Did you know that the average human spends 92,000 hours at work during their lifetime? That's more than we spend eating, cleaning, driving, watching TV, surfing the web, hanging out with the people we love. In fact, work is what we do most. It comes second only to sleeping. So, welcome to 92 ,000 hours, which is the podcast that believes in the integrated is to love humankind.

What does it mean to work on loving humankind for your living? And what aspects of that work would apply to all of us? What can we take away from these folks about how we also could make a difference in the world?

Today, I am so excited because we were talking with Jim Langley. Jim is the president of Langley Innovations, which is a well-known international philanthropic consulting firm. He knows philanthropy. He has quite literally wrote the book on it, five books, in fact. His most recent book published in 2020 is the future of fundraising adapting to new philanthropic realities.

Prior to his consulting work, Jim served as the Vice President of Advancement at Georgetown University, the Vice Chancellor of external relations at UCSD, the University of California, San Diego, and has raised more than a billion dollars in his career. Over the years, I have learned from him as one of his clients, and I've had the great honor to call him one of my mentors. You're going to love this as he speaks with us about trust. So I gave you a bit of a warning, and I start every are.

Thank you for that. It's a wonderful question, and I've never been asked that before, so that's wonderful that you are beginning the interview this way, and this is how we get to know each other, is to reflect on that. I did think about it a good deal and concluded that it was self-knowledge, and in particular, looking at the mirrors that life holds up to you and the questions that those mirrors raise for you that ask you about where did you come from? What adaptions did you make early in life that were necessary then, but were less and less necessary as time went on that you clung to, perhaps too long, why you got into certain relationships, why you struggled in certain relationships, why some relationships faltered or failed, and those conclude both personal and professional relationships? What wounds you?

I’m now reaching a point where I don't feel the need to blame anyone for the life that I've led. I have nothing but understanding and certain praise for certain people. But where there were difficult moments or scars or painful moments, I no longer feel the need to blame anyone for them because I now understand they came from certain circumstances.

They were born, beautiful children. Like me, they got scuffed up along the way and sometimes scuffed up people run into each other and don't understand each other. So I see life more compassionately, more objectively and interpret what happens, as I said, with less, fewer and fewer hurt feelings, deeper and deeper understanding. And I hope, absolutely no blame. Wow, Jim, I love that. That is, in some ways, you're even having that kind of curiosity about yourself that we often have about other humans.

Exactly. And asking yourself why you do things that represent behavior when you're not at your best is really important. So if anybody's familiar with Carl Jung, he says, pay attention to your irritation. do it's wonderfully healing and you see people respond to you in different ways and be more receptive to you more trusting of you and more open with you which in most lines of work is very important.

That's super interesting because that's exactly what we want to talk about today right we want to talk about trust, so well done with moving us into that when you think about your curiosity about yourself and your reactions and your own mirror how does that align with an idea of trust and even trusting yourself?

Yes. And so that's it, is that if you are self-critical or somehow self-excusing, those create blind spots, right? And so what we want to achieve in life, whether it's interpersonally or professionally, is this alignment of interest, if not, these trusting compacts where we work together toward common ends. And the more we trust each other, the more energy we pour into achieving common ends without looking over our shoulders or second-guessing our partners or second-guessing ourselves. So it really begins within that you've got to trust your own instincts and somehow disabuse yourself of some of your biases, right? Pay attention to people you don't like that you have an instinctive negative reaction to that you tend to mistrust and say, you know, how much of that comes from within you, that that goes back to some early warning system that you developed based on some negative influences in your life that you've now carried forward and maybe stereotyped and maybe applied to other people. So I do think they very much are tied together that you have to become your own best coach. You have to be the person who guides you to your highest level of performance. And you have to do that lovingly. You have to have that right balance of love and encouragement, but also higher standards, you know, you can do better, Jim. You have to have that. And then when you convey that, when you convey your own humility, your own honesty, even your own struggles, you see people come to trust you more regularly. And when they give you something back, share with you something that is reflective with their own growth that says, I realize I'm not a perfect person that says, you know, I'm bringing certain issues to all my interpersonal dynamics, but I'm aware of them and I'm working on them. Well, watch how much more quickly you can establish trust and very workable arrangements.

