Zach Hynek: Revolutionizing the Nonprofit Sector with Innovation and Collaboration

Tasha: [00:00:00] Good morning. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your non-profit origin story?

Zach: Hello. Zach Heineck, one of the co founders of Cadenza. So I’ve been in really the philanthropy and charitable sector for as long as I can remember because our family foundation was started by my grandfather back in 2001.

Zach: So I was, I think, Less than eight years old or so at the time when I started. And I think it was something that was always just in the background of kind of being involved. We did a lot of like food banks. We did a lot of volunteering growing up, but I think it was only until maybe a few years after college when I really was just curious about wanting to get more involved, wanting to help kind of support a lot of the organizations that we were.

Zach: Giving to but also just really curious to learn more how this all got started, how, it was now the next generation of our me and my cousins and the grandchildren were all aging out of college. So we were having some more capacity to [00:01:00] start to get more active in the foundation and.

Zach: Through that, it started off as just sitting in on board meetings, listening in, learning a lot about the types of organizations that we support. And from there, I finally had a conversation with my parents and aunts and uncles of, Hey, I’d love to see if we could kind of expand giving into Denver, which was where I was living at the time.

Zach: Cause primarily we gave in, the regions that what was the. My grandfather’s kids were all living in, which was Chicago and Austin, Texas. And from there we, I was the first of what’s called now the next generation of givers within the family foundation. And I’d say over the last, I’d say three to five years, especially since COVID was like that consistent theme of when we’d talk to development directors and executive directors of.

Zach: What are the biggest challenges and issues that they’re facing? And I can’t tell you Tasha, how much burnout seemed to be the number one answer that we were consistently getting. We’re having a really hard time, not [00:02:00] only filling, but retaining positions. And it’s because not only the work. that these organizations do is so impactful, but also so what can often be stressful.

Zach: Um, the heart and the mind. I think it’s also we realize that, hey, what is the root cause of some of this? And we realized that oftentimes it was the more that’s the administrative overhead, whether it’s the just more monotonous, redundant work that So many nonprofit, especially fundraisers have to deal with.

Zach: And as we know, on the fundraising side, that’s often, it’s like being the mom of the family. It’s like the most thankless work that you get to do. And you’re often the ones behind the scenes making everything run, but you’re not getting much of the credit. And I think it’s some of the most important work that happens within.

Zach: A nonprofit organization. So enter cadenza, which is we wanted to really use AI and use new tools and technologies to really focus on the fundraiser itself and really focus on how can we take our experience from seeing how people and foundations like ours typically [00:03:00] give grants and how those relationships really start and what successful relationships have been like, and how can we just reduce as many of the headaches and administrative overhead and just stress of the fundraising process to.

Zach: Allow fundraisers to get back to doing their most meaningful work, which inevitably is building relationships within their community. So that’s a little backstory on how we got started with, with Cadenza, my story in the philanthropy space.

Tasha: I love it. I love it. And I do think. Yeah, it’s that stuff that eats at you.

Tasha: If my role was literally just to talk to people all day, and I feel like that’s similar for a lot of fundraisers, that would be a lovely job, right? To talk about the mission, to share, to engage, like that’s the dream and it’s the drudgery though, behind the scenes. And that’s the stuff that really.

Tasha: Just gets exhausting or ends up, at least for me, okay, I put in how many conversations today. Now, at the end of the day, I got to figure out what to do with all of this information. Where does it go? How do I make it [00:04:00] useful? And that’s exhausting. And usually something that I’m sure myself and a lot of others in the nonprofit sector do late at night when we should be not working at all.

Tasha: Right. Because takes time. So I love that you guys came up with the solution. It’s very cool.

Tasha: Challenges of working in this sector. I know we’ve already highlighted a few unique ones, but what do you see as being one of the biggest challenges in this sector?

Zach: I mean, we can look at what’s happening right now and like The world, right?

Zach: We don’t shy away from it with the new administration, with Elon and the Doge committee. It’s look at what’s happening within our sector and look at what’s happening within, we see it. I mean, it’s written about it in his book, the generosity crisis. Like we keep kind of getting these data reports that show that trust within our sector is down trust.

Zach: Like within our sector is people aren’t trusting. And now it’s so one thing that drives me up a wall. Tasha, where like I’m very passionate about it and I’m at a point where similar like you I toe the edge a little bit of Hey, if all [00:05:00] my dreams fall out, I might have to come groveling back to my corporate world and beg for jobs for for the future side.

