00;00;06;19 - 00;00;45;19
Erica Machulak
Welcome back to the Hikma Collective podcast. I'm Erica Machulak. One of the interesting things about starting a purpose driven business has been trying to figure out what social entrepreneurship really means and what it means to want to do good in the world while still needing and wanting to make money. So in this episode, we're talking with JP Baker, who's a consultant in the not for profit sector with the Social sector, which means that he works with all kinds of organizations wanting to do good work, thinking about both the meaning and the logistics behind what they want to do.
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Erica Machulak
He talks a lot about empathy, asking good questions and cultivating abundance, thinking and a spirit of collaboration. We hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for the humor podcast. I'm Erica Machulak and I'm very pleased to be here with JP Baker. JP is a planning consultant, ready to support organizations, strategize the most effective ways to reach their goals.
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Erica Machulak
JP has extensive experience as a facilitator, consultant, researcher and writer. As a consultant, he is sought out for his expertize in governance, organizational culture, strategy, process design and change management. Over the past ten years, he has done strategic planning with a variety of not for profit organizations and university departments and led the development of several community wide plans.
00;01;42;16 - 00;02;05;08
Erica Machulak
Outside these accomplishments, he also has experience in international language education. Specifically, JP taught English in South Korea, which he loved for both the people and the food. Vancouver and Victoria, where he ran Mingus Language Services. JP likes to bring his communication skills to his work. Active listening and articulating ideas. He also enjoys making broad connections between people, ideas and organizations.
00;02;05;27 - 00;02;12;28
Erica Machulak
He's currently a planning consultant at Vantage Point, which transforms not for profit leadership. JP, Thanks so much for joining us.
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JP Baker
Thank you so much for having me, Erica.
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Erica Machulak
It's absolutely my pleasure. I wonder if we could start by talking a little bit about your career journey and starting way back in your university days with with what you focused on at that point?
00;02;28;06 - 00;02;54;13
JP Baker
Sure, yeah. I studied English and Russian literature in university, which my father liked to call dishwashing and dish drying. But I had big plans in some ways for for what I would do with my education, which, in some senses means no plans. I just wanted to study what I was interested in, and I thought that sort of career wise things would fall into place afterwards.
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Erica Machulak
And what were the kinds of topics that interested you at that point when you were studying literature?
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JP Baker
I was interested in how humanity and groups functioned. And literature in my was was my avenue to explore that. I had friends who studied sociology, and we used to argue about who had a better understanding of humanity. I like to maintain my point that I think literature gives you a better understanding.
00;03;22;05 - 00;03;27;03
Erica Machulak
I love that. And so you graduated that and then what came next?
00;03;28;27 - 00;03;58;14
JP Baker
Well, I went overseas, actually. I was invited to go and teach English in South Korea by an old friend. And I had never considered teaching before that time, but I decided to go for it and I absolutely loved it. I learned a lot in those first couple of years after university. As a teacher, I was able to apply what I'd learned from studying language, because besides literature, I studied a lot of languages, so I was able to apply that understanding as a teacher.
00;03;59;22 - 00;04;10;09
JP Baker
But I also had certain skills that helped me move into management positions fairly quickly in the schools that I worked in.
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Erica Machulak
What kinds of skills? What do you think served you best?
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JP Baker
Well, I think that that understanding of people is important for leadership. And I think this is something that you see when you look at people in leadership positions in all areas of our society. Many of them have a liberal arts background. They didn't necessarily study leadership, but I think they learned about people. And I think that makes people well positioned for leadership.
00;04;38;10 - 00;04;43;04
Erica Machulak
Interesting. So tell us what came next in your career? What led you to where you are now?
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JP Baker
Yeah, I had a few stops along the way. So after working in South Korea, I returned to Canada and I worked as an English teacher at a private college in Vancouver. And at a certain point I realized that the ceiling felt fairly low for me as a teacher, and so I decided to strike out on my own and start my own school.
00;05;03;24 - 00;05;21;02
JP Baker
So I started a private language school in Victoria with a partner, a fellow teacher. And we learned about business, basically on our own and how to start one. We leased a space in Victoria. We did our own renovations. It was a real DIY sort of project.
00;05;21;22 - 00;05;25;10
Erica Machulak
And so how did that lead you to your role consulting with not-for-profits?
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JP Baker
Well, I on the side because I think that as a self-employed person, you've always got your finger in a few different sort of pots of activity. I worked as a freelance writer, and this goes back to my time in South Korea, actually, I did corporate communications on the side. And I was working as a freelance writer when I left that business in Victoria.
00;05;46;28 - 00;06;12;25
JP Baker
I did freelance writing full time and I ended up having a lot of clients in the not-for-profit world. And eventually they asked me if I could do facilitation as well. And because I had worked as a teacher, I felt that I had some of the skills necessary. And so I started doing facilitation work. And that just led me to, to learn more about the nonprofit world and to expand my skills there.