And think about, Annalisa, how that applies to institutions, which by and large are terrible at kind of owning up to frailties. How would you advise leaders of institutions to talk about and to like to be vulnerable the way we are as humans where we establish trust by somebody has to first be a little bit vulnerable for two people to actually really get to a deeper level of trust? How would you advise institutions, whether it's the leader of the institution or the individual fundraiser who finds themselves in that position with a funder to be vulnerable about their needs. And do you have any examples of how that has worked?

Absolutely. And it's so true the points you're making. So what I emphasize over and over again in my work with clients and my writing is when we talk about institutional relationships with donors or any constituent group, we have to keep reminding ourselves that institutional relationships, when done well, are nothing more than interpersonal relationships writ large, that what we know works at the interpersonal level works at the institutional level, and the inverse is true. If we're doing something at an institutional level that we wouldn't dream of doing at an interpersonal level, that should be a huge red flag. In other words, if we're deceiving, if we're misleading, if we're overstating, if we're, you know, covering up issues, if we're, you know, hyper prickly about how other people perceive us. If we feel the need to be defensive, rah-rah all the time. If we feel the need to be the smartest person in the room, these are all danger signs. And somehow we'll say, Jim, don't we see? about. Annalisa, it says you have to be human. You have to be vulnerable. You have to, you know, invite dialogue that allows people to say, here's how you could improve. Here's how I could contribute to the growth of this institution.

So we've got to get past this really old, I say, you know, madman era way of being where we're trying to project invulnerability because people find it either off-putting or say, okay, if everything's going so fine, you don't need my help. I don't see a role for me in this relationship. If you're self-made and self-propelling and all you want me to do is listen to your virtues and listen to you brag about how wonderful you are, it doesn't sound like a very rewarding relationship to me. And I think about what makes for a rewarding relationship if you're a mature person. want people to help us, but it's not by wowing them. It's by sharing, you know, deep purpose and intent, and then the struggle that we feel, you know, what's working, what is it? And it's in the sharing of that struggle.

But here's where I'm stuck that somebody lights up and goes, oh, I think I can help. I see a role for myself. I see a way to contribute. And as you suggest, it's done so rarely and it seems so obvious. So how do we get leaders who feel this need to be sort of militarily invulnerable to be more human to share more because it's absolutely conducive then to community building, coalition building, and the contribution of individual gifts, including time, talent, and coercion.

I just read an article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy where the opinion writer was saying, I'm so excited about Melinda French Gates and her new endeavor, and her new, I guess, she's had this endeavor before, but this is her, like, moving forward into it even more and how it indicates a greater interest in trust-based philanthropy. And it feels like the idea of trust-based philanthropy, their interests. That's it.

But then remember that what it takes to achieve trust. And so I worry when some people, some people advocating that school of thought, say, well, they should just trust us. We should start there. And I go, no, no, no, no. That's an outcome. And then go back to interpersonal model. What does it take to achieve trust? You've got to invite people in. You've got to show them who you are. You've got to reveal strengths and weaknesses. That's an outcome. It's not a beginning. I think a lot about that idea, for sure, in my personal life, the idea of trust is centered on that idea also of reciprocity. It is, it's a back and forth. It's a dance, right? To make, like, I'm trustworthy, you're trustworthy. I do this thing to establish more trust. You do this thing to establish more trust. Clearly, that also has to happen at work. Yes. I would imagine at with funders, what do you think about that? How do we establish that reciprocity as fundraisers?

Well, I think that's such an important word and concept and there's a lot of study and literature and a material that we can bring to bear that goes way back to human history about the building. So what's the modern equivalent of that? And I think it's listening. So I've done a lot of crisis management in my time, right? And so you have to walk into hot situations where you're representing an organization for which a lot of antipathy is built, right? And it could be around race relationships. It could be all kinds of things, religious issues, right?

Now you're going in and people see you was the symbol of the institution. And so their first instinct is to try to direct all the frustrations they have at the institution toward you. Well, it's wise to let them do that and to not be defensive about that, to not allow your personal feelings. Okay, I will let them. And just by listening, you can see then people's shoulders drop and intensity levels lower and then after a certain period of time how grateful they are that you just hung in there and tried to empathize wherever you could. And oh yeah, I can see how you felt that way. So that empathetic feedback is really important.

