Boards, Legal Work, and Professional Partnerships

Jennifer is asking about joining non-profit boards. Shawna has questions about working in law. Verena wants to know what it's like to be in a work partnership with a friend.

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Transcript:

Beth Silvers: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Nuance Life, where we're going to talk about work again. We have several questions to cover - Jennifer, Shawna and Brina have reached out about different work issues. Before we get started we want to invite you, if you are enjoying The Nuance Life, to be sure that you are subscribed to receive new episodes directly to your podcast feed and that you go on the Apple podcast player and leave us a five star rating and review. It helps more people find the nuanced life, and we really appreciate your time. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:00:29] First up. We heard from Jennifer and I love this question. She said, I heard you mentioned several times you were a part of boards. I would love to better serve the nonprofit community with my background in management and government and that capacity.

Do you have any advice about how to go about getting on boards at a minimum? Are there other ways that I could support if I'm not able to, besides money often volunteer my time and talents to agencies and have yet to have anyone take me up on it? I know that it's probably due to taking more time to delegate work and privacy concerns. Thoughts?

Beth Silvers: [00:00:55] Many thoughts. So I currently serve on four boards. What about you, Sarah? 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:01:04] I currently we serve on one board and my church's vestry. Are you counting your church? 

Beth Silvers: [00:01:11] My church in that list? Yeah.

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:01:13] So two. 

Beth Silvers: [00:01:14] Okay. So here's the thing, Sarah is doing this better than I am. Yes. 

It's a lot. And what I am learning I think is that it is more fulfilling and more sustainable to go deep. With one organization than to go wide by serving any number of organizations. Because once you get into a board situation, if it is truly a working board and most nonprofit boards are like that, you will be needed often.

And so I think what you want to think about Jennifer first is just, where is my heart and what is one organization that I could really commit to. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:01:59] Yeah. And it's very tempting though, to say every time you see a nonprofit organization doing something amazing and being like, Oh, I want to be on that board.

Like, I've fallen into that trap. Like it's, you have to be very discerning just because you're inspired by their mission. Doesn't mean that that board is a good fit for you because, you know, if we all joined boards where we were inspired by the mission, We would be on 40 boards, not even just four. So I think there's a combination of like, what inspires you, what really speaks to your heart?

You know, I have been on boards where they were in transition. I had been on boards where they were in crisis. And I really was purposeful when the end of my city commission run came and my term came and a lot of my board terms also came to an end at the same time. And so I kind of had all this time freed up and I thought like, what do I really want to do?

I had served on my local boys and girls club board. I had served on our local arts centers board, and I had served on our local sewer agency's board, which I've talked about. That's my, that was my most favorite board. Um, and so when all those wrapped up, I thought like, what do I want to do? And because some of the other boards, they had really been like starting over and trying to really find new leadership.

I really wanted to be on a board this time where. There was no crisis or transition. And I would recommend that as a first time experience, some of my first board experiences were really in places where there was, like I said, either a crisis because we were running through directors or a funding crisis or a sort of mission crisis.

And so this time I really wanted to be, have a different experience. I wanted to see a board running well, I wanted to see an organization running well and to see like, How I could contribute in that kind of situation. Currently I'm on Paducah cooperative ministry, freeze board. This organization in my town has been, you know, running one of the local food banks for decades.

The, the director of the organization Heidi's or Heinrich is like, An icon like a local icon. She is unbelievable. She's been doing this since they started. She's just so good. And I really wanted to see that up close. And so I think thinking through like, okay, those are good questions to ask, like, how's the fundraising going?

How's the funding going? How long has the leadership been there to sort of see the health of their organization? Cause I think if you're doing this for the first time, going into a really healthy organization with a well-run board, Will be really important. One that you don't get burned out too, that you get a really good education on being a good board member and how organizations are supposed to run.

And three, just so you have a good first time experience. That's the second piece of advice, like, think about buy this totally right. Like go deep. And I think. Finding the work that you love. And I think it's easier to go deep when the organization is in a really good spot. 