00;06;13;20 - 00;06;18;14
JP Baker
And so that led naturally to serving as a as a nonprofit consultant.
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Erica Machulak
So tell us a little bit more about that for people who don't quite know what facilitation is. What is facilitation and what's the connection between facilitation and teaching?
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JP Baker
So facilitation is basically running a good meeting and producing good outcomes from a meeting on a very simple level. That's all it is. But on a more sort of complex level, it's good meeting design. We've all had experience with meetings both good and bad. And some of that is a design issue. It's also, asking the right questions within a meeting to get people to generate the ideas, helping them towards decisions.
00;07;00;24 - 00;07;23;10
JP Baker
And that's sometimes difficult for groups to do on their own. So for certain processes like strategic planning, which is something I do a lot, it's very helpful for them to have an outside facilitator to lead that process and to guide them through. I think it relates to teaching because I think a fundamental skill in facilitation is understanding group dynamics.
00;07;23;19 - 00;07;36;20
JP Baker
So if you have a room full of people and you need them to go in generally the same direction, how do you get them to do that? And so the ways of doing that are similar in teaching and facilitation.
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Erica Machulak
And so from your perspective, what's the benefit of coming to that process from the outside?
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JP Baker
The benefits are that you actually are more free of bias than the people in the room. For one thing, I'm never going to say that anybody is completely free of bias, but certainly you don't have a stake at the table, so you can sort of play a more objective role as facilitator than someone in that process. And that's important when there are high stakes decisions to be made or sometimes to in high conflict situations.
00;08;08;29 - 00;08;32;09
JP Baker
And although I'm not a mediator, I'm not trained as a mediator, that's not really what I do. There's a lot of facilitation that involves some of the same things that mediation involves. And so to have an outsider do those things is really helpful to groups. There's also, I work a lot with nonprofit boards of directors. I those are those are groups of volunteers.
00;08;32;23 - 00;09;01;02
JP Baker
It's very challenging for volunteers to hold each other accountable in the same way that maybe you would hold someone accountable in a work setting because people are volunteering their time. And there's this idea that we need to be thankful for whatever they give, regardless of the quality or sometimes how it's done. So that can be challenging. So facilitators benefit groups there.
00;09;01;02 - 00;09;17;25
JP Baker
But I also work with university departments and it's not the same as a nonprofit board of directors, but in the in collegial governance, you have a group of faculty members. It's very difficult for them to hold each other accountable, too. And so they benefit a lot from outside facilitation as well.
00;09;18;25 - 00;09;39;06
Erica Machulak
Interesting. Really interesting. So given that you've worked a lot with not for profit boards, I wonder if you could step back for a second. You've worked with so many different kinds of not-for-profit organizations. Could you give us sort of anatomy of what a not-for-profit organization is and how it works at a high level?
00;09;40;19 - 00;10;07;04
JP Baker
Yeah, I will do my best. So basically a not-for-profit organization is set up to achieve some kind of social purpose. Whereas a for profit organization is set up to achieve profits. And those that's been complicated in positive ways in, in past years. There's a lot more social purpose business. There's a lot more social enterprise.
00;10;07;12 - 00;10;30;29
JP Baker
But basically a not-for-profit is built on the idea that they will generate some kind of social, good social or environmental benefit. So the way that they do that is they incorporate and the rules are different state by state, province by province in different countries. But generally the non-profits are governed by a board of directors, and those are volunteers.
00;10;31;24 - 00;11;04;02
JP Baker
In some cases they are paid. It's a myth that boards of directors can never be paid. In some cases they are. But there's strict rules around that. So they're responsible for governing the organization. And that's sort of high level oversight, direction setting and sharing, effective senior leadership risk management, the very high level governance aspects. Then below that, if we see it as a hierarchy, though it's not always is, is the management of the organization, and then there's the delivery of programs and services.
00;11;04;27 - 00;11;36;23
JP Baker
But nonprofit organizations are kind of all over the place on how they organize these different functions. So in the province where I live, 70% of nonprofit organizations have what we call working boards, where the work of the organization is done by the volunteer board of directors. They have no paid staff. On the other hand, there are many large nonprofits and charities that have a lot of paid staff, in which case the board of directors generally limits itself to governance work and doesn't get involved in management and operations.
00;11;36;28 - 00;12;03;15
Erica Machulak
Interesting part of the reason that I'm asking this is that many graduates, particularly graduates who have done something like a Ph.D., where they're really passionate about the work that they're doing and they've really invested a lot in thinking through ideas, are excited about the concept of working in the not-for-profit sector, but they don't necessarily have a lot of experience in that sector or a lot of knowledge of the nuances within it.
00;12;03;15 - 00;12;15;15
Erica Machulak
So if I'm a recent graduate looking to get into the not-for-profit space, what kind of advice would you give me in terms of trying to figure out where to enter?