But I've noticed, you know, one of the things I learned in that early phase is to try to be as overt as I could about gift giving. So I'm walking into a potential adversary and I'm going to say the first thing is I'm going to go get some coffee. Can I get you some? Anything that I can do to show respect early on and show at a human level, I'm not coming with a shield. I'm coming with respect and consideration. And in the early stages of listening without necessarily agreeing, validating, You can see how you arrived at that conclusion. All those things are incredibly important. But then go back, analysts, to what we're talking about. How often is this manifest in institutional relationships, in institutional communication, in institutional outreach? And then they wonder why, you know, this community is eroding or why, you know, we're losing volumes of supporter or attrition rates are high, right?

It's the same thing. I intersected your path. I did something that I thought was contributory. And what I got was a kind of a perfunctory response that in no way made me feel a member of your community, respected, or that suggested to me my life would change by staying with you. So, adios. I gave it a try. It's so significant to me.

Like the way you started that, I want to remember this forever because when you said the equivalent of a gift is listening, I think that sounds so simple, but it is so hard. And to honestly and truly listen to someone is something you have to ultimately master, but you have to be authentic about it. And that's really hard.

Yes, you do. And so that means that goes back to where we started. That self-knowledge allows you to identify with people so much more, right? Because you're saying, oh, I can see myself in them, even though they are a potential adversary. And even though they don't like what I've done or what the institution has done, this self-knowledge goes, but I can see how I would arrive at that conclusion. If I were in their shoes, I can see how they would feel that way. You see? So all of a sudden, you're not looking at somebody and going, what the hell is going on? But oh my goodness, I see myself and we're starting to see each other, right, through that different lens.

And that's what's disarming when somebody is really, you know, frustrated at something and you go cool I mean I can give you a quick example right where if you're inexperienced you can react different ways so I'm going to visit a donor I of course have previewed why I'm coming I’m set material in advance right and so I go to meet him this is in New York City and when I walk in he looks none too happy he's kind of grumpy and I remind him why I'm here. I'm here from this institution, and I want to talk to you about this initiative. And he looks at me with this intense glower on his face and says, I don't give a bleep-a-bleep-de-bleep about that institution, and I don't give a bleep-de-beleep about that initiative. And it kind of looks at me like, and what are you going to do about it? So, you know, someone who's inexperienced with no self-knowledge would be terrified, intimidated, angry, but probably unexpected of that non-defensive response. And in turn, what do you care about? While I'm here, I might as well learn, right? So I'm not representing an institution. I'm coming right back and saying, all right. So let me know what's important to you. And maybe we can go from there. And there's this long pausing taking my measure. And he says, prostate cancer. That's what I care about. I go, ah, what stage? Two minutes, he's supposed to, as it can be played because you've put a human caring face on an institution, not an exploitive one, not with one that it's got its own agenda, but one that keeps saying, all right, is there any way we can work together?

I love that because it also shows that you see them fully in their humanity and what they might be going through at the time and understand that it may be bigger than what you're showing up to their desk today with.

Not always my agenda, is it? It's not always what I need to achieve on any given moment. That's not what partnerships are about. They're about this formation of trust and purpose over time. And then think about, Annalisa, the rigors under which so many people in advancement work about soliciting gifts within a certain period of time, asking for amounts, sometimes without any interplay, interview, knowledge of the person, go out and pitch, make the solicitation, and then think about how off-putting and ultimately eroding of trust and community those things are. So we see these perverse incentives being placed on advancement professionals saying, these are damaging to the institution. Can't you see how damaging they are? We're just going to get this money, right? And I don't know why people can't think past one action. And then what? So you're moving fast. You're either going to get a quick no or a much smaller amount. And then what? And then what? How receptive will they be to the next step?

Why is this so hard? Why is it so hard to say, don't you? Don't you? up the idea of the pitch because it's one of those just the word a pitch. It rankles me where I think I'm not going to go visit a human and pitch them. And where's your pitch deck? It's, it feels so transactional. And to me, doesn't seem to work or what you talked about. It works for a moment, maybe with some people, but not for...

You can get donors to give more than once if you think beyond one gift that they will give repeatedly if they're engaged, if you bring them in, right? And so for many, this was startling, even though they had loyal donors, they just sort of took them for granted. And so she shed a lot of light about how you deepen loyalty and build on that.