Zach: But it’s it’s something that drives me crazy right now that it feels like we are so divisive. As like a country almost. And as like an industry as a sector, as a whole, that feel like we can barely trust our neighbors at this point. And I feel like so much of that comes from like communication.

Zach: It comes from not only all of these like institutions that we used to have, like our crumbling, but it’s also, and I take that as far as like our local communities that you just had all of those local meetups that you were so a part of it feel like they’ve gotten outsourced to like social media.

Zach: And then it’s Oh, what I’m supposed to trust Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and like all the tick tock to be the ones to drive community. And that’s supposed to also make me happier and have me feel more fulfilled my day to day in life. So it’s okay, we go to social media and I’m just being pumped by all of these divisive and things that really [00:06:00] stir me up and rile me up as opposed to make me feel good or bring me together.

Zach: And then we see what’s now currently happening in the sector, which is I have Elon talking about all of the waste and I have all of this like fraud and abuse and it’s just like creating more mistrust and it’s now creating, I think still people don’t understand like what’s coming, we’re like still seeing now all these layoffs that are happening in the federal.

Zach: agencies like all the giving dollar amounts that could continue to shrink. Like we need to be doing a better job at communicating the impact that our organizations, that our programs are making within our community. And I feel like this is something that is on us. It’s on the nonprofit sector as much as it is, on donors, as much as it is on community members to pay closer attention, to actually want to join and participate.

Zach: communities. But I’ll tell you, I’ve been a historic Democrat my entire life, I was our vice president of the Denver Young [00:07:00] Democrats when I was there and I’m like actively passionate about how to be able to progress my party initiatives. into it. But then when I see some of these things of like in what world do does a nonprofit get to run with a multimillion dollar deficit?

Zach: Right? Like it’s ridiculous to think of how out of control the spending has gotten in our country too. But it’s guess what? Now we have zero control of getting to determine how that gets shifted and how we go to correcting that in like the narrative. I see changing right in front of our eyes and the rug getting pulled.

Zach: But what I don’t see happening very well right now, or very clearly right now is like us combating that narrative with data driven factual based stories with also like understanding how like persuasion happens. How do you convince someone? And you often do it like, how do you build trust? You do it by listening.

Zach: You do it by showing up in these community spaces. You do it also by just educating your audience about topics that they [00:08:00] already care about. LinkedIn did a study recently where they said the number one way to be able to gain trust in a buyer seller relationship is to educate your audience about a topic they already care about.

Zach: The number one way that data proves it. So if we take our time as an industry to already think about these donors that care about our mission, care about they want to support the same topics that we care about, the same opportunities that our mission is supporting to combat the problems that we’re looking to address, if you can actually help teach them, you bring them in to your community, make them feel like they’re a participant of it, not just a donor, not just someone who’s a donor.

Zach: Peeking in from the outside. And it’s no, come in. We want you to be a part of this. We want you to help solve this problem with us, whether it’s through volunteering hours, through dollars donation, let’s like, you just go tell a friend or your send us a nice Hey, you guys are doing great work.

Zach: Like all of that goes a long way, but I feel like that is the number one problem that our industry is up against, which is how do we rebuild the trust? That has been lost within our sector. [00:09:00]

Tasha: Money follows community. And I think this is why everybody knows that community is necessary. It’s why it’s a bit of this buzz wording stuff about community.

Tasha: I think people know that money follows community. But does it follow immediately? No. And I think that’s part of the challenge for the non profit sector. How do we take an already strapped industry with very little resources and put it time intensively into something that the return is an unknown and when is it going to happen?

Tasha: We don’t have those answers, but I do think that it is the way forward. And part of that community is within the sector itself, right? As much as we need to educate outwardly and we have to work towards the general population, we’re not even good at educating internally to the sector. And that’s its own.

Tasha: It’s own thing as well, but we need to be marketing to ourselves. We need to figure that out.

Zach: I sort of, we thought about, so even like our experience from the foundation side,

Tasha: [00:10:00] yeah,

Zach: it was crazy as we’ve given in different us based regions, right? Cause we get primarily in Austin, Texas, Chicago, Illinois.

