001 Speaking Out When Everyone is Quiet | Center for Effective Philanthropy CEO Phil Buchanan

Phil Buchanan had 48 hours to decide whether he would speak out when it seemed everyone else was staying quiet.

We talk about that decision, the actual calculus, and the strategic mistake he thinks many nonprofit CEOs are making right now.

He also talks about what nobody told him before he became CEO, the culture he has spent 25 years building, and why standing for nothing is the fastest way to lose trust.

Phil is president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, a research and advisory organization serving foundations and donors across the sector, and author of Giving Done Right.

Transcript

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Nonprofit CEOs are constantly making consequential decisions, often under pressure or in isolation. I'm Adam Jeske, the Nonprofit CEO Advisor, and this is the Nonprofit CEO Podcast where CEOs talk about the decisions that they carry. Today, our guest is Phil Buchanan from the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Welcome to the show, Phil. Adam, thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be with you. Yeah. Tell me about a consequential decision that you've needed to make as the CEO at CEP. You've led there for a long time. I'm sure you have a big bank to select from. Yeah, tell us about one of them. Yeah, sure. I mean, the one that comes to mind is relatively recent, which is a little over a year ago. We may all remember the early days of that new presidential administration. And almost immediately after the inauguration, there were a variety of sort of diversity, equity, and inclusion-related executive orders. I had to decide whether we would speak out about our perspective on DEI, and that quickly morphed into whether we would speak out about what we saw as the attacks on nonprofits and the nonprofit sector. So, By February 6th, I believe it was, there was a White House memo talking about, quote, anti-American NGOs. And we are a nonpartisan organization. We work with clients, foundations are our clients and our audience, that have all kinds of sort of political and ideological perspectives. And so the question was,, you know, how to navigate that. And I think we decided that we really didn't have a choice but to speak out, you know, and, and that, if we believed in diversity, equity, and inclusion, not only was none of the things we were doing in those areas illegal, in some cases they were legally mandated, right? And they were core to our values. If we believed in the crucial role that nonprofits play diverse nonprofits with varying perspectives, you know, that, that if we believed in that, then we had to take a stand and say that this demonization of nonprofits, the pulling of federal funding suddenly was a wrong thing to do. And it defied a sort of tradition of bipartisanship in support of nonprofits, a tradition that, you know, George Bush Senior had articulated in 1988 when he talked about community organizations as a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky. But that was a period where there was a lot of fear, a lot of people deciding to lie low, stay quiet. And so it was unsettling to go out and say, no, you know, we're taking a stand on this. This is what we believe. This is why it's important to our mission. And I don't think it was a close call on the one hand, but it was sort of a hard call on the other. Mm-hmm. And talk to me a little bit about the time pressure of that. Like, how quickly were things moving? And yeah, let's stick with that first. Talk to me about the time pressure about that particular decision. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it was a matter of a couple of days between the executive orders on DEI that happened, you know, immediately upon the moment of the inauguration. And I, me and us publishing a blog post that was just called In Defense of DEI, went through and explained what it actually is. You know, that it's, I'm not defending bad DEI trainings, just like I'm not defending bad trainings in anything, but I am defending the important principles of, you know, seeking a diverse pool of candidates, of having an inclusive work culture in which everybody feels that they can do their best of having equitable policies, you know, and why that was important both for us as an organization, also for our clients and for those that they fund. And so it was quick. It was a matter of like, you know, I don't know, 48 hours or less to decide, like, are we gonna speak out like in the moment or not? And, you know, as I often do in times like that, I of course consulted with all my colleagues, my direct reports. I drafted something, I shared it with them, but I also reached out to my my board chair, uh, Tony Richardson, who's the CEO of the George Gund Foundation in Cleveland. And, you know, I've, I've had enough different board chairs to know that like risk appetites vary, right? And, and he could have responded by saying, look, I think you're putting the institution at some risk here and you should slow down and we should talk to the board. He, you know, I did talk to our, our attorneys about it and I also consulted with my brother Paul, who is a noted employment lawyer in Portland, Oregon, and he helped