Beth Silvers: [00:04:53] Absolutely. And one of the ways that you can check that before getting into a multi-year hardcore board commitment is asking if there are any committees that you can serve on.

So I think it's really nice. Just sort of test drive your relationship with an organization by being part of an event planning committee or communications committee or something like that before you make the board commitment, being on a board is only as rewarding as your relationship with the professional staff of that.

Organization, if you have conflict with, or just don't gel well with them, people who are at that organization, running it every single day, it will be unhappy for everyone, for you to serve on their board. So it's good to really get to know them before you make that commitment. I kind of approached board service when I was really young.

As a new professional through the lens of will. All board service is great. All board service is a win, win, and you just need to get in and do it and acquire more experienced. And that'll help you get onto more interesting boards and do not do that because it's not true is important. All board service, I think can be meaningful, but I think it is, it almost requires the discernment.

I like that word. The you Sarah have a job interview. Because it is a, it is a massive commitment to an organization and you really want it to be aligned with your skills aligned with your interests and aligned with your personality. So it sounds Jennifer, like, you know, what skills you would bring to a board.

I would just start talking with an organization about what its needs are and where there might be a committee opportunity and then use that to test the water. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:06:32] Yeah. And I, I mean, I think knowing what you're good at is so key. I mean, look, all boards are always looking for like accountants. And lawyers, but what I've realized is like, what I'm really good at at a board is, you know, ideas are my love language.

So I like to come in and say, Oh, why are you running your Facebook? The page like that, that is not serving your purposes. Like, I'm good at sort of assessing particularly the social media aspect and taking a good temp on how the organization is viewed in the community and whether they want to shift that and helping them with that.

But, you know, I'm not the person you want to go to, to like, Do a deep dive on the organization's findings. No, I'm a gift. Don't if that's what the organization needs, I'm not the right board member. I also think  at the board as far as diversity is a really good indication of, it's not just diversity for diversity's sake.

Like, I think it's really important so that you get that broad perspective. And so you don't get. Group think not only so the board is healthy, but so the organization is actually trying to live up to its mission. Like if you have a really homogenous board often, you're going to see those crisises in conjunction with that, just because there's blind spots.

You know, if everybody on the board has a similar experience, either because it doesn't align with the mission or the, the. Community they're serving or because there's a lack of depth surrounding some upcoming crisises or some red flags that are happening with the finances or with the staffing or with the event planning, like just, I would be, I would watch out for that as well, not just the organization, but also the health of the board 

Beth Silvers: [00:08:03] and that health of the board really gets to also what kind of, what kind of service is going to be available to you?

There are organizations where someone like Sarah rolling in and saying, Hey, I've got some ideas for you would not work because they're bored. Just a fiduciary board. They are there to make sure the bylaws or in order to make sure all the conflict stuff has been done, make sure the financials are audited and that's what they do.

And then there are boards that are more operational in nature where maybe the professional staff really relies on the board to help. With, uh, HR issues as they come up or accounting issues as they come up, what you really want to be on eventually is a generative board where those ideas are welcome and where the board is part of the vision and the strategy for the organization, but not every organization is ready for that.

That's not the difference between a good board and a bad board. It's just a difference in where the board is and its life cycle. And that cycles through some times with turnover on the board. You know, so again, this is. This is just about kind of being realistic about where the organization is. We should talk about money because Jennifer asks this question explicitly.

I know Sarah that I usually say when I'm being approached about a board, what is the financial commitment for board members? And I almost always hear back either. Well, we just expect board members to contribute meaningfully. To the organization, which is very difficult, I think. And the other option is we expect board members to either give or raise X dollars.

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:09:35] I think this is very dependent on your community. I think the community expectation, whether this is explicit or non explicit is really gonna, it's going to be set in the community as a whole because it's, you know, if one board. Has a $10,000 expectation as far as fundraising, our contribution. And then another board doesn't do anything like that's not going to gel well, and they all, in my experience in my community, the nonprofits, I have a pretty good working relationship.