Zach: And we just recently started giving in Denver, as I mentioned with our new kind of next generation of givers, my brother’s out there in Denver right now holding the torch as I’m in grad school back in Chicago. But we also started giving in South Florida. And even just how different like the cultures are within certain sub regions of the United States.

Zach: Cause I’ll say like we support a lot of kids aging out of the foster care system, a lot of youth homelessness initiatives. It’s like a pillar that we’re very active in supporting within the top for family foundation, the connectivity amongst some of these organizations, I’d say it’s pretty strong, typically in that youth homelessness sector, like what it was in South Florida when we met with The Broward County Family Center.

Zach: When we met with the flight center and we met with all these different like organizations that are also not only doing the work itself, but helping connect all the different like nonprofits [00:11:00] that are also doing like adjacent. work to help tackle either aging out. But it’s like that they have, there’s h they have, there’s like e train, like all of that i one of funders perspectiv who are collaborating and That makes you more credible.

Zach: That makes us more likely to give you a grant, especially, I think I would love to see more grant writing applications to get out there. But I think it’s yeah, the fact that there seems to be, or what we’ve picked up on is like almost that nonprofits either feel like they’re competing.

Zach: Against each other for these same dollars like things are this kind of zero sum game that I think it’s funny that you mentioned that because I’d say it’s like it seems like there’s not a lot of connectivity or internal like communication happening within our sector, which is hey, we all. Talk about youth homelessness or aging out of the foster care program.

Zach: Are we combining any resources? Are we sharing any of our insights and [00:12:00] data? And I’m not to say that this isn’t happening and happening at all, but it’s like from a funder’s perspective, it seems like that’s not happening as much. I don’t know if you’ve seen that as well on your side.

Tasha: I know that, and I mean the one beautiful thing I’ve seen out of obviously our hive chats.

Tasha: And this is happening on a more global international scale, which is great. Like I still love it. It’s so nice to see it’s harder to see it happening locally is, someone who goes. Oh I we really go out and serve like we just had someone this week, Nigerian community they have a nonprofit that runs out of Nigeria and here’s someone of the US who does a sustainability projects and they’re coming together to create an accelerator for Nigerian youth who have a business idea that will serve local communities and, but they came together to do that, but they had a 30 minute, it all came out of just a 30 minute conversation.

Tasha: Chit chat that became something bigger because I think sometimes the stakes feel too high to really plan things out. Does this fit in both nonprofits strategic [00:13:00] plans? What are the processes that we’d have to break? So I actually see really small grassroots nonprofits moving at a speed that.

Tasha: Larger ones would have their heads spinning around because it would take three years to get there, right?

Zach: Isn’t that so funny of how much that relates even to like the startup?

Tasha: Yeah

Zach: world and how often startups are able to outbeat the legacy players because they just move so slow and that’s like the bureaucratic nightmares that we just see so many organizations turn into where you have to go through all these layers of approval, or you have to go through all of this like effort internally just to get, a simple yes.

Zach: Approved to, whether it’s even applied to a grant or collaborate with a local partner, try something new, step away from a gala or an auction event that you’ve done for the last 20 years, that is just so time intensive. But could you be able to make like a similar amount of money, just trying a new initiative?

Zach: I think I’m hoping that we can get more to that [00:14:00] creativity and taking a few more chances there.

Tasha: Absolutely. Okay. So favorite part of working in this sector, you talked about a little, we’ve just Crushed through so many challenges of it. But what’s your favorite part about working in here?

Tasha: With Cadenza now, but maybe with foundation work before that.

Zach: I think always the one, the secret I’d say that, philanthropy work or being in the nonprofit sector is that. I think it’s like one of the most like selfish things you could do because it makes you feel so freaking good to do this work and I’m a big believer of it’s why I’m pushing hard to go to, to be in grad school right now and to, actually work on a technology platform that could help address some of the, our biggest challenges that we have to face, in our country and our world.

Zach: And to me, I think it’s so exciting to be in a room with people who, Take their work that seriously, take their lives that seriously of Oh, I have this one life to give. I’m going to, [00:15:00] I want to leave it better than I found it. And for me, if it’s my community that I want to be able to do that with.

Zach: And if I think about the problems that we’re addressing, think about how insane you have to be like, I’m going to tackle like hunger in our community. I’m going to tackle homelessness, a problem that’s existed for thousands of years. But it’s you see us on this trend of the world is getting better.