me make sure that everything I was saying was, you know, accurate. But Tony, the board chair, was like, look, Phil, like, I'm behind this 100%, and you've got to use your voice. And throughout the last year, you know, he has consistently encouraged me in that way, and that has made a ton of difference. And the rest of the board has been, has been supportive as well. And I think, you know, a lot of that decision-making comes down to questions about risk and how you define risk and sort of the tension between what might be a very sort of parochial or short-term risk definition having to do with the institution itself. And does it Does that elevate the chances that we are singled out in some way by folks either in the administration or aligned with the administration for having been critical? Yeah, sure it does. How do you balance that against the risk to the sector and to philanthropy of everybody making that sort of individual short-term and parochial calculation and then having this sort of collective action problem of people not speaking out. I say all this and I don't want to overestimate in any way my own influence. Like, I don't, I don't think I have a lot of influence. I don't think people really care that much what I have to say, but we have enough clients and enough funders that seem to be very quiet in that moment that I thought I might give just a few of them a little bit of comfort that, you know, Phil spoke out just as Honestly, Diane Yentell at National Council of Nonprofits gave me comfort, right? Like it, you know, John Palfrey at MacArthur Foundation is always saying, and lots of people say this, right? Courage is contagious. And I, and I do think that that's true. So I thought if I, if by speaking out here, we influence just a few folks to speak out and that influences some of their grantees to have confidence to do their work, then that's something. That was the calculus. Kind of that we went through. And, you know, a little bit later in the year, we had a crisis communications firm do like a communications audit of us. And, you know, and I, and some of the things that they said were risky, were sort of increasing our risk. You know, I kind of looked at and said, yeah, okay. Good, good that you think so. Like, interesting to know. It's not going to affect what we're, what we're going to do here, because there are bigger principles at play. Point of clarification, this outside firm was counseling you to take steps to mitigate risk and minimize risk. Yeah. And I mean, they were, they highlighted some ways in which our choice, you know, my choice to be out there was increasing risk. You know, and it's just like, You know, and, and I'm like, okay, thank you very much. And it's not going to affect, you know, what we're going to do because like, I think, and I don't want to take us off topic of like the decision-making process here. So hopefully this is still relevant, Adam, but I think so often, you know, folks take this very narrow view in decision-making of the institution or the organization. And you do have to be responsible to that organization, but we all exist for something bigger, right? That's why we're in nonprofits. It's about the mission. And so I really think a lot about this great article my friend Anne Wallasted, who was the previous CEO of BoardSource, wrote, where she talked about the purpose-driven board, right? Like that, yes, you have duties to the institution, but ultimately it is the purpose, uh, that matters most and that should be guiding us. And so sometimes, particularly for organizations in the nonprofit sector, Yeah, we got to think beyond just the— I keep using this word, but the parochial calculation of just our institution. We have to think about the ecosystem. We have to think about the mission. We have to think about the people that are ultimately affected and. Served. I've been reflecting the last couple of weeks on some of the differences in the nonprofit sector versus others, and one of them is in this direction. The cooperative nature of it, even when there are disparate missions that are pulling us out or different purposes, things like CEP and Diane's organization, there's a need to come together in order to preserve this sector itself and all of the good that kind of rolls from it. How do you think about that? Like to go one more step out into sort of the, or maybe up into, go one more level up. To the role of the nonprofit sector as compared to the other sectors? Yeah, I mean, I think nonprofits are often, not always, taking on the issues that business and government can't or won't address, right? So, so market failures happen. They're real. I mean, even, you know, economists on all points on the ideological spectrum agree that that's, that that's true, right? A market, a market-based solutions don't work. In every context, and sometimes free markets create or intensify social problems. Governments clearly can't solve all our problems. If business and government could solve all our problems, we wouldn't have any problems. So that leaves nonprofits that are focused on often the thorniest, stubbornest problems, sometimes problems for which there isn't like a majority political coalition to do something about it. And, And so that, that means that these organizations, I think, you