But you then say your objective, first of all, is to create a stronger community of shared purposes, right? That's what you should be in pursuit of, because that will serve you well through thick and thin, right? So why would we pursue anything built than that? Well, what is a community of shared purposes built of it's built of partnerships.

So in our business, that's philanthropic partnerships. So you say the underlying principle should never be to step over a dollar to get a dime, to never be so intent on getting the first gift that we diminish the partnership, to never become so consumed with low-hanging fruit that we fail to nurture the tree and nurture the orchard, right? And that if you want consistent yield of fruit, you nurture these things over time and you don't lose sight of the long-term yield.

So the equivalent of that is not the gift, but the lifelong value of the donor. That has been so missed, so often, it's embarrassing for anybody in something called philanthropy that we squandered or sub-optimized for. that lifelong partnership and not focus on what's immediately in front of us or stepping over that dollar for a dime at those institutions who are really struggling right now.

There are many who are in serious problems. What would you say to them about what trust means and how to handle it at this time? Well, first of all, why are So, you know, this is a vortex. You're struggling because you didn't build community and you didn't build partnership. So you're always chasing the immediate, right? And then rather than acknowledge that, you intensify the chase. You intensify the pitch. You intensify. And it's the desperation that starts to cause people to go, well, this doesn't look like an ongoing enterprise. And why would I invest significantly in something that's so desperate. And it's like a human relationship. Would you invest deeply in somebody who's emotionally desperate and indiscriminate?

They just want a partner. You go, well, no, that's not real promising, right? So they need a little more self-knowledge to determine why they are so desperate. And there's an internal need that they have to meet. Or was that organization it on a sound strategic purpose. Did they ever do a needs assessment? Did they get into a field that someone else was, other organizations were already in? And they simply, you know, said, I want to do this. Did they carve out a distinctive niche? And then did they build trust and did they build a community? So you have to go, why are you desperate? Now, there are situations in which you could be for, you know, let's say, have a very strong need for a very real reason, but you can only use that once to say, here's where we are. You have to show where you could be and ask donors to help you build a bridge to the future. You can't say to donors, we want you to continuously subsidize our desperation. Because the wise donor says, then there's something that matter with your underlying business, but there's something wrong with your economic model. And, you know, you need to diversify your sources of revenue or you need to define your niche better or something.

And this is very good advice, but those same organizations can then become very surly when given that kind of advice. But we're doing good work. You should help us. So more and more, what we're seeing, to your point, Annalisa, is more and more donors saying, what's my role? Do you want me to start this up? Do you want me to help you build a bridge to the future? Can you show me other sources of revenue? Can you show me how you're diversifying your funding options so that if I invest, significantly, I have confidence that this could be a going enterprise without continued reliance reliance on me. Excuse me. That's not saying I won't ever give to you again, but what they have learned is if you don't push back early in those negotiations, that's exactly what will happen is that organization will keep coming back to you saying, but our costs have gone. Right? And you're asked to do more to sustain an organization and not ever being treated to a greater impact by continued investment.

Well, this is not rewarding. And at some point, this plays out. If you're in an inviable position, it's going to play out sooner or later. And my subsidization of that is a Band-Aid. So, you know, let's figure this out together. But you get these organizations that think because they're doing good work, people should support them no matter what. They actually are going to get indignant in some cases about it. But look at the work we're doing. Look at how hard we're working. Then you look at a very significant philanthropist like Bloomberg, who said of the New York City Opera, philanthropy should not be used to subsidize Yeah, ouch, right? Tough lesson. Disfunction. This reminds me. So back in the day, I used to facilitate a group of students for about 15 years I did this.

And we would have a whole session on trust. And when I first just said to the students, talk to me about trust, what is it? almost in trust when you've been betrayed and what does that mean for um alumni organizations I feel like that's kind of what we get when some people or donors or alumni feel some sense of betrayal like it really can feel like that to them yes their alma mater do you like what does that mean to you or do you have any sure samples of how to overcome something like that.

Yeah, and of course, you know, we've done research that shows just that. My alma mater does little to reach out to me besides asking for money. So alma mater means nourishing mother and there's your saying, what mom? That's not the mom I want. That's not the relationship I want. That's not what I thought this would be. And so you look at what we did at Georgetown with the student discovery exercise when we saw this gap between appreciation for the education provided and giving and participation after graduation. So we put students in the field and conducted over 7,000 interviews over three and a half years. And the lesson was in the listening exercise itself. Because what the listening exercise above and beyond generating insight into how to build bridges, produced letters from alumni saying, I never felt more respected by Georgetown. Because we put a student in front of them with no agenda other than to administer an interview about their animating passions. That in and of itself was in mind. It is that gift of listening you talked about. It's such a gift.

