Why IT Matters

This episode will remind you that incredible people are out there putting their intelligence towards making it as simple to give to a nonprofit as it is to checkout with Apple Pay. Our time with Tina covers a lot of philosophical and practical ground, and what ties it all together is the understanding that as leaders and business professionals, especially those serving the impact economy, we will elevate each other more when our values and actions focus on meeting each other where we’re at.  It’s really easy to look at things like DEI, business ownership, software development, and cryptocurrency – all topics we cover – as siloed from each other.  But, the real lesson we take away from our time with Tina is that it’s the connections between these that will strengthen both our purpose and our goals.

Episode Show Notes

Change is constant and in our recent history, the changes have been grand and rapid. Like all things, Why IT Matters has also been going through a transformation, and this special edition episode goes into the recent changes with Why IT Matters, the podcast, and your awesome host Tracy.

Episode Show Notes

Humans are not technology, and our behavior governs success as much as the actual palette of tools available to us.  After over a decade of trying to understand the importance of helping humans navigate change, we discuss the need for a diagnostic, our diagnostic framework, and the fit of humans to technology. Our conversation begins with the context in which digital transformation takes place, and why we can’t ignore systemic inequities, but then dives deep into helping this land for individual organizations. Tim and Tracy also talk about their weeks and what they’re on about as a way of leading into why connecting, being generative leaders, and learning how to lean on others is critical to any success.

Episode Show Notes

For nonprofits and the impact economy, technology is everything. But how we’ve come to expect it to show up as business leaders, nonprofit consumers, and philanthropic givers needs to be completely inverted. This is a conversation that picks apart from top to bottom why and how we can center our actions on humans and lead with values. Moreover, we cover why leading with values is becoming increasingly important for the next generation of nonprofit leaders, and the effects it produces when connected to marketing, transformation, and implementation. If you’re a giver, a business leader, or an application developer, this is a conversation not to miss, because, if you’re not leading with value and humanity first, you’re missing out.

Episode Shownotes

Bitcoin, crypto, blockchain, and many other terms have flooded our conversation space over the years and most recently began to get traction in the impact economy world. For nonprofits, it is no surprise that when individuals want to donate, they will do anything in their power to be able to accept those funds. But what happens when those funds are no longer good ol’ cash? Tim Lockie and Tracy Kronzak are joined by Justin Edelstein, Co-Founder at Arkus, and begin to chip away at what this new world means. This episode is meant to inspire you to get curious, understand the potential of blockchain, and most of all, take a small first step in exploring this digital world that is quickly on its way to changing how we view the nature of technology and our personal “digital” imprint in this space.

Episode Shownotes

Tim Lockie and Tracy Kronzak take on the mythology of technology as it should work for impact organizations and the realities of why it doesn’t.  In their first one-on-one conversation, they explore how the mythos of technology failure is supported by wide-scale marketing to under-resourced organizations, what changed both of their perspectives on their work, and why Now IT Matters as a business is now working the way it does.  This is for leaders looking for new ways of engaging with the clients they serve, and an informed take on the journey making these changes as a business engenders (spoiler: it’s a complete rebuild).  Tune in for a professional “Why IT Matters,” as part of a series we hope to offer that lets you take advantage of our understanding of the ways in which the technology world is changing.

Episode Shownotes

There are moments when we wring our hands together and ask, “What can be done?” When it comes to the events of the past six weeks, much of America has been asked to understand a new reality regarding our assumptions about Eastern Europe, and Ukraine in particular. This episode is for those who want to know what to do: we cover not just Ukraine, but the culture of “giving a damn,” and where it will take us as leaders, business owners, mentors, and volunteers. We’re tapping into Alesia’s lived experience to not only discuss how to be better business people serving impact organizations, but how to be stronger mentors to each other, and translate that communal experience into times of crisis like Ukraine is experiencing. This is very much an education in Eastern Europe wrapped in a bow of how we enable others to succeed.

Episode Shownotes

We talked with Mallory Erickson, the tour-de-force behind What The Fundraising podcast and creator of the Power Partners Formula™, about the similarities between the isolated fundraiser and the isolated technologist at nonprofits. Spoiler alert: it’s all about the stigma associated with having highly-refined pieces of knowledge that create dependencies that aren’t entirely accounted for in how nonprofits operate and develop their culture and strategy.  We uncover her “ah-ha” moment of breaking the silence of how nonprofit fundraisers feel about the work they’re doing, their fears and goals, and the journey it set her on that led to her business.  This episode is a conversation about how we react to the work we’re doing and what it leads us to bring to the work itself: Mallory helps leaders unpick these reactions and assumptions and develop positive outcomes for their organizations.  We also talked about the net effect of philanthropic and evaluative organizations that categorize nonprofit operations on how fundraisers (and technologists) approach their work and what are considered successful outcomes. Notably, how the “business as usual” we’ve been conditioned to expect is no longer serving us.  Ending The Stigma is a must-listen conversation for fundraising and technology executives, organization leaders, and business partners that help the impact economy.

Episode Shownotes

Industry executives and leaders got together for a groundbreaking discussion on how the definition of CRM is changing for nonprofits, and how the current landscape of tools and strategies available to nonprofits is rising to meet new opportunities and expectations. Why IT Matters brought together a panel to reframe the common understanding of CRM as a single tool investment and challenged assumptions regarding what is possible with today’s purpose-built and highly-integrated cloud technologies, especially alongside cloud infrastructure platforms. The panel also talked about how data platforms and technologies serving nonprofits can work together better and drive shared impact and efficiency for the benefit of all organizations.

The panelists:

Here’s what was covered:

Episode 2 is one of the most honest conversations we’ve had about creating authentic, supportive, and safe workplaces we’ve ever had.  It’s one thing to say that a company is “family” and supports staff from diverse backgrounds, and it’s quite another to look through the eyes of Christine Priester at how these intentions land and the outcomes they produce on a person.  Christine discusses how she “turned her pain into power,” and the tactical components of what she’s felt were most supportive by the organizations that employ her in her career.  In Christine’s case, this was walking through the journey of leaving behind her experience with human trafficking, what she needed for true support in the workplace, and where businesses can learn better to support others like her – and more importantly, reframing broad brushstrokes of intention towards diversity, equity and inclusion efforts towards specific actions.  Here’s the bottom line: unless individuals can see themselves in your organization and their experience, they’re not being supported.  The rest of the conversation is what, from her own experience, Christine needed to be seen and supported in her career and community and the humility and approachability of others necessary to facilitate it.

Christine’s Go-Fund-Me
National Survivor Network
Polaris Project

Episode Shownotes