know, have a special responsibility and a different way of working with others. I, I worked, I have an MBA. I worked in strategy consulting in the corporate world and in strategy consulting in the corporate world, everything was zero-sum competitive, right? Like Uber and Lyft are battling it out in the rideshare category. Like it's zero-sum, one wins, one loses. And When we worked, you know, as strategy consultants, the strategy of a particular company was closely guarded. Like, you wanted it to be something that the competitors couldn't even really figure out or replicate, right? That's very different than the philanthropic or nonprofit world, where to get anything done, your strategy needs to be shared almost always, right? Because a single actor, a funder or a nonprofit operating alone isn't going to be able to solve the most stubborn problems. So most of the examples that we could agree, wow, nonprofits funded by philanthropy really made a difference on that issue, most of those examples involve coalitions of organizations rowing in the same direction with shared strategy. But so often in the boardrooms of nonprofits and foundations, We import these business frameworks, this way of conceiving of strategy as about unique value propositions and competitive dynamics. I remember when I joined the board— I think it's okay for me to say this— I joined the board of National Council on Aging. Great organization, does really important work to help older adults, particularly vulnerable older adults. And it was around the time of a CEO transition, and Ramsey Alwyn is the current CEO, great leader. But prior to her joining, I remember sometimes in the boardroom, I thought, like, why are we talking about AARP like they're a competitor that we want to beat? Don't they also care about older adults? And aren't they just playing a different role than we're playing? And yes, we're seeking funding from some of the same funders, perhaps, but wouldn't it be best if we tried to grow that pie of funding? And recognize the distinctive role that we each play. Then Ramsey came in and she had been an executive at AARP, so she, she very much brought that ecosystem point of view. But I've seen that in, in other boardrooms too, where it's like, wait a second, we have to shift our mindset here to recognize that, that collaboration is crucial, that seeing ourselves as one player in an ecosystem is vital, and that none of us alone are probably gonna accomplish anything close to what we could accomplish. Together. On that ecosystem note, do you know of other efforts that will pool philanthropic energy and use it to coordinate a part of the ecosystem somewhere in the. Sector? Yeah, interesting. I mean, I think there's, there's a lot of examples. Of funders working collaboratively to coordinate strategy in a particular area, sometimes using pooled funds and intermediaries, sometimes not. I think of, I mean, what came to mind when you were talking was another example that relates to foster care that I wrote about in a book that I wrote called Giving Done Right, which came out 6 years ago or so, which was the Stuart Foundation bringing together groups of funders, but also government actors to talk about life outcomes for kids who aged out of the foster care system and a recognition that the statistics were really bad in terms of like high percentages of boys, for example, aging out incarcerated within a year, 18 months. And a decision to, you know, coordinate efforts in support of a different strategy than had been used, a strategy that often involved finding for older kids who couldn't be adopted or weren't being adopted, other kinds of lifelong adult connections, but then also supporting a data system that allowed for sort of tracking across these different organizations. And it made a difference, as I understand it, in terms of the outcomes in California. What's interesting about that, and it goes to something about CEOs in this space, is when I asked Kristi Pitchoff, the president of the Stewart Foundation, who had been one of the movers behind this and arguably the person who kind of initiated it— this is many years ago— could we do a case study about this effort? She said, no, please don't, because it's not about us. You know, we, we, We were just one of many players, you know, and eventually she allowed us to write about it in a certain way. But like, this is something that's also different than, than sort of the business leader that sometimes the most effective thing, and this is particularly true for funders, is actually to step out of the spotlight and allow others that sort of visibility. But there are other areas, like I think about some of the progress that was made, not nearly enough, but some of the progress that was made in criminal justice reform when a coalition of different foundation funders and other donors, actually pretty ideologically diverse coalition, which is interesting, came together to support changes in our criminal justice system. So I think that that kind of collaborative ecosystem approach is just so often a key to success and particularly, particularly for funders, um, that, that the, the recognition that like they shouldn't necessarily just push their strategy, but actually figure out what are the strategies that are out there