00;12;17;05 - 00;12;44;14
JP Baker
That's a great question. And what I would say is that one of the best ways and I don't know if people always want to hear this, but is volunteering and volunteering with the board of directors is a great way to learn how those organizations work? And that's a great entry point, actually. And that's, in many ways, the way I learned about nonprofit organizations was I served on boards of directors, and I saw some of these things from that level.
00;12;44;24 - 00;13;06;10
JP Baker
I've never been a staff person at a not-for-profit. I've only worked on boards of directors and I continue to serve on boards of directors, and that's part of my ongoing education, I believe. So I think that's a really good entry point. And to volunteer with organizations in other ways, actually, some boards of directors is only one place, one volunteer opportunity.
00;13;06;10 - 00;13;10;00
JP Baker
There are other ways as well. And that's a great place to start.
00;13;10;26 - 00;13;23;26
Erica Machulak
Great, thank you. And having worked with so many different not-for-profit organizations, could you give us a sense of the spectrum of organizational cultures that you've seen in these different mission driven groups?
00;13;25;15 - 00;14;02;22
JP Baker
Yeah, that is there's a great variety of different cultures. You know, and I mentioned sometimes we talk about hierarchy in organizations, but many organizations are a much flatter organization. And you see this in business as well. But it's challenging for organizations given their governance structures to flatten sometimes. Some organizations are actually governed by not just the board of directors, but they invite governance, participation by their entire membership.
00;14;03;06 - 00;14;28;02
JP Baker
So we do see some highly democratic organizations that involve members broadly in major organizational decisions that gets like all democracy, it gets a little bit messier, it looks a little bit more chaotic or it's more time consuming. But in many ways, some of our our governance structures and the way we've designed these things and not-for-profit is borrowed from the corporate sector, for better or for worse.
00;14;29;04 - 00;15;04;23
JP Baker
And I think we're trying to overcome some of those. So I participate in a peer network called Re-imagining Governance, where we're really trying to explore ways to expand our ideas of governance, and particularly around distributed governance, so involving more people in decision making. But organizations are all over the place on this very issue. There's a lot of the not-for-profit sector is made up of very small community based organizations, led by a small group of dedicated volunteers that are actually very, very in touch with the community issues they're trying to solve.
00;15;05;28 - 00;15;15;26
JP Baker
But then it runs up to very large, multimillion dollar charities that have massive budgets and massive staffs and massive operations.
00;15;17;17 - 00;15;41;29
Erica Machulak
Interesting. So one of the reasons that I've been so excited to talk to you in this interview, and one of the things that I think will really benefit our listeners is that you've worked this crossover between not-for-profit and industry. And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about what the interaction between private and not-for-profit organizations is like.
00;15;41;29 - 00;15;55;06
Erica Macchulak
And maybe we could start with when you as a member of a private organization come into a not-for-profit and help them with their strategic planning, what does that look like? What is what is typical meeting have the shape of?
00;15;56;27 - 00;16;21;08
JP Baker
Well, that's a great question. And I think that I work a lot with my clients on meeting design. So before I go into a group situation where we're going to talk about some high level strategy, I put a lot of effort into dealing with the client on designing an agenda and basically figuring out what are the questions I'm going to be asking.
00;16;22;11 - 00;16;54;12
JP Baker
There's an important approach that that guides a lot of our work called Appreciative Inquiry. And part of the important concepts there are that the questions we ask determine the results we get. So I put a lot of energy into figuring out what those questions are. And then so I work with groups. I ask them questions. I facilitate a process where, you know, it's you might have images of getting down into breakout groups, groups, and you're using sticky notes and all of that kind of stuff.
00;16;54;12 - 00;17;25;24
JP Baker
And it's really an exercise in generating ideas. And then part two of planning or decision making is then selecting options. Sometimes we talk about this divergent thinking process where we're generating ideas and options, and then the convergent thinking process where we're choosing options. And those are two different kinds of facilitation. The first is about brainstorming, and it's a very creative process, and the second one is really about evaluating ideas.
00;17;26;04 - 00;17;30;15
JP Baker
So they require two different kinds of thinking, and I think they require two different kinds of facilitation as well.
00;17;31;20 - 00;17;54;25
Erica Machulak
That makes a lot of sense. That's that's really helpful. So building on some of the work that you've done and some of the things that we've talked about in the past, I wonder if we could explore other kinds of thinking, specifically this idea of scarcity versus abundance thinking. As a person who's worked with many, many kinds of organizations in many different capacities, you have a unique perspective on this.
00;17;54;25 - 00;17;58;18
Erica Machulak
So could you first tell us what scarcity and abundance thinking are?