Zach: I know it often doesn’t feel like it, but hunger rates have been declining. There’s so many levels that you can see on our charts that like, things on a global perspective are slowly but surely getting better. And I just. My favorite part is like being in the room with people who, frankly, I’ve had a lot of philosophical conversations with a lot of also like extremely wealthy, successful individuals that you’d say were like the smartest in the room as you imagine them to be.

Zach: But then you start talking about some of these like global issues, these societal issues that we’re up against what about the wealth gap? And like almost Tasha, I swear it would [00:16:00] almost. Not always, but often end with this whole like, Oh I’ll be dead by then. That’s kick the can down the road.

Zach: That’s not going to be my problem personally. And it’s like, then screw you. If you’re not thinking about the problems that are immediately like that, we have to face right now. That’s at least the type of work I want to spend my time doing, which is what are the most sticky, hairiest problems that we can go after?

Zach: How can we really solve them? And how can we. Make the world a better place. And not only from wow, this is such great altruism. Look at Zach isn’t he doing great work? It’s no, this is fricking hard. This is really hard problems to solve. And I feel like life is just good. Like life is better when you’re passionate about the work that you’re doing, but you’re not just taking the easy route.

Zach: Like you really are focusing on what are the hardest problems such as how do I build a. 10 million user community in the nonprofit sector, like Godspeed, Tasha on your side and on your own endeavors. I’m such a mega fan [00:17:00] of the Tasha.

Tasha: Oh thank you. And I think similarly, I’ve never felt more hopeful about the future than I do now, which is crazy because I’m also exposed to so many more of the challenges than I was five years ago.

Tasha: I know what the challenges are. I have friends now all over the world. And they are similar to what you’re saying. They’re solving big challenges in their community. They are looking at them and going, if not me, then who, and that’s incredible. I want to surround myself with that energy 24 seven. And if I can have some small part in helping them get towards those goals, even like whether it’s through education, whether it’s through connecting them with the right people who can help them.

Tasha: Like what better thing to be doing with my time? That’s like my favorite part of having started this for sure. So, um, my last question, because, and man, we’ve had, this has been amazing, but I am looking for how to, but Zach and Tasha should not be allowed on calls together.

Zach: Coming to [00:18:00] Seattle, a city near you, come see us in person.

Zach: AFP. com, we will be here.

Tasha: Oh my goodness. Metal

Zach: plug. Once we get together, get the dream team.

Tasha: People just come just for the entertainment value. Um, but, peer support in this sector, background with the family foundation and all that. But now in moving into the tech sector, in non profit, how does peer support like factor into your success as you’re moving forward?

Zach: I joke about, I literally call Tasha, my, my business mom in the sector. And I feel like that’s one, it’s really helpful and important. This work often can, I don’t care if you’re an executive director, a tech for good, startup founder, it’s very lonely and isolating work to be doing this, especially now that a lot of us are remote for the most part, I think.

Zach: Cause you know, Hey, we don’t have. To have an office expense. If we’re doing a solar preneurship, entrepreneurship, it’s one less expense, but then it forces you into this kind of just [00:19:00] incredibly isolated work, where you are, even if you’re having 25 plus conversations of work, like you still have to go figure out.

Zach: The process behind the scenes, you still have to connect all the dots. You still have to figure out the revenue models to be able to sustain this business plan, to be able to grow, to be able to scale in a way that you’re not losing like the flavor of that authenticity behind something like the hive, which is so special in such a authentic community that I really view every one of my peers kind of in the sector and the ability to be vulnerable and to reach out. I think of Mallory Erickson. I think of, Becky Endicott. I think of people who, when I was even going through some even personal like health challenges in last year and it started off of you just kind of make a slide comment and you have people who were Just incredible people.

Zach: Frankly, I’ve always been just these incredibly strong, intelligent women in my life who’ve been able to like, pick up on some of those things that are like, Hey, I’m going to pause you right [00:20:00] here and kind of unpack what you just said there a little bit. And I just want you to know if you ever need to chat about this further, like we’re here and we got you.

Zach: And I feel like those are some of the moments that. I feel have actually meant something to me that have been, it’s hard to put words to because it really is in those times when you’re really ready to throw in the towel or where you’re really just questioning am I insane? Am I actually insane that I think I’m going to be one of the people to even help contribute towards solving and addressing some of these problems?

