Jared Novoseller: Leading Positive Change for Youth at BGC Winnipeg

Tasha: Good morning. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your nonprofit origin story?

Jared: Ah, so good morning. My name is Jared Novoseller. I’m with a BGC Winnipeg.

So that’s formerly Boys and Girls Clubs of Winnipeg. I got into nonprofits kind of as a second career. I was a teacher in early, I guess, 2000 was living in New York and was there when 9 11 happened decided I wanted. Just didn’t like the way the world was going. So entered the Peace Corps went to the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan for a couple of years.

When I came back, I got to re reimagine some things and decided I didn’t want to teach anymore, wanted to do something in the NGO slash non profit world, started doing some sales to that world, and then said that’s not really what I wanted to do.

So ended up taking a AFP class and getting into fundraising. And I’ve been doing that since 2011

Tasha: What’s your favorite part of working in the nonprofit sector?

Jared: I mean, the mission is kind of the thing that really, keeps you up at night, gets you out of bed in the morning. It’s the part like there, there are times when you have these little moments where you just, I mean, when I was a teacher, we had a term for it.

It was like a teachable moment for nonprofit. It’s like those little like moment of good or where you just go Oh yeah, we made a difference kind of moments. And sometimes it takes like others to sort of point out that Hey, just recognize that. That’s really cool because you get caught up in the moment.

But yeah, you can start like sometimes when you describe what you are able to do or things that, that happen like after the fact, you’re like, wow, that was. Okay. We did something.

Tasha: Yeah. I do think nonprofit and, this is a huge generalization, but I found it to be quite true, particularly with your hive chats is that celebrating the wins is a challenge within teams because the work feels like it’s never quite done.

It’s you’ve never served quite enough people. You haven’t gotten far enough, raised enough money. The goal always seems somehow out of reach. So it feels like it’s hard to go, Oh, this was a concrete win. Yeah. Yeah, it’s still over here, right? But I think those smaller celebrated wins are so important to keep us motivated and not let the overwhelm drown us.

Jared: Yeah, I mean, I think so. There’s some I look back at some of the things over it’s been more than a decade long career and there are moments I’m like, oh, wow, we did that. And it’s really celebrating others, like the stuff that other people have, um, have worked with. that they’ve done.

That really, that’s the happy place.

When you have lots of these conversations, you start to get a sense for what, you’re trying to problem solve for the sector. So I kind of came into the, the sector from being in like a vendor role where it was like problem solving for people in it. So I think that’s kind of where some of the that empathy towards.

People in our work, like knowing that sometimes you get tasked things and it’s just we need to do this, roll up your sleeves, try to figure out how to do this. Don’t know how we do this. Because we had an electronic system. It was like, it was going to be able to pull data from a CRM. So then it was like an add on so you had to interface between, I’m not a developer, but between developers who speak one way and designers who speak another way and fundraisers who speak a third way entirely, and then you’re trying to do this in service of donors who, have other ideas in mind.

Tasha: I’ve worked with burnout Compassion Fatigue consultant, worked with a Salesforce for nonprofits partner and marketing and fundraising agency.

And it was part of all of those experiences, talking to people in the sector who very much felt like they were almost embarrassed of the challenge that they were dealing with, regardless of where I worked and they felt very isolated. And that was part of the inspiration for the nonprofit hive, because it didn’t seem to matter what kind of.

Organization I was working with at the time, the conversations with people in the sector was frequently like, I don’t know anybody else dealing with this challenge, but I had talked to 10 people today that had been dealing with that exact same challenge.

There’s no opportunity for them to connect with each other and realize a lot of the challenges across this sector are very similar, but the isolation is so extreme that outside of your own organization, maybe within your own city, somebody else who’s doing something similar, but you definitely probably don’t know somebody on the other side of your own country.

And you pretty can like pretty confidently, you probably don’t know anybody if you’re a Canadian in the US who has a similar job to you. It hasn’t been baked into nonprofit culture. I don’t think to go back to that networking component as often, but it’s something that like you noted when you’re in sales or marketing or whatever.

You’re talking to people all the time. You’re always looking to expand. What do opportunities look like? What do connections look like?