00;17;59;26 - 00;18;31;21
JP Baker
Yeah, the basics of this are that scarcity thinking is really looking at. It's coming from a place of thinking. "There is not enough". And that could be time, money, people, a focus on deficits and gaps, and that generates a sort of competitive spirit. Any time you're inspired by scarcity, then you become competitive. But it also, in some cases, creates risk aversion, fear of change.
00;18;32;25 - 00;19;13;20
JP Baker
And then on the other hand, the abundance thinking is about thinking. There is enough to go around and maybe there's even infinite potential. And it's a focus on strengths and assets. It inspires more collaboration rather than competition. And it's about embracing and leading change. This is an important concept, I think, for me, because in my work as a self-employed person, both in business and serving nonprofits, I've taken an abundant thinking approach, which means that I will talk widely about my ideas, I will share my knowledge with others.
00;19;13;20 - 00;19;20;14
JP Baker
I'm not afraid of them stealing them, and I will collaborate widely. And I think that that approach has helped me.
00;19;21;00 - 00;19;25;17
Erica Machulak
Could you give us an example of an idea that you've shared and how that's worked for you?
00;19;26;06 - 00;19;54;21
JP Baker
So I generate in my strategic planning work, I generate certain kind of frameworks for exploring certain ideas, especially sort of graphic representations that, that help inspire certain kinds of thinking. I will share those with other consultants that I know and encourage them to use them. And I don't ask for credit, and I'm happy to do that because I think that that kind of approach comes back to help you.
00;19;55;17 - 00;20;20;17
JP Baker
It inspires a sort of spirit of collaboration. I do the work that I do, in part because it has social benefit. I'm not interested in sort of hoarding my ideas or hoarding my tools and making sure only I benefit from them. I really sort of have this idea that they're for the benefit of all. So it's important for me to share those things.
00;20;20;17 - 00;20;39;24
JP Baker
And I engage in communities of practice and communities of practice for consultants can be a little bit hit and miss because there is competition among consultants in some ways. And so some of them hesitate to to be too open about what's in their bag of tricks. But I'm happy to share.
00;20;41;01 - 00;20;53;29
Erica Machulak
And so how does that work if you are coming to a community, a practice of consultants, let's say. And actually maybe let's pause there. Could you define community of practice for us? What do you see? A community practice being?
00;20;54;28 - 00;21;13;21
JP Baker
The way I see a community practice is a group of peers or colleagues, professional colleagues who get together to share good practices and ideas for doing the work well and support. And and invariably, there's some some measure of emotional support there.
00;21;14;21 - 00;21;41;24
Erica Machulak
That's interesting. I think for some of the best ones, there certainly is. So one of my questions about your point about scarcity versus abundance thinking, one of the things that we talk a lot about in the development of the programs that we're doing here at Hikma and also in the way that we're thinking about helping PhD's translate their research and communication skills to new contexts.
00;21;41;24 - 00;22;04;26
Erica Machulak
Is this idea of testing and particularly testing ideas in small incremental ways so that you're getting that early feedback. And for me, abundance thinking is a big part of that. You know, you and I never would have had the conversations that we've had in the past that have so informed a lot of my thinking around my work. If I had said, I'm not going to share my idea with anyone until it's absolutely ready, right?
00;22;04;26 - 00;22;27;05
Erica Machulak
I'm not going to share my idea with anyone until it's totally polished and ready to launch because I don't want anyone to see it. But when you're coming to one of these communities of practice and you're coming to it with this approach of I'm going to share, what's the dynamic like when there are people who are holding their cards a little closer to the vest or being a little bit more competitive about it?
00;22;27;17 - 00;22;30;23
Erica Machulak
That disadvantages you or does it matter at all?
00;22;31;17 - 00;22;58;23
JP Baker
I don't think it disadvantages me. I don't get too worked up when someone takes a different approach. And if they take what I do and they use it for their own benefit, I'm fine with that because I think that fundamentally in a lot of the work that I do, it's very relationship based. So people are not necessarily hiring me because of that one little useful tool that I use in the sessions.
00;22;59;09 - 00;23;30;18
JP Baker
It's because I've built trust with them and they have faith in me and trust in me as a consultant. And so that can't be freely shared and traded and passed on. That's something that's cultivated. So in that sense, I'm not afraid of the competition because it's all relational. And there's also the important idea about fit. I might not be the right consultant for every organization, and I'm happy to refer people on to a consultant who I think would be a better fit.
00;23;30;18 - 00;23;39;03
JP Baker
And that idea of fit could be there could be a lot of different things wrapped up in that, but it's an important one.
00;23;39;13 - 00;24;02;10
Erica Machulak
Yeah, that makes sense to me. And that's something I think that applies to all kinds of private businesses. If you're a freelance writer and someone asks you to do a project that really isn't in your wheelhouse, it's of more benefit for you to refer that to a colleague who might throw you some business that's not in their wheelhouse later than to try to do a job that isn't something you're going to be able to deliver on well.