And so I don't think they like get together and plan it. But I do think there becomes this sort of community expectation. So in Paducah, like it's definitely more, the less explicit. Round like, Oh, we just expect you to contribute. And I think it's really set by the board chair. So if the board chair comes in and under their term, there's like some very, uh, heavy duty lifting as far as fundraising and contributions, that'll set the tone, but then the next board chair could come in and it could be very different.

So that's been, that's been my experience as far as in my community. 

Beth Silvers: [00:10:34] I do think if you join a board, you should be prepared to donate something to the organization because so many grants and other funding opportunities are dependent on a hundred percent board giving. Yeah. So I would ask about whether there is an explicit level they want you to be at would always be prepared to contribute some amount.

So I hope that's helpful, Jennifer, and would love to keep up with you as you decide what board you'd like to be on. And if others of you have advice on things that we have missed, I mean, we could talk about this for three days because it is a really intense 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:11:10] it's. And I want to say, you know, it's an incredibly positive experience.

I think, serving on boards and not just nonprofit boards, but like my local city government has a ton of community boards, zoning boards, volunteer boards and ethics boards. And. Beautification boards. I think those are really important. I think those are the social capital, the social cohesion, where we come together and we interact with people that are different than us in really positive ways.

You're working towards something like. We need more experiences as human beings, particularly I think in our society where we're coming together with people that are different than us for a common mission, and we're working through differences and we're working through difference of approaches. I, you know, all of my experiences on boards have left me.

Better as a human being, it has left me with a better wider network, um, that has definitely served me later. And it just, it's very fulfilling. It's very fulfilling to spend your time serving an organization that you know is doing good work in your community. And so the next time you see a headline that gives you anxiety, you can kind of tap into that closely home perspective.

You know, I really, really recommend it. 

Beth Silvers: [00:12:22] I think that's really important because we talk with so many people, especially women who care so much about what's happening in the country and in their communities, but don't want to run for office. Don't want to volunteer with a campaign for a variety of reasons.

Board service is a great way to really significantly impact what's going on around you through your talents, because boards need such a variety of skills. That it's an excellent way to do your work. As we're always talking about.

Next 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:13:05] up. We heard from Shauna who is currently a stay at home mom, but has a passion for justice, social justice, civil rights, immigration reform, and has really struggled with how to put that passion to good use. Well, first of all, Shauna, I hope you heard our first segment of the show and we'll consider serving on a community board, but she listened to our show on loss.

Cool and pursuing your dreams. She's 34 has zero college experience and is really scared of school, but is wondering. Is there an experience in the legal field that necessarily isn't serving as an attorney where she could do meaningful social justice work specifically? She says, could I do meaningful social justice work in the legal field as a paralegal?

I would love to work for a firm or nonprofit that fights for the marginalized and maybe one day work in local politics to help reform law and politics and hurt the community. She's she also says I may be homeschooling my children for the next year. So maybe I have some time to decide. And she's asking for, you know, based on our experience in the law, what do we think about that?

Beth Silvers: [00:14:00] I think being a paralegal is absolutely a route to doing things social justice work, especially for nonprofits or something like a public defender's office. Now I know more about this in the nonprofit realm, but when you mentioned immigration, for example, so much immigration work is done at that client interacted and really government interactive level by paralegals.

That is a field that is high volume. It has lots and lots of documents. Uh, you really need someone who can patiently work with both people on the governmental side and with clients to figure out all of the information and bring all the pieces together. It's a great. Place for a paralegal to put skills to work.

The, um, one of the organizations that I chair the board for the Ohio justice and policy center, our paralegals do extremely meaningful work around incarceration. They do extremely meaningful work around second chance hiring around trafficking issues often. In, especially nonprofit situations because you really have to leverage that turning time because attorneys are so expensive to hire where you need paralegals to be the first line.