that are already leading to progress and how do we support them, even if we didn't think of them, maybe one of the nonprofits we fund did. I, yeah, I find the, the sector fascinating in this way of the cooperation, collaboration, and also it's not a zero-sum game, the way in which you can expand the pie. To use your phrase. Let's jump back to the decision-making around what to say around DEI, February 2025. Were there heuristics that were guiding you? Was it the gut call? You're moving very fast. You're kind of talking about 48 hours. Take us into the nuts and bolts, the behind the scenes in your head, in your maybe gut. Of making that decision. Yeah. I mean, and that was actually January still. I mean, that's how quickly things happened. And I mean, I think some of it was like, hey, okay, employment lawyers, like, take a look at what we're doing and also what I've written and say, like, are we— just check us on this. Is there anything actually problematic? No, there's nothing. Right. Like, so some of it is just like checking yourself, right? To make sure you're not being reckless or you're missing something, you know? And then I can't say that there was anything— there was no sort of like checklist here, but it was a sense of if we believe in this stuff, then we have to believe it when it's harder to believe in it, right? Like, if we— and so, like, you know, it's fundamentally about like, who are we? Like, you know, how are we gonna show up? And to me, a lot of it is like, you know, so, so what was alarming is we posted that blog and I got, and I, I don't wanna sound like the risk that I took was so small relative to the risks that we see people taking and whether in Minneapolis or around the world, like I'm not trying, but I was sort of surprised by the number of emails that I received by people who said that was so brave of you. And then I was like, oh crap, like, what did I do? Did we not think this through, you know, enough? And have I put the organization at risk in some way? But I just feel like, you know, at a certain point, you know, Tony Richardson, who I mentioned, our board chair, like he said, he said this in our conference when talking about his own decision-making. He said, our values are not illegal, you know, and we have to stand up for our values. And the risk of what you lose if you don't isn't just that others won't, isn't that, that we just cede ground needlessly, but it's also that you lose the trust of the people who thought they knew what you stood for. You know, like that really matters, right? Like you have with your staff, with your board, with your funders, they have to be able to trust that you mean what you say. And the only way they're going to trust that is if you're willing to say it when it's hard to say, or you're willing to do the thing that's hard to do. And so, I mean, it was really at that, at that level of, of thinking it through. And then it got kind of got, got easier from there. I mean, in part because the, the, the subsequent, you know, the subsequent decisions of this administration with respect to nonprofits. Including. The cutting off of all federal funding for a period of time. Well, NCN and Democracy Forward and others sued to get the injunction to stop that. It was so outrageous that there was— it became easier in a way, like, to say, like, okay, this is a pattern. We have, we have got to speak up about this. And then I think a recognition that if you lose some folks in that process, funders, clients. That's just like the price you have to pay. And like, you don't know, you can't game it out. You can't scenario plan it. You can't overanalyze it. Ultimately, you know, you just do have to do what you think is right. And again, I don't mean to sound sanctimonious, but you just gotta go with what is, what you think is right. And, you know, it's helpful to make sure your board is with you, but also I think sometimes it's helpful to come in with a point of view. To your board about what you think the right thing to do is. One of the things I observe, and this is just me, like, you know, I don't know, Monday morning quarterbacking or whatever, but like, I see some folks who seem to be bringing things to their legal counsel or their board with a kind of like, what are our options? As opposed to like, this is what I think we should do. What are the, from a mission point of view, what's What are, what are the risks, right? Like having a clear point of view. And then another thing that I've seen a lot of in the last year is like conflating legal counsel or communications consultants' observations that something increases risk with like illegality. These are two completely different things, right? You know, or like your legal counsel tells you something. I mean, if I was talking with my brother Paul, who I mentioned about this, and he was like, you know, it's very rare. That I tell, that I have to tell a client, like, that thing you're thinking about doing is illegal. In those cases, it's clear. You have to follow the law. You gotta follow the law. It's more the lawyer's job to say, well, these are some risks from, from that action. There are probably though also risks from inaction, right? So you have to weigh those, and then you, the leader, have to make the decision, right? And Again, sometimes