There's also this wonderful for me is this wonderful movie about the 9-11 victims and this little… So if I was a, my husband was a fireman, it gets less than somebody who was a stockbroker. And the guy says, yeah, he says, you've got to look at income. That's how we determine. And so there's this outrage. And he learns this painful lesson of just, you don't go in with formulas. You go in sort of saying, can we talk about the struggle here? So at the end of the movie, he wins people over without ever changing the formula just by hanging in there and identifying with the human stories. And what they said to him is we wanted someone to hear. That's all we wanted was someone to hear what we lost and what it meant us. S

o there we go, Annalisa, this is the hardest thing for institutions to learn. When in doubt, shut up and listen. Yeah.

Yeah. And don't get defensive and don't explain. Just go, all right. I'm learning. I'm learning. I had this. I had the chance to hear Sister Helen Prejohn speak about when she would go to visit inmates who were on death row. and her big lesson. It sends this powerful signal of love.

I'm just here. I'm right here. I see you. I see you. And I'll listen to you. And, you know, I can't solve this. I can't save you from this faith. But I can validate your humanity. I can attend to you. It certainly goes back to what you talked about at the beginning about this being the human era. Like this is, we just want to be human and heard as even in our roles as institution representatives we're still just people. I say we're walking stories wanting to be told and heard. Oh, I love it. The stories walking around wanting someone to go, I want to hear your story and I want you to share mind with you. And this is storytelling that demonstrates listening is the key to Lippincott, not just story, demonstrates listening. So we all have these fascinating stories. And, you know, that old phrase about ships passing in the night. At this age and life, this is what it seems like is that most of us go through life as ships passing in the night. That we glance against each other, we see each other in the distance, we meet so many people that we never get to know. And it's in the getting to know then that we abate loneliness and find meaning in our life.

I totally agree. Connection matters. So given that walking stories that want to be heard, as you know, I have a deep reverence for mentors and what they mean to us in our lives. And I love to close out my podcast with just an opportunity for the person I'm talking to to mention a mentor that may or may not have known that they were a mentor to you. Is there anyone that you'd want to honor by talking about their mentorship in your life and what it meant to you?

Yeah, that's a tough question. There are two people. One was a scoutmaster. And when I was a boy, and I was a problem child, I was in trouble. And so my mother got me into scouts to sort of put me on a straight and arrow. And he was, his name was Leonard Manlove. And I tell people he made Clint Eastwood look like a cissy. That man looked like he was made of rope. He had the most lined face ever seen my life. And I kind of scoffed at him at that age because he would talk about virtue and he would talk about. And he wasn't a brilliant man, but he was a good man. And I've reflected on him. but in this quiet, again, unassuming way and his trust and empowerment of a very young professional did something for me that I will never forget.

That's beautiful. The power of the presence of a good man and putting your trust in another person that just makes a step up and into the roles we were meant to have. Just your example and that example of investing yourself in somebody's life, everybody listening, you have no idea what the power of that is over time. I think that's lovely.

And a great way to close this out. I so appreciate your time spending with us today. I can't wait to hear the feedback we get from my listeners because I've learned a lot. I always do from you, and I'm so grateful that you were willing to share in this way, because trust is central to the work we do as change makers, right?

I appreciate you, Annalisa, and I continue to learn from you, and I look forward to our ongoing partnership.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Jim. Thanks for your time today. See you later. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

I hope you all join me in thanking Jim Langley. In fact, Jim, if you are listening to this, thank you so much. This has, of course, been an incredible conversation. I'm so honored that Jim was willing to share his wisdom with us. And for all of you, if you'd like to hear more from Jim, I encourage you to follow him on LinkedIn. He is a master at short form interesting storytelling there. It's a must read.

You can also find his books online at academic impressions, and you can learn more about all the things he talked about here on his website at www. langleyinnovations.com.

On our next episode, we will be joined by Mark Shreve, the managing Director and Principal of Education Advisory Board, better known to me as EAB, and we will be talking about connection. I hope you'll join us.