I would equate it as like the paralegals are the nurses in those organizations and the attorneys or the D the physicians. And so I think it is an excellent way to get into the legal world. I also, as someone who worked in kind of big law for a while would say attorneys who were paralegals before they went to law school are unstoppable forces because they understand.

Everything they understand on such a practice  level, how courthouses work way that someone like me, who just went straight through to law school knew nothing thing about law firms. Before I joined one as an attorney don't and paralegals really foreign from the basis of so much of my legal education.

Because they do the work, they get stuff done. So Shauna, that is not a pipe dream at all. That is a wonderful path to pursue. And I would love to hear about it more as you do it, because it is a great way to really tangibly contribute in the civil rights realm. And I'm excited that you're thinking about it.

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:16:10] And I wanted to add, don't be scared of school, Shauna. Don't be scared of school. I think there's this narrative that if you're working hard and really getting the most out of your education, you should be miserable, particularly when it revolves around a law degree. That was not my experience at all. I loved every minute of college and every minute of law school, maybe there were a couple courses.

I didn't love every minute of it, but I think that. If school is not really feeding your curiosity and giving you energy, then it's time to do a little tweaking, right? Either talking with the professor, working with an advisor, working on your schedule, because it really should be energy giving, not energy sucking.

And I hate that narrative that, that especially illegal degree should just be, you know, a March through misery. That was not my experience. I don't think that needs to be anybody's experience. 

Beth Silvers: [00:17:02] I particularly observed that people who had some. Life and work experience who didn't just directly proceed through school, had a much healthier outlook than like I did, for example.

Well, because I think when you have been in the world a little bit, you're just wiser. You're more mature and you're on a mission. Like you have a purpose for being there and paralegal programs. I know the paralegal programs in this area. Are really good. And people speak really highly of them. They're very focused.

They bring in lots of people who are actually working in the profession all the time. So, I mean, they're, they're trying to prepare you to get into that job day one. That's a really different ethos than we're all sitting around thinking big thoughts, which is also lovely, but it's different. And so I think there is a real opportunity.

To go into this thinking of it, less as school tests, grades, and more as training and preparation. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:18:03] So good luck and keep us updated on your journey.

Beth Silvers: [00:18:16] so heard from Varina. Marina has such an interesting story. Her best girlfriend is working with her to begin a new website. They are both pediatricians who care for childhood victims of sexual abuse. I'm so glad that you two have each other, just whatever you do from here. What a profession, and I'm so glad that you have each other to, to do it with.

Okay. In November of 2019, Varina wrote a Facebook post about virginity that unexpectedly went viral and got some podcast interviews and so many messages from around the world, helping her realize that women need more valid, truthful, scientific information on all kinds of issues. Touching on sexuality.

And that is so true. So she and her friend are trying to start a website to provide that. And she's asking us how we got started, how we work. So yeah, closely with a good friend and keep that friendship, some pleasant, surprises, and unpleasant surprises along the way. And how you monetize what you're doing.

That's a lot. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:19:23] Um, first of all, I do want to say that Beth and I were not best friends. When we started this podcast, we were mere acquaintances, which we always say really helped put the partnership on a good beginning path because we were very careful with each other. I think if you're very close friends, it would be tempting to just assume the person knows what you want or assume the person has your best interest in heart, or assume the person knows you have their best interests at heart.

And I think because we were not close friends and we had to articulate a lot more and we were very careful, it really, really helped start us off on a good path. Even as we became really, really close friends, kept that careful approach. There are some things and every partnership's going to be different.

Where we're not super careful where we by luck or fate, or I dunno, shared priorities. There's some stuff that we are just don't have to spend a lot of time over articulating because we align really carefully. And then there are other places where our personalities are really different, that we do have to carefully articulate our priorities or carefully articulate our concerns or say, I know this is really important to you.

I don't love it. Just know that. And I think that that sort of language and always keeping assumptions at a minimum and articulation at a high level is really helpful. 