you have to bring it to the board depending what kind of decision it is. But I've seen, and again, I don't mean to sound like, you know, like I get plenty of stuff wrong. I don't mean to sound like I'm, you know, overly judgmental, but, but when, but I have seen folks seem to almost like forfeit their decision-making power to lawyers or to communications consultants instead of taking that advice as advice and input. And then saying, no, but I am the decider ultimately. I have weighed this and this is my. Decision. Yeah, my background in communications leadership in the sector has me in a similar spot. I, I think that sometimes there would be concern about blowback or critique, or what if some of our audience does not appreciate whatever., and I think often it's easy for leaders to discount, but what about the constituents who are looking for us to say something? And there's a different reputational risk, like, uh, there's a trade-off there. Yeah, 100%. And the other thing about that, Adam, that I think is really important to remember is that like, I do not believe. That people who work with you or fund you will necessarily stop working with you or funding you just because they disagree with you about a particular thing. And I don't know when we, like, persuaded ourselves that that was the case. Like, people actually like people who believe in something, even if they don't share that belief, right? People like people who have, you know, values and principles that guide them, even if those values and principles are different than, than mine or yours. And so what's, what's been interesting to me is like, we have a lot of clients that I know on some particular stuff that I write or say, because I do a lot of writing and speaking, they don't agree with me. Why do they still work with us? Because we, because we do, we do work that they value because they don't, it doesn't really matter if we disagree on a particular thing. In order to be able to work together on other things where we have skills or data or resources that are useful to them. So it's just like, you know, I like this notion that like, oh, I got to be careful. I got to be neutral. You know, I got to stay neutral on this stuff because then I won't alienate anyone. Well, I think ultimately you'll alienate everyone, right? Because if you, if you stand, I mean, no one, no one wants to really be affiliated with an organization that doesn't stand for anything. I'd rather be affiliated with an organization that stands for some stuff, even if I don't agree with all of it. So I think, I think we can confuse ourselves about this and also confuse ourselves about the value of like debate and disagreement. Like I was just having an email exchange with a foundation leader who told me, you know, he really disagreed with some stuff I'd written about philanthropy. He thinks that he sees it differently. And I said, You know, I'm so glad you told me that, like, and we had a good conversation about it. Why don't you write something on our blog about how you see it differently than I do? That might be helpful to people to clarify their thinking. I feel like we need more. Of that. Yeah. Well said. Phil, what's the Center for Effective Philanthropy? Yeah, we're a nonprofit focused on helping donors. That includes institutional foundations. Other kinds of grantmakers and individual donors to be more effective. And we do that through research. We have a lot of grant-funded research on a variety of topics. Just recently did a big study, for example, on Mackenzie Scott's gifts to nonprofits and how they're using them. That's just one example. We also have assessment and advisory services for foundations and other clients. We have resources like a blog, a podcast called Giving Done Right, And then we actually have a sort of related initiative called YouthTruth that works with students to help elevate their voice in K-12 schools. We have two offices. We also do some learning programs through something called the CEP Learning Institute, mostly aimed at grantmakers. Offices are in Cambridge, Mass., San Francisco, 58 staff, one of whom is actually located in Madrid and works with our European clients. Let me shift us from your specific leadership of CEP and widen out to the sector as a whole, because you have a unique vantage point and I want to ask a question or two on this. What are the areas of the work in the sector that you see CEOs struggling with decisions about. The most? Nonprofit CEOs, foundation CEOs, or both? Both. Yeah. Well, one, I think we've already discussed it, like how to navigate the current context and how to think about risk in that context. I think, I think that's one. I think decisions about, um, I mean, this is very different, although risk is also involved here too. I've been really interested to see how thoughtful leaders I admire can come to such different conclusions about like how much financial risk to take for an organization. Like, what is living on the edge for an operating nonprofit? You know, there'll be some who will say, oh, well, we shouldn't dip into reserves, you know, ever. And then others who are perfectly willing to like tap the line of credit, you know? So I think that's interesting. And it's hard to know what the right answer is on that stuff. But I see people