How to Deal with Decisionmakers Who Say There's No Money Right Now

0:00 You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we share how to deal with decision makers who say there's no money right now. So stay tuned. If you wanna 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. 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.

0:41 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, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them. Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there folks. Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because there is a thing going on out there that we have to talk about. It's making me crazy.

1:21 I'm pretty sure it's making you crazy too. And that's this business of all these money decision makers, whether they're foundations or elected officials or government agencies, you name it. They're all singing the same song. There's no money right now. There's not enough money. Whatever the refrain is, it's all the same basic thing. And you know what? It's time to call BS on that. And reset this conversation. Because the fact is there is money. Now there's a lot to talk about about that money, but there's money. So we gotta shift this around. Because the way the conversation is going right now is not serving us and it's not serving the people we serve.

2:04 So to make this reset happen, there are four main shifts that we must make. The first is to challenge the prevailing belief and refrain about there's no money. We have to reframe funding as investment. We have to make the decision makers aware of the cost of not solving the problem. And we have to shift their investment horizon to be longer term. We're gonna talk about all four of these because I think we have to do all four for us to really shift the conversation. But first on the list is challenging this prevailing belief. And I think part of this is about challenging the scarcity mentality that is just pervading all sorts of money decision makers right now.

2:49 And you know, we have to double check that we aren't inadvertently getting sucked into that thinking right along with them. Because it's easy to do. I freely acknowledge a lot of nonprofits. A lot of my clients are struggling with all sorts of upheaval in their funding. There are real consequences to that upheaval, and it's a very stressful time. And it would be very easy to just buy in to this whole, oh, there's no money. If we accept the premise that there's no money or that there's not enough to go around, or whatever their theme is, we're screwed. But the truth is there is money. And here are some specific facts about that truth.

3:34 The stock market is doing very well, which means that foundation endowments are doing very well. In fact, according to some new data that was just reported in the Chronicle of Philanthropy like a week ago, quote, grant grantmaker assets are at an all time high, following two years of solid investment returns. They have money. Now what we're seeing is foundations pulling inward and becoming even more conservative, partly because they're scared of 47 and they're afraid that if they make any waves, they'll have a target on their back. So there's some other stuff going on, but they're also just operating from this incredible scarcity mentality of, things are uncertain, so we better hold onto the cash.

4:20 Well, they've been saying that for the last however many years. And you know, during the pandemic that was one thing. And actually during the pandemic, what they actually did for the most part was throw the doors open and say, you know what? We gotta step in. And they threw caution to the wind a little bit and went ahead and funded nonprofits at a much greater ratio to their total endowment than they had in the past. So we know they're capable of doing that. But for some reason right now they're not. There's a bunch of stuff going on there, and some of it is fear. But it's also this perceived uncertainty because there is a lot of volatility in the environment, needless to say.

5:01 But their financial environment is not that volatile. They're doing really well. So we need to know that so that we can call BS when they try to tell us that. Now, we'll do that in very diplomatic ways, of course. But we need to be armed with some real truth here. Here's the other truth. State budgets, city county budgets have always fluctuated. They're not static. They never have been. Now, there is no question that state budgets in particular have taken a hit because of federal budget cuts and illegal impoundment of funds by 47. But states do still have budgets.

5:42 And budget numbers always fluctuate. Sometimes there's more money to work with, sometimes there's less. That's not new. What is a constant truth throughout those budget fluctuations is that whatever numbers you have to work with in a given fiscal year, decisions still have to be made about how to allocate that money. Irrespective of the total dollar figure you're working with. So none of that is new, but they're acting like it is. They're acting like suddenly, oh, we can't do things that way. We can't spend money here. We can't spend money there because, oh, we don't have enough. And the same thing goes for city and county budgets. They've been dealing with this since the dawn of budget time.

6:26 It's just the nature of the beast. And it's the nature of the beast that they are often at the whim of the government funding entity that's one level up the chain from them. And certainly they're all being affected by the craziness that's going on at the federal level. I'm not discounting the level of craziness, I'm saying the reaction is not helpful. The way decision makers, in government in particular, are reacting to this is really, really not helpful. And so like I say, we have to both be ready to reorient them and also be very vigilant that we're not getting pulled into and buying into this refrain that is simply not helpful and frankly not right.

7:11 So here's the thing. If they're operating from an underlying belief that there's no money or there's not enough money, we have to do something to disrupt those beliefs. And the strategy for doing that is the same as it always is for disrupting unhelpful beliefs with a decision maker. You come up with messaging that puts a crack in that belief and then wedges that crack open a little bit further and a little bit further, until you can get more of a reality based discussion happening. Questions are your friend in this situation as they always are. Some general questions you can start with are some version of these. Don't take them verbatim.