Beth Silvers: [00:20:41] Yeah. I feel kind of unqualified to answer this question because we weren't best friends. We also didn't intend to start a business. We entered into a hobby with each other and a conversation out of a shared sense of passion.

But our question when we started our podcast was not, how do we monetize it? It was wonder what'll happen if we do this. And so, so then our next question became. Okay, how do we pay for this? Instead of it costing us money, how can it pay for itself? And then, Whoa, this has taken all of our time. How can and we make this sustainable by getting paid to do it.

And so we kind of went in those. The stages. I totally agree with you, Sarah, that I think self awareness and awareness of the other person and stopping to say, like, what is actually going on here is really important. Something that I think you and I have, that's just lucky is that neither of us get hung up on money.

Neither of us is going to say, Oh, will you bought this? Then I'm buying that. Or I think you spent too much on this or whatever. Like we, we care about money. And I think we have a shared sense of this is what money means in our lives, but neither of us will ever nickel and dime the other person. And that's where I see so much conflict arising in lots of partnerships where one person is like going to bring that perspective of every dime counts to them.

And we just don't do that to each other. And I think that has smoothed our partnership in a way that cannot be overstated. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:22:18] No, it's so true. I mean, our personalities are so different, but luckily when it comes to money, we are very similar and that helps tremendously. I think that we, neither of us have that, like exactly what you articulated the, the really.

Scarcity mindset. And I want to say, that's not like, you know, no in a marriage. I always say like, you really need to spend her in a saver if you're both spenders or you're both savers, like it could get intense around your home, but for better, for worse. I think with both the partnership, a business partnership, I don't know if it's better, but it sure is.

That creates a less conflict when you don't have those different approaches when people feel very similarly really about money. 

Beth Silvers: [00:22:57] Yeah. I think we don't get. Emotionally charged about it. We have a sense that we want to be generous with money. We want pay people, their value for doing work for us. We want to, to donate when something is important to us.

So we have kind of a, a culture about money that makes sense to us, but we don't get angry about money. And that's just really different than, than a lot of people. Yeah. I think it's helpful to articulate those things. Like we, at least once a year here, sit down to say, wait, what are we doing here? Because once you get into the work, it just starts pile up and pile up and pile up.

And especially with content creation. And Sarah understood this from the beginning so much better than I did with content creation. You are so often just trying to make the next. Think that it's hard to step back and really say, Oh wait, like, are we aligned with what we set out to do? Are we still wanting to do what we set out to do?

Where are we in all of this? And so I think at least annually having that conversation is really important to you. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:24:04] Yeah. It definitely takes on a life of its own. And I think there's a part of like, there's a really healthy attitude that you said, like, we don't want it to end to make any money in a hurry.

Like, you know, I always joke. That my, my husband's constant refrain was nobody makes a living on podcasting. Like that was like his voice in the E in my ear, when we started, like, nobody supports themselves on podcasting. Well, jokes on you Holland, but it kinda was a good voice in the ear because if you don't have that expectation, then.

Everything is such a pleasant surprise. You know, like every next step is like, I never expected this. Isn't that wonderful. Instead of feeling like you're, if you want to get there from the beginning, if you're never getting there feeling like a constant failure, I think that's a very different orientation, particularly to the moneymaking aspect of it.

Beth Silvers: [00:24:54] I think that really helped us to avoid. A level of chasing what seems like success. That would have been really unhealthy for us because the truth is like, we're not for everyone. And we want people to listen to our show and participate on our social media platforms in our email who resonate with what we do.

You know, we're not just chasing every eyeball or every pair of ears. And when you're in that, we just want to get bigger, bigger, bigger place. I think partnerships can get really tense. And I feel like we have been calibrated from the beginning too. We want to have the right audience. We want that audience to grow, but we want that audience to grow with people who, who really get what we're trying to do here and who are going to enjoy it.