grappling with those questions about like, yeah, what is— how do we define financial sustainability? That kind of thing. I think a lot of folks are struggling with decisions about how to compensate staff and provide benefits for staff, particularly in expensive places to live. This, this again, more true for operating nonprofits than like endowed private foundations, which generally can, don't have a problem doing that. And then, you know, another one that I see a lot of people talking about and struggling with is, this is going to sound silly, but decision-making about decision-making. Like, how do we structure in our organization, like getting input and to make and decision-making in a context in which not to— I don't really like to overgeneralize about generations, you know, because I think there's diversity within every generation. And yeah, I've got a 20-year-old, a 21-year-old daughter and a 24-year-old daughter. And, you know, like people talk about, you know, Gen Z or whatever, as if it's a monolith and it so isn't. But, but I do think that it is true that a lot of folks come in, particularly to mission-based nonprofit organizations, as younger staff with certain expectations about the level of input that they'll have and the degree to which, you know, they should be consulted and stuff that doesn't always accord with like the view of those in positions of power. And so I think people struggle with like that, how to get decision-making authority for those with more experience or those in particular positions, but also make sure to engage and get the best ideas from people wherever wherever they are. Those are some of the things that come to mind. Yeah. One of your colleagues at the Center for Effective Philanthropy raved about the culture that you have built there. This is a longtime colleague of yours. How have you built a culture? How much was it intentional? How much of it was some of your personality and preference? And then how do you maintain that culture? Yeah. Um, initially going back, so I was the first employee hired 25 years ago by a founding board and I had been working at a strategy consulting firm right out of business school. We had a very little amount of money committed, $345,000, which was nothing, which is why there was, I think, no competition for the job, which is why I got it. And there was a guy I worked with who was like a couple of years out of college. Actually, I didn't think he would come with me. And, but, but he, I, I asked a different person, a woman I worked with, if she would come with me. She said, no way, that's too risky. And then he found me in the hallway and he was like, I'd love to come work with you because I want to get out of here. And I, maybe I shouldn't say this because people know what consulting firm we're talking about, but I'm going to say it anyway, which is some of how he and I and the other employees, but, but he and I were in it from the beginning and we still work together, Kevin Boldig. He's our Vice President for Assessment Advisory Services. I mean, whether consciously or unconsciously, I can't recall how much we talked about it directly. Some of what we wanted to build as a culture was a response to things we didn't like about the culture we'd been in. So it was a place where we worked at that time anyway, where it was difficult to be a woman. It was difficult to be a person of color. It was difficult to be gay and out. It was, it was not an inclusive culture. It was a culture also of like heavy overwork, you know? So those were some of the things we, we had to work some long hours in the early days, but those were some of the things we sort of reacted against and tried consciously to build a really inclusive culture. One in which I, you know, good ideas could come from, from, from anywhere. You know, that's, that's easy to do when you're a small, smaller number of staff, um, you know, but, um, so we've constantly had to reevaluate things as, as we've grown. Um, Elise D'Amico is our VP of People and Culture. She has also been here, uh, over 2 decades. So she's done like every, every conceivable job at the organization. Um, you know, I think having a great person in that role, it, you just cannot cannot overstate the importance of that. So, so, um, somebody who, whose staff feel comfortable talking to, who is really committed, um, I think the whole leadership team is, but Elise does a lot of the work on this to making sure that we're a place where everybody, everybody feels valued, where contributions are recognized. We, we built in a really transparent, pretty equitable approach to comp where like If you have a role, you're paid the same as everybody else with that role. So you can't really have inequities creep in. I think that's been important for our culture. Obviously people are paid differently based on their role, but that, that, that's, that's driven by market assessment. Um, and then it's not, it can't be driven by things like, you know, how persuasive am I in talking you into paying me more or whatever. You know, a lot of open communication about what's happening in the organization. Every board meeting, we send a board book to our board. We send it to all 58 staff too. Everybody can see the board book. They can ask questions about the board book. You know, that said, like, as we have grown bigger, like I've always regarded myself as like very open, communicative, transparent leader. And then a couple years ago, you know, we have a lot of mechanisms for feedback, which is crucial, I think, for people to give feedback safely. 