Zach: Like you have to be borderline delusional, I think, to be successful. In this at a certain point to take on this level of work. And I feel like having peers in your corner to be able to be there, to help kind of pick you up when you’re feeling down, but even to share some of that load with, I think it is immensely important.

Zach: And I’d be willing to take a step further, Tasha, to be able to say we’re going to like communities, like the hive communities, we are for good for others. I think are doing such a good [00:21:00] job of like building, community, bringing people together in the sector. I’d say it’s probably a larger reason why we’ve been seeing such burnout rates is because we feel just so disconnected as a community.

Zach: And so many people don’t feel like they have that outlet or avenue or support systems to be able to go to. And I just encourage everyone to make sure that. You’re not trying to do it alone and you’re really not trying to take this on by yourself. So I’m incredibly appreciative to not only my business mom, Tasha here, but I think everyone who’s been.

Zach: Able to at least make some time for me to kind of give me some feedback or be like, yo, Zach, that last LinkedIn post was wild. Take it down or completely missed the mark. I feel like, Hey, at least we’re growing together. And as long as people can know, um, at least I could share why I’m in it.

Zach: It’s nice that I have people to hold me accountable, whether that’s to check me when I need checking or also to keep me up when I’m feeling a little down.

Tasha: And I think one of the things [00:22:00] that people often get wrong about community is it’s not like minded individuals, we don’t need to be the same and actually communities that are all of like minded individuals.

Tasha: I think that’s where you start to get like cult vibes a little bit and that’s something entirely different. We need to keep those two things apart. Instead it’s about alignment and we care about the same things but we got there in entirely different ways and we’re here to challenge sometimes each other’s thoughts, right?

Tasha: And then instead grow together and that’s where I think community can be an incredible Source of like peer support for growth to go. Like, how did you get here? Why do you think it this way and we all become stronger from that? My views on this sector are not limited to Canada Well, that’s a very different view than my dear friends in Uganda and how they look at nonprofit But it’s the collaboration of a whole bunch of different countries and views and backgrounds that I think is what’s making the nonprofit hive community so strong because It’s great to share your mission.

Tasha: It’s great to share about [00:23:00] what you’re doing in the world. And it often sparks something to go. I’ve never looked at it that way. And that’s when. That’s when kind of the magic happens for sure. It does for me every time. And I’ve really valued our conversations. I’m super excited to see where it heads next.

Tasha: So how, the big question I like to leave off with for everybody is how can people get in touch with you? How can they follow up with you? Um, what’s the best way you like to get into contact with folks?

Zach: Yeah, I’m really active on LinkedIn always. Advise people to send me a message. You could always follow me online.

Zach: We’re at get cadenza. com. That’s G E T cadenza. C A D E N Z A. com. I’d say the biggest thing is if you’re even just looking for especially ways to think, as you just said, want to hear a different perspective on how we’re thinking about diversifying funding sources, how we’re thinking about grant writing.

Zach: We’re doing a lot of work as we’re navigating like the changes in the federal. Grant sector. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be, Hey, how do you build relationships and how do you help [00:24:00] establish, more trust within the sector and with more potential funders, more collaborators, more partners in the sector.

Zach: I can’t tell you how much I’m just a mega fan of the hive, but also communities like this. But I’d say that’s where I’d love for us to be able to continue these conversations to continue to. Challenge the status quo together. And I would love for everyone else to just be willing to reach out. If you heard this call, something resonated and want to just hear our perspective from cadenza side, or even if you want to hear it from Zach Heineck’s opinions, which I certainly have more than enough to share.

Zach: I feel like it’s always cool to start the conversation. We might not agree on. but if we can get you thinking a little differently, if we can at least give you some tips and tricks on how to go from zero to one of, you’ve never talked to a funder to now, they’re a monthly recurring giver or, they’re a annual grant.

Zach: I think those are the things that we’re really trying to at least demystify the whole process of [00:25:00] how it happens behind the scenes. And we’re trying to create our own little community around for funders specifically or for grand writers specifically who are going through the thick of it. So I would always just encourage people to start to reach out.

Zach: And that’s probably the two best places where you’ll hear me as like webinars, stuff, content through cadenza and LinkedIn is. Probably my biggest space there.

Tasha: Awesome. All right. That’s great. Thank you so much for doing this with me, Zach. Pleasure. And can’t wait to collaborate more.

Zach: I will see you soon, Tasha.

Zach: Have a great rest of your day.