00;24;02;10 - 00;24;18;22
Erica Machulak
Or to use that as an opportunity to build a partnership with another business owner. Are there differences, do you think, in the way that scarcity versus abundance thinking applies in the private sector versus the not for profit sector and potentially versus government?
00;24;20;14 - 00;24;46;25
JP Baker
I'm sure I want to say yes. I'm sure there are differences, though I haven't thought about it enough to articulate it clearly. But I think that I mean, a lot of the for profit world is is built around the idea of scarcity that, in a particular market, there is finite demand for a product. And if there are three companies trying to sell the same type of product, they're competing in a finite market.
00;24;47;10 - 00;25;09;01
JP Baker
One of the things I like about not-for-profit is that to me it's a very creative. It's creating social benefit in the world is limitless in many ways. So, you know, I serve on the board of a small organization called Kamloops Society for the Written Arts. We host author talks and we do workshops for writers and we host a writers festival.
00;25;09;22 - 00;25;29;09
JP Baker
The sky's the limit as far as what we want to dream up and try doing. And so that's one of the things I like about the not for profit is that we're creating social benefit and I don't think there's any natural limits to social benefit, but there perhaps are on the other side of the economic house in the for profit world in terms of market demand.
00;25;30;00 - 00;25;32;07
Erica Machulak
Hmm.
00;25;32;15 - 00;25;48;13
Erica Machulak
Here's an interesting question that I think is an undercurrent to many conversations about where people want to go with their careers when they graduate. What do you see as the role of money in driving social change?
00;25;49;19 - 00;26;23;25
JP Baker
That's a really hard question. I think...I mean... I have a lot of thoughts about that, especially given the the experience of the past two years and in our society, I have this feeling that we might at some point give up on the myth of perpetual growth. That things are either growing or dying.And I'm hopeful about that.
00;26;25;10 - 00;27;05;06
JP Baker
But that that relates to the role of money, because I think that generating money is not necessarily the goal of a lot of activities. I think the money is a tool to create other benefits. And one of the things that kind of a hobbyhorse of mine and my colleagues are tired of hearing me talk about it, but I don't even like talking about the nonprofit sector because that's defining our sector in two ways one, in economic terms and two, in negative terms.
00;27;05;17 - 00;27;11;23
JP Baker
So when we call our sector the nonprofit sector, we're defining it by the fact that it doesn't generate a profit.
00;27;12;28 - 00;27;13;16
Erica Machulak
Interesting.
00;27;13;16 - 00;27;34;19
JP Baker
And I think that's very limiting in our entire sort of narrative about our sector and the advocacy work we do. I wish we could reframe it and talk about social benefit. And so there are sometimes I'll talk about it as the social sector in the U.K. Sometimes they'll say civil society. There's a movement to call it the third sector.
00;27;35;25 - 00;28;06;11
JP Baker
I like all of them. As long as we're not kind of reinforcing what I see as a false economic binary binary that there's for profit and nonprofit. And naturally and intuitively, people will think that for profit is somehow more productive than nonprofit, because it seems to imply no profit. So the role of money in that, and we see this sometimes, too, when we talk about government support for nonprofits.
00;28;08;02 - 00;28;40;13
JP Baker
Sometimes people will talk about handouts on an individual level or an organizational level. When they come to the corporate world, they talk about bailouts. It's a subtle sort of difference in language, but there's a lot of judgment there. And I think that, you know, the nonprofit sector is contracted by the government to deliver essential services. We don't often use the same economic metrics to measure the nonprofit sector.
00;28;41;27 - 00;29;14;13
JP Baker
Many people aren't aware of exactly how many jobs it creates or the purely economic benefit. Not to mention the social benefit, which is hard to quantify. There are attempts, there is an approach called social return on investment that uses proxy measures to try and put a dollar figure on the social benefit. But those are pretty fuzzy, not necessarily widely accepted, but I think the role of money is to enable social benefit.
00;29;14;29 - 00;29;18;10
JP Baker
And I think that's the ultimate purpose.
00;29;19;00 - 00;29;24;11
Erica Machulak
Hmm...And how do you see the role of private organizations in this ecosystem?
00;29;26;07 - 00;29;42;16
JP Baker
Private organizations can produce social benefit as well. And this is where we see a lot of crossover initiatives. We see social enterprise, for example. There's a big push for things that generate revenue and produce social benefit.
00;29;43;01 - 00;29;44;09
Erica Machulak
Can you give us some examples?
00;29;45;15 - 00;30;11;26
JP Baker
Yeah. I mean, your local thrift store that's run by maybe the hospital foundation or the Salvation Army is a social enterprise. It's producing it's selling goods to funnel those those monies into social benefit. And some of them do that by just funneling money towards a social purpose organization. Some of them do it by providing employment to people that the organization serves.