7:52 You'll do this in the context of a conversation. And this is all conversation, by the way. This is not messaging you put on an infographic necessarily. This is something you're using in conversation. Because questions are one of the best ways to actually engage and to force their brain to engage, which we desperately need. We need their conscious brain to engage so that it can disrupt the subconscious belief patterns that have been installed in their mental software. And the conscious brain has to get involved to break those apart. Some introductory questions are things like, how much money is enough money? At what number would you feel there was quote, enough unquote?, You know what?

8:37 There's really not an answer to that. They're not gonna have an answer, but that will force some thinking. And even if money is tight, question number two, isn't it more important than ever then to ensure that we are investing money in the most effective way possible? And that leads us into this concept of reframing funding as investment. And I know you all do this to a certain extent, but I'm really gonna go deep on this because I think now in particular, in this environment of the scarcity mentality and all the weirdness around money, we really have to hit hard on this. And a big part of what we have to teach decision makers is that spending on the services you provide is an investment, not just an expense.

9:26 And that investment produces returns. Now, part of this is how you talk about your ROI data. Broadly speaking, that's characterization of the idea that whatever is spent to provide your service, that by solving the problem, it saves X dollars in expenditures that now don't have to be made. That's the essence of return on investment, in most cases. And most of you have something that you can use for return on investment conversation. If not, I'm gonna talk in a minute about how you can do that, even when it's not inherently obvious. Even when you don't have a direct dollar figure that you can work with, you can still have this conversation.

10:08 And part of the thing is that we have to talk about the other side of this. We often don't talk about the flip side of ROI, which is the cost of failing to solve the problem, or solving it halfway. The flip side of your ROI data is that for every dollar the decision maker failed to invest in your services, those other costs increased proportionately. They always wanna think that the problem as it exists doesn't cost anything. It's only when we start spending money to solve it, to help people, that then we are incurring costs.

10:50 And when you're thinking in terms of there's not enough money or there's no money, you can see how that leads to them saying, well then we can't afford that. So we gotta break that. Now this line of argument. I will acknowledge does get harder in deep red states. If you've got, for example, a Republican super majority in your state legislature and/or your local elected bodies, there may be a lot more resistance. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't still push back and call out the logic flaws. Even in those deep red states where they're disinclined to spend very much on solving problems that affect low income people in particular, those problems still have costs.

11:31 Whether they wanna think about it or not. Fundamentally, we've gotta teach all of these decision makers that your services are an investment that produces a return. And that when you fail to invest in the services, not only do you forego the return, you actually increase costs in other places on the ledger. This piece is critical. Because again, if they're operating from the belief that there's not enough money, and you're telling them that by failing to act, they're gonna increase their costs, that is an attention getter. As always, your messaging on this is going to matter immensely. Focus on asking questions that force the decision maker to think, and to force them into some maybe uncomfortable realizations.

12:19 But operate from the understanding that whatever problem you solve with your services, there are always costs to leaving that problem unsolved. Now, some of those costs are borne by the individual who's experiencing the problem, in the form of added stress, decline in health, both of which may compromise their ability to continue working. Fundamentally it degrades their ability to be a contributing member of society, which is what even the most conservative of conservatives says they want. They want everybody being productive. Now, acknowledging that that's gonna look really different for different people based on what their situation is going to permit.

13:02 But every human wants to feel like they're a contributing member of the community. We're not in disagreement here. But if we can get even the more conservative folks to begin to get it, that, hey, if you're doing something that is actually impeding someone's ability to be a contributing member of the community, then maybe that's worth a rethink. Here's another layer of that. If it's an adult experiencing the problem and they have kids, there are ripple effects on the kids. Which in turn affects the next generation's ability to thrive and be fully self-sustaining. Ultimately the goal is to get every member of the community to the point where they're thriving as much as possible for their situation.

13:43 And they're contributing back to the community at the maximum possible, given their situation. For some folks, that'll be a lot. For others, it'll be a little. But part of being human is a profound desire to be a contributing member of the community. And for those who are parents, to raise the next generation to thrive and be contributing members of the community. Even if we were to be so harsh as to say, too bad for you, you failed to thrive. It's all your fault. And you'll just have to get sicker and more compromised until you die and solve the problem for all of us that way. Even if we were so callous as a society, which generally we are not, with a few exceptions, there would still be costs associated with that person's decline.

14:31 There would be an impact in the community. There would be an impact on their family, there would be an impact on their neighbors. There would be an impact possibly on the public health. We love to nurture the idea that we're an individualistic society, but the fact is we are all members of communities and our actions impact those communities. Let's look at an example and give this some life. I'm gonna take workforce development to start with because it's super straightforward. If the problem you solve is a person who can't make enough money working full time to support themselves and their families.