Yeah, I'm 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:25:41] not trying to be Joe Rogan. I'll be real clear about that, but thank you for the question. I think it's really, really helpful. We get questions about our partnership all the time, and I will say that partnerships have been. Just so huge and impactful in my life. Like, it's really funny. I'm an only child.

I don't like having a boss, but I thrive inside a partnership. I think there's an aspect of like, it releases the decision making fatigue, like when you have another person to help you steer the ship. And when it's an equal partnership in particular where you feel like you're a member. Of a team and you have a mission as opposed to feeling the burden of everything on yourself.

Like, I, I mean, I love it. I love it. I wouldn't work in a different way than inside a partnership. I don't like having it. I don't like being on a big team. I don't like having a boss and I don't like being by myself. This is like the perfect sweet spot for me. 

Beth Silvers: [00:26:32] The other big thing. I just want to mention, I think from the outset setting as a value that you don't want to be competitive with each other is really important, especially in content creation, it would be a miserable thing.

If I got upset that people love Sarah's good morning on Instagram, right. Or if Sarah felt slighted, when people quote something, I said on a show or whatever, like. There are people who will say to us when they meet us I'm team, Sarah, it happens all the time. And I have to see that as a wonderful thing. I do see that as a wonderful thing.

It's good for both of us. It's good for the business. More importantly, Sarah's my friend and I'm rooting for her. And I know she's rooting for me in everything that we do. I have worked in very scarcity minded organizations, both as a volunteer and as a paid employee. Where competition sucks the life out of everyone.

And you do not want that in your partnership. And I think another real gift of Sarah and I working together is just, we don't, we don't do that. And you need to decide from the beginning. We're not going to do that. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:27:42] I mean, it's so funny because in a partnership where everybody's complimentary, which I think our partnership really is.

It's easier, I think to do that because you see like, that, it's really not about a competition as far as like, who likes, who, like, when people say I'm team Beth, what they mean is my personality aligns with her. Like I see myself in her and to me that's like such a different thing then, you know, like if you you're like.

Tallying fans, the more people that connect with us, the better it is for both of us, whether they connect with best approach to the world or mine, because what we are doing, you need both approaches to make it work. The more people that connect with either approach, the more successful we are, as opposed to like where it's a tally Mark in each field and who gets those tally marks, I don't even know what you would win, but I think that's like, Scene, listen, being in a partnership, particularly where your personalities are different.

It's been such an education, like not only in my own personality. But in just personally general, that was like a real weak spot. Before my part, before we started this partnership is like, I understood my own personality really well, but I struggled to see other people the way other people thought or to connect with other people's like personalities and their different approaches.

And I really, that was something that was important to me, just for my marriage and my kid, my kids, all my kids don't have my personality and man, this podcast and this partnership because people, because it's so personality driven politics is personality driven for what it's worth and like. And really it's been such an education in people's different approaches to life.

Like the partnership in particular, like it's really, it opens up this whole other way to view the world. It's like, you can see the matrix when you can really understand personalities and how they motivate and drive people. 

Beth Silvers: [00:29:46] And so if you're a person who is more aligned with my personality, I will say the flip side of that I think is making sure that you don't approach a partnership as another place to just be attuned to everyone's personalities and adaptive to those.

You have to sometimes say like, wait a second. I am half of this. And I don't like this, or I see this differently, or this is important to me, even if it's not important to you, because if you come into the partnership, doing what you might be inclined to do in a larger organization, you will be very unhappy and you will also not contribute a lot.

And so. Learning to show up just as me, instead of, as the me that tries to fix everything for everybody else has been a real learning curve. So Varina good luck. It sounds like you and your friend are bringing something to the world that it needs, which is a perfect starting place for any endeavor and keep us posted on how it goes.

Thank you all so much for joining us. Thank you to Varina Shawna and Jennifer for your questions. If you have questions or commemorations that you'd like to share, you can send those to hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We will be back in your ears on Pantsuit Politics on Friday and Tuesday and here again next Wednesday. Between now and then, keep it nuanced ya'll.