00;30;13;11 - 00;30;41;19
JP Baker
But there's even more complex social enterprises that are, in many of them, for example, in agriculture that are, say, employing people who may be difficult to employ and at the same time working the land and selling produce. These things have many benefits social, economic. And it may be easier to see them because they look like businesses.
00;30;43;01 - 00;31;14;28
JP Baker
But that said, many nonprofit organizations, more than people realize, they rely on earned revenue. They have program fees. They run events and they charge for tickets. This is very businesslike in the sense that it's their earning revenue. So not all nonprofits, you know, there's just a few myths. Sometimes we people who haven't seen the inside of nonprofits much assume that they're run on either government contracts or government grants or private foundation grants.
00;31;15;24 - 00;31;21;06
JP Baker
It's much more common for them to have earned revenue and to be functioning a little bit more like businesses.
00;31;22;28 - 00;31;38;24
Erica Machulak
Hmm...And so then what do you think is the I'm trying to think of? So you're calling it the social sector. What would you call an organization within the social sector? Would you call it a social organization instead of a nonprofit or not-for-profit?
00;31;39;07 - 00;32;10;15
JP Baker
That's a good question. I think the social sector or civil society or the third sector, I mean, there's lots of different kinds of organizations we might put into that category. You know, you'll hear the difference between nonprofit and not for profit sometimes. Not all nonprofits are charities. Charity is a status with federal regulators in both the U.S. and Canada that gives them the ability to issue tax receipts for donations.
00;32;11;17 - 00;32;49;02
JP Baker
Nonprofit societies that are not charities cannot issue tax receipts. So that broad category of social sector includes nonprofits as well as charities, but it also includes cooperatives. Which are member run organizations. It also includes social enterprise, which we mentioned, but also some community organizations that maybe don't have any legal status at all. And there are some neighborhood associations that are not incorporated, but they produce social benefit, but they don't have a legal sort of status.
00;32;49;25 - 00;32;50;07
Erica Machulak
Mm hmm.
00;32;51;08 - 00;32;53;19
Erica Machulak
And where would you put foundations in the system?
00;32;54;28 - 00;33;14;22
JP Baker
Yeah, foundations would be in there as well. And some of the foundations function as charities. So they collect monies, they issue tax receipts, and then they disburse those monies to other organizations. So there are private foundations, and then there are public foundations. So there's fuzzy lines in there.
00;33;16;00 - 00;33;48;10
Erica Machulak
One of the things that I'm interested in trying to peel back in this conversation, is this idea that people are coming out trying to drive social change. They want to find work that is, possibly lucrative, but I would say for a lot of people who have dedicated their lives to learning, finding something meaningful that is really making a difference is important as long as you're able to, live a healthy life and sustain your family and do all the things that you want to do without having to worry about your finances.
00;33;48;11 - 00;34;19;19
Erica Machulak
So for many people, the goal is to drive change in a way that is, personally and for your family and financially sustainable, but also doing good. And I suppose my question is, I think many people assume that doing good means going into the not-for-profit or social sector. How would you advise someone who's driver in their career searches to find work where they can really make a difference?
00;34;19;26 - 00;34;46;18
JP Baker
I would say that the not for profit world is a wonderful place to find meaningful work, but I wouldn't say it's the only place. And I think that the business world is a lot more open. There's a lot of young businesses and older more mature organizations too, that talk quite authentically about social impact. And this has changed a lot in the past several years.
00;34;47;08 - 00;35;19;06
JP Baker
So I don't think you need to go into not-for-profit. In the tech world, there are social startups, startup companies that have an explicitly social purpose. I mean, yes, they're designed to achieve profits as well but a part of their DNA as an organization is producing some benefit to society. So I think there are options there, and I don't think that people need to commit to a life of penury if they want to have meaning.
00;35;19;07 - 00;35;46;10
JP Baker
I don't think that's always a tradeoff. My hope is that that improves in the future as as the nonprofit world becomes more more understood and more appealing to to a lot of different people. But I think you can find meaning in in the private sector. You can find it in the nonprofit sector. You can probably find it in the government sector as well, though I have no firsthand experience there.
00;35;46;21 - 00;35;47;01
Erica Machulak
Hmm.
00;35;48;05 - 00;36;02;05
Erica Machulak
And so while we're on this topic, are there any myths that you would want to debunk about the not for profit sector or the nonprofit sector or the social sector, whatever we choose to call it?
00;36;03;16 - 00;36;41;18
JP Baker
Yeah. Where do I start? There are lots of myths, I think. One of them is there are some myths around financial mismanagement. And in my experience, the not-for-profit world is really, really good at stretching. And actually they know how to do it better than anybody. Because one of the things about not for profit funding models is there are diverse sources of revenue, but a lot of them rely on foundation or government grants or government contracts that are sometimes that are not necessarily multi-year agreements.