15:11 The person wants to work, probably is working, but they're working at a minimum wage job and they don't qualify for something that pays better. They know that in order to be able to support their family, they're gonna need to do some things. Get some training, get some education, get some experience so they can qualify for a better paying job and pursue a fulfilling career that will fully support their family. First of all, if they could have done that on their own, they'd have already done it. But they didn't, largely because they've got a lot of other things in their way. So unless they get considerable assistance to help them navigate all the things that have to be navigated in order to get from where they are now to where they wanna be, if they don't have that help, they may not get there.

16:00 They probably won't get there. Instead, they'll still be stuck in a low wage dead end job that can't support their family. And they stay in that low wage job working themselves to death and not even managing to cover all the bills. They're relying on Snap, but snap got cut. So now they have to rely on the food bank. They have to rely on Medicaid for their healthcare. They rely on the earned income tax credit to supplement their income. They have to rely on a whole bunch of supports because they don't make enough money at the job they're working very hard at. So all those extra supports they need because they're not making enough to fully sustain their family, is costing the community.

16:42 Those are all costs associated with this person staying in the problem. Every month, every year they stay stuck in the problem, those costs continue to accrue. And all they want is to be able to make enough money in their job for them to be able to do all those things for themselves. They just want a paycheck that'll cover the cost of existing for themselves and their family. And that's what we do. That's the problem we solve. But to truly solve it, it takes a significant investment of time and resources. It takes extended assistance and support to help that person make it all the way through in their journey from where they are now in the low wage dead end job, to a career that pays a family sustaining wage.

17:29 Cause typically that is a multi-year project for all the reasons that you would be ready to explain if you needed to. We can say it costs too much to truly solve the problem. But the alternative is to do nothing and keep incurring all those other costs. Or to make the mistake of looking for a cheaper, quick fix, moving them maybe one or two steps forward in the process and then abandoning them. What happens then is all the other things that are still stacked against them are gonna derail them, and they don't get to the end. They need more and longer term support if they're gonna make it to the finish line. But once they make it to the finish line, they're unlikely to ever need to access any of those supports again.

18:16 And the chances of their children never needing those supports as they become adults go way up. So you're making generational change happen here and bending the cost curve dramatically. You are not only getting an incredible return on your investment just with the adult that you help, but you're avoiding more costs decades into the future. Now, one of the messaging techniques that's very important in these conversations is to expand the timeframe. Decision makers are very inclined to think short term, one funding cycle to the next. They don't tend to take the long view. That's a problem because most of the problems that nonprofits solve are complicated.

19:01 There's not a quick fix. They take time, they take investment of resources. But when you invest the time and the resources, you get amazing results and you get an incredible return on the investment for the community. But if you're stuck in short term thinking, if you're stuck in thinking, yeah, but I want you to have a solution that fixes this person's problem in six weeks or six months. So we can move them out of the program and serve another person for six weeks or six months and just keep running them through the conveyor belt. When you do that, you compromise the return on investment substantially. Solving the problem halfway or not even halfway, investing a little bit of money in an attempt at a solution, but it's not enough of an investment to actually solve the problem.

19:49 When you do that, you not only have now spent the money for the short term service, so you're out that cost. But it wasn't enough to actually move the needle on the person's problem, so they're still in the problem. And they're still incurring all the costs associated with the problem. You've made a small investment and gotten no return. All so that you could make that same small investment and get no return on the next person. Versus saying, alright, we're gonna focus on helping people get where they need to be. And if that takes a year or two, then that's what it takes. We're gonna make that long-term investment because we know the return on that investment is massive and long lasting and multi-generational.

20:36 Sometimes we have to change how we're measuring success, and we have to make sure that we and the decision maker are defining success the same way. In order for that to happen, we have to be defining the problem the same way. And when you can get them on board with that, it's a lot easier to get them to expand their thinking longer term. It's also, frankly, very helpful to show them how their short term approach is actually costing them money. There's a lot that goes into training a decision maker to think longer term. And particularly to think of their investing with a longer term horizon. But it is 100% worth doing. Now like I said, workforce development is example of where you can attach a lot of very clearly defined associated costs.

21:22 But let's say you're a food bank. For many of the people you serve, you're not permanently solving any specific problem. Now, for some of the people you serve who are in a situation where they are food insecure and do not have any possibility for a variety of reasons of ever attaining an income that is gonna be such that they don't need help with food, then you are serving that specific problem. And there's a way to talk about that. But for a lot of the folks that you serve, you're a bridge solution while the person is working on some of the other problems. They're between jobs, they're working their way toward a better job, whatever's going on.