Most of the sector is small. Two person development or development groups. And those people need it too. It’s not, it’s not isolated to only senior leadership that needs those opportunities.

Jared: And yet I mean, it’s one of those things where I think we’re really good in the sector about rising to challenges and dealing with constraints.

, what’s the expression? Pressure makes diamonds like it does. It also pulverizes rock into granules, mix sand. So it’s not always diamonds. When it’s diamonds, it’s not, it’s amazing. But but yeah, a lot of times it’s really.

 How do you make something in, in those challenging times with very little by way of resources while you’re seeking other resources, you’re finding, you’re cutting ever more you’re you’re scrimping and saving and. Sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn’t.

And sometimes it just looks, uh, it looks like you’re, you’re not, run or something if, because you can’t solve name that’s challenged, like poverty or cancer. It’s there are things that are hard. These aren’t easy things. They’re all complex.

They move with I had a great colleague, you say how was it relationships move at the speed of community moves at the speed of relationships? You can’t accelerate it to the pace you want to, you have to move together

as

Jared: a community to make things happen.

And in the sector, I mean, I distinctly remember like coming in and, like even things like going on a donor visit and, you’d ask can I shadow you or someone, if you’re new to the organization, can you, and people didn’t want to do that because there’s like, they didn’t want to, I don’t know, just where the donor or make someone feel uncomfortable.

So, or it’s my donor, there was that kind of holding onto rather than it’s like the organizational relationship. So coming from a Peace Corps background, a lot of it was having a mindset of or, and even the sales background, like it was like more of a business to business kind of thing in a way, like where it’s the relationship isn’t me to the donor so much as it’s the donor to the organization and me as part of that, but it’s not like the, there used to be a lot of like my feeling or my, this, my relationship and you’d want to make that more Robust for the donor,

I think you want to make it so that they have they know that there’s more to us than just You know, you give because Jared or you give because Tasha like that kind of thing Does exist but you really want to work to expand out that relationship but to do that you have to be giving of yourself in a way to say yeah I’ll let like here’s how I do this thing or here’s how here’s a trick you might try or here’s here’s where I failed here’s where this didn’t work and not just celebrate those wins, but you learn from, the journey as well.

So that’s something that’s really was, because I came in sideways to it and knew how much turnover there was, like I’d see some toxic kind of places in early places. I worked where it was like, Oh, okay. We’re not, where you’d see like a note in a CRM of if you want to, or before reaching out, talk to LM or whatever.

You’re like, you knew there’s a story. You had to talk to someone and find out. And they didn’t want to put it in there. And, you’re trying to, reach out to people that you’re supposed to reach out to, but then you’d have these there’s all kinds of, I don’t know, cloak and dagger espionage, weird stuff that happens with relationships and you’re like, what gives?

Tasha: And that kind of factors into one of my questions was, how does peer support factor in to, into your current work, into your success in your nonprofit work?

Jared: Peer support is really important. I mean, I think the kind of, not only the mentoring thing, but you get what you give sometimes, too.

So, you have to be open with other people and check ins and see how, your peers are doing. And, you know, we’re always learning and like for me coming out of some of those bigger federated places or in early days, like the role of being a convener was really important.

So, if you were a United Way kind of charity or Jewish foundation, like our federation where you’re a federated charity and like you support, a hundred different agencies, having that role of, Like bringing organizations together is important and the same kind of rolls down to the pure side, like where it’s, when you come with those types of hats, like you sometimes will have assets that can be shared and can be can do a lot more good if they’re widely available and dispersed, like not everyone should have to reinvent, This, a a service for an area, but sometimes like you need lots of like more options or, you’re looking for a good fit.

So like I used to say with like with schools, like there’s no perfect school. Yeah. With when you look for one you’re just. You’re not going to find a perfect school, but you’re looking for the right fit for your kid.

Tasha: That’s a really good example of what I feel like a lot of nonprofit work is there’s a million ways to fundraise and lots of people have found success with all of them, but you’re trying to find the one that works.

With your mission, with your team, with the skillsets team potentially has, because what worked for one person isn’t necessarily going to work for you. But when we talk to other people about it, we can kind of, once we kind of understand why they may be set up some of it this way, why they did it this way, we can find our similarities and we can also find the differences to go this is clearly going to be a little bit different because we don’t run X, Y, and Z in this fashion.