00;36;42;02 - 00;37;11;18
JP Baker
So a lot of nonprofits significant, they have staff or programs that depend on contracts being renewed year after year. There's a lot of uncertainty in that, and there's lots of situations where an organization doesn't get a contract renewed and suddenly entire program and some staff disappear. So there's a lot of uncertainty there. So I think there's a lot of resilience and ingenuity in nonprofit because of that uncertainty.
00;37;11;18 - 00;37;45;10
JP Baker
Still, I wouldn't want to keep that uncertainty, just inspire ingenuity. But the myths around financial mismanagement, you know, one of the things I hear, for example, is that if you donate to a charity, you're going to line the pockets of one of the charity's executives. There are examples where an organization's administrative costs or overhead or executive pay consume an unreasonable amount in the budget.
00;37;45;27 - 00;38;11;28
JP Baker
Those are not common examples. Those are anomalies. And in most cases, the people I know who work in finance and work deeply with nonprofits say that we actually need to invest more in administrative systems and overhead for nonprofits so that they can increase their impact. So, I see things about, oh, sure, 80% of what you give to United Way will go to the CEO and all those things.
00;38;12;07 - 00;38;36;09
JP Baker
A lot of those are and that's not simply not true. Accredited organizations and accredited charities are required to keep their administrative costs to certain, certain maximums. And those are not very high at all. So that's a huge myth about on the financial side of nonprofit, which I would like to see overturned.
00;38;37;11 - 00;39;01;12
Erica Machulak
And so speaking to that ingenuity and resilience piece that you mentioned that is so critical to the societal or not for profit or nonprofit sector. What do you think are some of the roles that are most valuable in this space right now? What are the skills that serve this sector best?
00;39;01;26 - 00;39;33;02
JP Baker
That's a big question, but I think that there's a lot of need for leadership skills and management skills. And I don't necessarily mean the kinds of leadership and management skills you get from an MBA program. As I mentioned, there are a lot of organizations with people in leadership positions, with arts backgrounds or academic backgrounds. They need generalist skills. In many cases creative thinking, communication and skills are an enormous one.
00;39;33;25 - 00;40;05;16
JP Baker
A lot of nonprofits are understaffed or under capacity in the communications department. For them to have people who are skilled at communication is really valuable. So those are some of the some of the skills that are important, but then also some of the strategic thinking skills. And this is where I've found a place in my work connecting ideas across domains, connecting organizations with each other.
00;40;06;07 - 00;40;11;18
JP Baker
Some of these things and these are the skills I think, that will never be automated or outsourced.
00;40;12;21 - 00;40;31;15
Erica Machulak
I think that's really helpful. So you're a consultant Working Advantage, which is a nonprofit. Maybe one question then is how would you define a consultant? Consultants can look so different. What do you see that title meaning?
00;40;33;01 - 00;41;03;18
JP Baker
That's a really good question. And I think for many years I was not completely comfortable with the word consultant because I felt that it could mean anything or nothing. I mean, also, some of my discomfort was the fact that in the business world, sometimes management consultants are not...they get a little bit of a bad rap sometimes.
00;41;04;02 - 00;41;32;11
JP Baker
And there are plenty of jokes about management consultants. And people question their usefulness. So I was a little uncomfortable with the term consultant for a long time. I'm better with it now because, I think that there are many problems that organizations face that they don't necessarily have the perspect of within their organization. They need to break through on that problem.
00;41;33;11 - 00;41;59;20
JP Baker
Sometimes they need expert opinion, and it's taken me a while to be comfortable with the idea of being and giving expert opinion. But there's different levels of consulting, so sometimes I get an engagement where all someone wants is facilitation. They're not looking for my ideas or my advice on anything. They just need me to steer a process and get them get them to a certain place.
00;42;00;22 - 00;42;37;14
JP Baker
In other cases, people want me to advise them on ways to do things. So there's really different relationships within that consulting relationship, depending on how much advice people want and how how light of a touch you're required to take. But it takes a while, to get there and to get comfortable with that. But I think that, so in the past, I often wanted to refer to myself as a facilitator because I didn't want to pretend that I could give advice on things that I wasn't intimately knowledgeable about.
00;42;39;05 - 00;42;59;25
JP Baker
But so a consultant is everything but nothing. It's basically a third party that can come in and offer you perspective or facilitation or steer you toward resources. So a lot of what I do is, I go to an organization, I talk with them about the things that they're facing, and I go out and I find the people and the resources that will help them.
00;43;00;15 - 00;43;27;19
JP Baker
So in some cases, it's not me. It's not me who's helping them. It's just connecting them with things. My work is all over the place, so in some cases, I have a client that I talk with this morning that I'm helping them on Policy development. So I meet with a group, their policy committee. I find out what the guiding principles are, that they need their their policy to sort of abide by.