22:06 In those kinds of situations, your ROI is gonna be different. Your ROI is connected to those other things. And it's also connected very specifically to health. So yes, it's important that people not be hungry and that alone should be sufficient as a moral argument. However, because it requires an investment, decision makers are always looking to see what is their investment getting for them. Now, one option is to focus heavily on the generational impact because again, none of these problems occur in isolation. If one person in the family is hungry, they're all hungry. This is not an isolated thing. When you're operating a food bank, you're serving an entire family, and very often there are kids involved.

22:51 But even if there aren't, there are some very basic, immediate detrimental effects to hunger and malnutrition. Inability to concentrate effectively, declining health, possible development of chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Particularly if the way they're solving the problem of hunger on their own is to buy highly processed, calorie dense foods, just so folks in the family won't feel so darn hungry. But the nutritional value of those things, as we know, is terrible and will actually cause chronic disease. So you're focused on making sure they get plenty of protein, they get some fruits and vegetables, that they're eating a reasonably balanced diet. And that it's reliable. They can count on it, and they're not ever put in a position of having to figure out whether they pay their rent or whether they eat.

23:37 This is a great place to engage the decision maker with some questions. You could say something like, you know when you're at work and you're really hungry, but it's not lunchtime yet. You're trying to hold out, but you're really, really hungry. What happens to your concentration? What happens to your ability to focus? And you know, sometimes you just say the heck with that. It's not lunchtime, but I gotta eat my lunch'cause I just can't think until I get something to eat. And then you go eat your lunch. Maybe you brought it from home, maybe you go out, whatever. But you don't have to worry about whether or not there is lunch. You just go eat it. But what if you didn't have any lunch?

24:19 What if you had to go the whole day feeling like that physically? And the longer you go during the day, the more that knot in your stomach increases, the more lightheaded you feel, the less focused your brain is. And then imagine if it's a kid and they don't have enough to eat. What do you think their ability to concentrate in school is gonna be like? What are the consequences for that kid, long term, if they missed months or years of meaningful instruction because they weren't able to concentrate enough, because they were too hungry to function. What are the costs to the community and to generations down the road if we don't really solve this problem. And if we don't solve it well, meaning we don't just make sure they have food, but we make sure that they have food that is nutritionally sound, and it's going to support their health.

25:09 There's a couple things going on there. These are techniques I know you know well. But it's putting the decision maker in the shoes of the person with the problem for a specific purpose. It's not so much to elicit empathy. It's to connect to a physical feeling. When we can connect the senses, we engage a different part of the brain and it bypasses some of that rational thought resistance that they're putting up, and it connects deeply. So if you can just get them to imagine a physical sensation. And everybody's been there, right? Who has not been sitting at their desk or wherever, going, oh my God, is it lunchtime yet?

25:52 Ah, I got to eat. So everyone can connect to that. It's relatable. It's non-threatening. And you can tone down the, imagine if you had nothing part. You just say, imagine having that feeling persist all day. And that every day you come to work you're stuck with that, and you're operating that way day to day. You know, what does that do? So there's ways to get them feeling it more deeply on a physical level without necessarily pushing too many, what if you didn't have this thing? That's a judgment call. I threw that in there, but for some audiences, I would take that out. Because it might trigger some defensiveness.

26:33 So that's a judgment call. But connecting with the physical sensation of hunger in a way that is highly relatable for them, that you know for a fact they've experienced at least once in their life, is a pretty safe bet. And it's engaging a different part of the brain. And then you wanna go on to talk about costs of not solving the problem in terms of declining health, the development of chronic diseases, the missed school days, missed work days. All the things that you can pile on that would be associated costs with someone not having reliable food that is of decent nutritional value. You can spin that out fairly easily and talk about the costs of that down the line.

27:14 It's the down the line part that we also have to really focus on. If we allow the decision maker to stay in short term, isolated thinking about the problem, thinking, well, this is a simple problem and it shouldn't cost very much, and there ought to be a quick fix and therefore we can invest less. We know how that turns out. So we have to challenge that by asking questions that disrupt their thinking, disrupt their beliefs, and let in a new thought, let in a new way of looking at it. So to recap briefly, we got four things. The four main shifts that we're looking to make. Challenging the prevailing belief and refrain of there's no money, there's not enough money.

27:58 Reframing funding as investment. Making the decision maker aware of the costs of not solving the problem. Not solving it today. Not solving it on down the line. So we shift their investment horizon to be longer term. When you put those four together, you have a powerful messaging and engagement strategy that will go a long way to shifting them out of this very unhelpful cycle that a lot of them are in right now. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.