 But I think we sometimes need that inspiration to know when somebody has found success a certain way and see whether it’s, is it something that we could adopt in our work?

Jared: Yeah. And a lot of times it’s like grants, for instance, they might have real, strict parameters on what they are looking to fund.

So do you start to go we could get this funding if we can we, round peg, square hole, square peg, round hole, kind of this situation and go like, how do we make these two things fit? Can we find a way to bend what we’re doing to fit the way that thing is written? Or should we try a different type of program?

program in order to try to access that fund. And, you’ve got to stop and ask like a lot of questions along the way, like about the value of that or whether it’s worth it. The timing is right. Is this, is, sometimes you have to act because that’s when it’s available. And sometimes you have to say no, this isn’t really the right fit.

And it’s hard because you often also don’t always have a lot of time and resources to. Dedicate to finding, new stuff or having an alternative. A lot of these folks that, you know, if you’re working with the foundation or that, those types of organizations, like they get inundated have a big foundation here that they just did multi year grants and, we’ve applied and we find out like, yeah, they’ve four and a half million dollars to give out.

And they got close to 20 million in, grants. And requests, like for this round of funding. So you’re like, okay, I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision on what to like, do you give everyone a little bit, do you? Only give you give some, the full amount they asked for, this is like 200 ass that they got, 150 a year.

And this guy, these are hard decisions, right? Because they’re all probably worthy. And then as it like who writes better or is it, who do we know from other things or who, who’s new and needs the startup funding, who’s been existent and needs the continuing funding, There’s no real simple answer to it, and you’re gonna disappoint

Someone, and some communities, and it’s not necessarily because they did anything wrong, it’s just the needs are so great.

 We have a lot of. Oh, just a lot of needs. We just, we flat out do. And some things, like I tell people the cause I’m in it’s not a cause you solve. Like next year, there’s going to be kids again. And then the following year, there’ll be kids again.

We’re not like this year, we’re going to solve kids. No, like ongoing,

Tasha: Ongoing challenges. Right? Yeah.

Jared: Look, it’s going to then it doesn’t matter, like some things you can’t rush, like you have an eight year old, no matter what you do, it’s going to take 10 years for them to get to be 18.

Like it just, you can’t speed that up in any way. If they’re not 18, something drastically wrong happen, so you’re like, in order to get to that part where they’re a. And a young adult, like it’s going to take time and they’re going to need, supports along the way and opportunities and those opportunities change.

And, you start to look at your costs go up and food costs go up, they get bigger, they eat more, like all these wonderful things that happen, but it’s just, it’s part of it. And you don’t solve it. You. You build communities. So you’re there for it. So it’s not I don’t know which dollar is going to solve cancer or something like it.

It’s not a kind of thing that you can. We’re just, it’s not a capital thing where you’re just, you’re going to we have to raise X to build the building.

Tasha: My last question is, what have you gotten out of being a hive member so far? You were 1 of our original people. I think you’re close to a year now of having been taking chats. What have you gotten out of being a member of the hive community?

Jared: I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s it’s, I’ve met a lot of people from, I’d say I think as far away as Africa and, a couple from there.

And then. Across North America, a lot of, Canadians so I’m a newcomer to Canada, but it’s been nice. It meant people from the States. It’s it’s been really good. It’s nice meeting people in our sector. I always joke with some of these now. I’m like. So at the outset, I’m like, it’s going to get real interesting, right?

Is that five minute warning comes on and it shuts down right away. And it’s yeah. So like the LinkedIn thing is really useful. I’m active in there, but connected with people further through that I mean, I think it does with. You say it’s going to do it. Like it builds these kind of short communal conversations.

Like you get to. Tell your story without thinking. Oh, I’m telling my elevator pitch and I’m not like you’re not like conscientiously oh This is just a practice session But like people ask what you do and you tell them and it’s just it’s natural and it’s organic and it feels really good.

Tasha: It’s been lovely to see the community grow. And, I. Find the diversity of individuals who decided to join. It’s wild. It’s all over the place. All over the world. I think it’s 58 countries now. I talked to someone in Scotland yesterday as part of my Hive chat, which was the first time I’d done that.