00;43;28;23 - 00;43;53;16
JP Baker
I look at examples. I look at what they have already. And I draft new policy for them. And I go back to them and say, does this look like it's going to serve your purposes? How can I revise it? So that's part of consulting, too. And you can see from doing work like that, how those skills of writing, understanding ideas and connecting ideas and research are perfectly applicable.
00;43;54;28 - 00;44;22;01
Erica Machulak
That sounds like really interesting work and that makes a lot of sense. It strikes me that one of the undercurrents of consulting that you have a high level of very nuanced experience with is giving and receiving feedback. So I wonder if you might leave us with a few pointers about how to offer feedback in a constructive way, and also how to hear things that might be critical of your approach.
00;44;23;04 - 00;44;55;14
JP Baker
You know, that's it's something I've thought a lot about. I was a teacher, too. So feedback is something that we need to learn how to give and take well. And I think there's this idea of radical candor. And someone wrote a book about it, and you can Google it and find out. But basically, if you do things with a high level of directness, but also a high level of caring, you are in a space of radical candor and it produces the best outcomes.
00;44;56;17 - 00;45;19;29
JP Baker
If you deliver feedback or ideas very directly, but with a low level of caring, the outcomes are not as good. So I think that the role of empathy is really important in feedback. I'm very fortunate because I'm working with organizations that are trying to make social good in the world, and I care about them deeply.
00;45;19;29 - 00;45;50;07
JP Baker
And so I find that for me, if I give them input or feedback and it's done with a high level of caring, it's taken generally very well in some cases too. I find that my duty is not just to the egos in the room, but, and I've had conversations with consultants about who we serve. If we have, for example, someone in an organization has hired me and they really want me to advance their particular position in organization.
00;45;51;12 - 00;46;26;18
JP Baker
And there's some factionalism. The question becomes, who does the consultant serve? And what I've resolved on is that I actually serve their constitutional purpose, and it's my duty to actually help them achieve their mission, regardless of what the particular individual rules feel. There's a higher purpose there for me, and that's important. And that means that sometimes I do have to deliver kind of tough feedback, but I try and keep my eye on the fact that I'm increasing the effectiveness of the organization.
00;46;26;18 - 00;46;51;02
JP Baker
I'm increasing social good, and that's how I have to do it. But I have to do it with caring or it doesn't work and relationship is so important in those things. So I spend a lot of time in my consulting just listening before I give too much advice to anybody. In terms of accepting feedback. Again, it's not about me.
00;46;52;00 - 00;47;03;12
JP Baker
I'm there to serve and in many ways I take a very service based approach to my work. So if it helps me do that better, I'm happy to receive it.
00;47;04;01 - 00;47;10;20
Erica Machulak
So it sounds like there's a lot of resilience involved in that part of the job, too.
00;47;10;27 - 00;47;17;10
JP Baker
There is. Yeah, I work I work hard at it, so I'm keen to do a good job.
00;47;17;27 - 00;47;29;23
Erica Machulak
Good. Well, and I'm sure that you do. We're we're just about wrapping up the end of our time. Is there anything else that you would want to address? Anything I haven't asked that you would want to answer.
00;47;31;04 - 00;48;09;13
JP Baker
One of the things I think I came out of school, out of university. I think I really believed that it was all about my intellect. I felt it was about how smart I was. That's what would get me to where I wanted to go. I think I learned very quickly that that's not the case. Intellect is definitely important, but there's kinds of emotional intelligence and social intelligence that I discovered are fundamental and that I can't put my intellectual tools or parts of my brain to work unless I've built a relationship.
00;48;10;29 - 00;48;19;13
JP Baker
So that was a big eye opening thing for me. When I came into the world out of university, I didn't really realize that. So that was an important piece of learning.
00;48;20;08 - 00;48;35;18
Erica Machulak
Thank you. I think that's really insightful advice to end on. We really appreciate your time. I thank you for joining us. This was excellent. And I'm sure our listeners will get a lot of value out of hearing this conversation. So thanks. Really appreciate it.
00;48;36;09 - 00;48;39;05
JP Baker
Thank you so much, Erica.
00;48;39;09 - 00;49;05;29
Erica Machulak
We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Hikma Collective Podcast. I'm your host, Erica Machulak, writer, medievalist and founder of Hikma. The production of this episode was led by our fearless creative director, Sophia van Hees, in collaboration with Nicole Markland, Dasharah Green, Eufemia Baldassarre and Matthew Tomkinson. Matthew composed the original music you hear now in his capacity as the 2022 Hikma Artist in Residence.
00;49;07;00 - 00;49;30;26
Erica Machulak
This podcast has been made possible with generous support from Innovate B.C.,Tech Nation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. You can find show notes, links and transcripts at www.hikma.studio/podcast. Hikma is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the ən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam people.
00;49;31;25 - 00;49;45;23
Erica Machulak
We are grateful to be here and to share this space with you. Our speakers, team members and listeners are based all over the world and wherever you are listening, we encourage you to learn more about whose lands you're on.
