at their disposal that most decision-makers have.
00:30:54.984 --> 00:30:56.605
So there's your assignment for the day.
00:30:57.361 --> 00:30:59.070
Break apart, those two pieces.
00:30:59.730 --> 00:31:04.020
And then paint a detailed picture of the client's experience.
00:31:04.902 --> 00:31:08.981
And put together a little bit of messaging for yourself about how you're going to frame that.
00:31:09.402 --> 00:31:12.311
What your phrasing is going to be when you talk to the decision maker.
00:31:13.217 --> 00:31:20.942
If you do that, you'll be well on your way to disrupting that bias and that filter that most decision makers have in place.
00:31:21.423 --> 00:31:23.553
And it will allow you to penetrate that.
00:31:23.972 --> 00:31:28.682
And get in there with a much more realistic picture of how things really are.
00:31:29.497 --> 00:31:30.426
Thanks for listening.
00:31:30.696 --> 00:31:34.477
And I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