I think sometimes it’s about just making a little time in a space for Conversation about the sector, right? And it’s meant to be free form. Sometimes you’re going to talk about your mission. Maybe you’re going to deep dive in with a fellow fundraiser because that’s who you happen to be matched with.

But I find each week, it’s every time I chat, I’m like that was interesting. I learned a whole lot there. Right. And people like to talk about their work. They like to, I think they’re often like, you noted, circling back to the beginning of this conversation, they’re proud of what they do. And sometimes you need a reminder of how much you’re winning.

Because often we’re focusing on the things we haven’t done yet.

Jared: Yeah, I think so. And it’s a long journey. It really is. No, I love these things. They’re really yeah. I think you said early on like you were doing all the matches trying to warm up and figuring them out and stuff, and it was just like, wow, okay, there’s a person.

Yeah that part

There’s me

Jared: doing this work. And I like, Oh, probably at least a dozen times over the past year of I’ve suggested it to people or just like in random, like on LinkedIn or in person or like at events, I’m like, Oh, you should check this out. Just didn’t leave it at that, but it just.

Yeah, like full endorsement, like they’re really great. And it’s, it’s not I appreciate the kind of like you come when you’re available. I try not to like, I made that decision early on not to apologize every week when I can’t make it. I’m like, you don’t need to know that. You’re all good.

You left it kind of, kind of in that space. So yeah, like I really appreciate the work you’re doing. I like, I love, The the social piece in particular, like the LinkedIn spaces where I’m pretty active, but like it’s professional. It’s a professional network. It’s doing that, like watching the growth of it’s really cool that it’s one of those things.

It’s I mean, even the name, like the hive it’s very organic. It’s very, uh, we’re in a nonprofit ecosystem and yeah, there’s something about that earlier part of my journey where it’s people move around, like you move to different things. You need to have resources and it’s not that you need to have all the answers.

It’s knowing like where places you can find some answers. And when it comes to like, where can you find some community, in our sector, some support in our sector, like this is a go to for me to, to. To let people know about really does, one of the tricky things is when you can end up in a place within our.

world where you, you, your organization’s mission statement, it’s like the cobbler’s kiss, right? Either we’re walking around with the worn out shoes and stuff. So it’s that kind of thing where it’s we’re doing all this great work for people who are in need and then we’re causing harm or

we’re making it

Jared: tough on the people who, who choose this kind of work, whether it’s or financial or whatever other kind of constraints that the sector kind of has us do to ourselves.

So when you find a space where there’s a kind of going through it, like how to navigate it, and it doesn’t have to be this kind of way. And that there are there are opportunities to, to reach out and rekindle the reasons you are in this kind of work. Like it’s good to talk to people in this space and, find those supports and find those those good stories.

Tasha: I love that. I love that. And so how can people follow along with you? I’m going to throw some links and everything in afterwards. Connecting with you over LinkedIn is the easiest way. Jared.

Jared: LinkedIn is the easiest way. Drop me a DM there. If you’re not on that we’ll get on that, I guess.

And also BGC Winnipeg is the organization’s website.

Jared: Yep, bgcwinnipeg. ca, we’re a ca we are part of the BGC Canada. And I should just say a couple words on that. So we changed from Boys and Girls Clubs before I started, but probably about four, four years ago. We still stay formally because we had a really well known brand. And then for lots of good reasons said we should, PPGC, rather than Boys and Girls Clubs.

Not everyone identifies as a boy or a girl. We get programming up to age 29. So I don’t know if you have a lot of 20 somethings in your life, but 27 year olds don’t go by boy or girl, whatever gender they happen to be. So, and we’re all kind of unique. We do a ton of stuff around yeah, just supporting children and youth.

So we’re all different if you don’t have a BGC in your community and you’re in Canada. They’re looking to expand. So I’ll give them a plug too.

Tasha: Okay. That’s amazing. Thank you so much for doing this with me, Jared. And thanks for your longtime support and cheerleading of the work I’m doing. Cause Lord knows everybody in the nonprofit world needs a cheerleader.

Jared: Yeah, I’m really excited to To see this grow, Tasha, you’re doing amazing work.