360 feedback on me, on anybody in the organization, but also staff surveys. A couple years ago in our staff survey, you know, it was clear to me, like, people did not think I was communicating frequently enough or openly enough. And I had a minute of like, what? Like, I'm great at that. Like, what are they talking about? And then I'm just like, I have not adapted sufficiently to the, to the increased size and complexity of the organization. And I have, as fundraising and other external commitments become more and more a part of the job over time, always more, I neglected to communicate as clearly and openly as I, as I should have. And so I, I pledged to the staff that I would send, you know, pretty long, like monthly messages just about what was going on, what I was seeing, you know, and I, as a sort of experiment, and people really have appreciated them. And sometimes people give me feedback on what they'd like me to write about. And of course I talk, you know, we, there are other ways I communicate, but I'm, I'm on the hook, you know, including at staff meetings, all that. I'm on the hook to write something, you know, well-conceived and usually 2 to 4 pages every month. And that discipline, it just forces me to do, to think about what I should be telling folks that maybe I wouldn't otherwise. So I guess the The moral of that story is like, it's, it's like parenting kind of in the sense. I mean, that's a terrible analogy because I really don't want to be analogized to a parent, but there are certain things about it that where you think you've got it all figured out, you've never got it all figured out. Like, you know, you think it's going great, it's going to go crappy the next day. You know, that's the way I feel about culture. Like you have to constantly pay attention to it. Whatever you did that was good for the culture. 2 years ago might still be good, but it's probably not enough. And you should, you should check in and see what else, what else is required. So those are some of the thoughts I have, kind of a random, uh, assortment. It's great. It's great. Um, I'm going to go into sort of a lightning round mode and some quick hits. What's something you wish someone had told you before you became the CEO. At CEP? That everybody in an organization is watching the person in a leadership role's facial expressions and body language to a degree that you underestimate, and they're reading things into that that you don't intend. And so you have to get, as I read somebody use this phrase, I like it, you have to get custody of. Your face. That is a great phrase. Tell me a book or two that has been formative for your leadership as a CEO in. This sector. I mean, it's not about the sector, but a book that had a huge impact on me is, I think it's called Walking in the Wind or Walking with the Wind. John Lewis's memoir, which is just an incredible story of like human strength and courage and resilience. And I've thought about a lot about it in this time because I think there's a tendency for people to say, and I get it, like things are so brutal and difficult and hard right now. How do we get through it? And you read about someone like Congressman Lewis's life and you think, Oh, this is nothing, you know, nothing compared to what others have had to endure in this country in order to, you know, secure basic rights. That's one book that I love that comes. To mind. Do you have any quotes that often surface either that you repeat to yourself and remind yourself of, or that you share with staff members or people in other organizations? Yes. So I thought that the staff was going to rebel if I quoted Lincoln one more time in the last year, which is, you know, the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. That has felt particularly relevant. Phil Buchanan, CEO at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, What do you love about. Your job? I mean, I absolutely love the people I work with and I love the opportunity and challenge of trying to help those with a lot of resources, institutional donors and individual donors, do more good by supporting organizations that are doing crucial work in communities and on fields. Like, that just feels like a privilege to be able to work on something that is, that is meaningful and that matters in that way. Feeling like you're doing something that matters with people you care about and respect, you know, hopefully, and this has been true for me, learning and growing all the while, facing different challenges as the role changes. All of those are things I love about the job. Yeah. Thanks, Phil. It's been good to have you on the Nonprofit CEO Podcast. Thanks for having me, Adam. It's been a lot of fun to talk to you. If you know a nonprofit CEO who's carrying something significant, send them this episode. And if you want more of the patterns I'm seeing across 200 CEO conversations delivered weekly, the Nonprofit CEO Briefing is at nonprofitceo.com. I'm Adam Jeske, the nonprofit CEO advisor. Thank you for what you're leading.