Laura Lang & Lauren Centrella: Finding Resiliency During Challenging Times 

Jeff Schreifels
Thank you for joining me today. No doubt. These are tough times for the non-profit community. I mean, I don't even have to go into it all you know, right? So for today's episode, I want to focus on how to remain resilient During the challenging times that we're in

We have an opportunity to get a unique perspective from two of Veritus Group's client experience leaders, Laura Lang and Lauren Centrella, who coach a number of our frontline fundraisers every day. So I feel like they will be able to give us a good perspective on how fundraisers are doing right now and also non-profit leaders. So let's welcome Lauren and Laura and get into some real talk.

All right, Lauren and Laura, thanks for joining me today.

 

Lauren Centrella
So glad to be here, Jeff. Thanks for having us.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Thanks for having us.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Awesome. So, okay. I already introduced the fact that we're living in some strange times right now, tough times, and especially in the non-profit world. And you all are working with frontline fundraisers every day and you're on the ground and you're hearing from them what's happening. You're with them, but also with non-profit leadership. So,

I think you two will give us a great perspective on what's going on. But Lauren, I want to start with you and then Laura, you can chime in after Lauren goes here. I got to keep this straight. Lauren and Laura, I mean, I know I'm to blow this somewhere. It's like. All right, Lauren, what are you hearing from fundraisers that you coach every day on how they're doing all during this uncertainty?

 

Lauren Centrella
Hahaha!

It's okay. I answer to Laura. It's fine.

Yeah, it's kind of all over the board. I work with fundraisers who their organization specifically or the type of work that they do is in the news. So not only are they hearing it and kind of getting it with uncertainty when they're at the office, when they go home and they're trying to recharge and they're seeing it in the news, they may be hearing questions from

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Lauren Centrella
family or friends. So there's that aspect of it. But I think the other side of this is that what I'm hearing from them is that the conversations that they are having with the donors themselves are incredibly powerful and uplifting right now because the donors know this is the time, right? This is, I hear you in the news and whether it is something that is

seen as maybe something that you, you in terms of public media, right, that there's talks of defunding the whole program and, you know, maybe it's not necessary. Donors are responding and saying, yes, you are necessary to my life. You are important to me. You're important to my community. And so those conversations that they are hearing with the donors are powerful. They're uplifting. you know, they hear the work that they're doing.

is making a difference. you know, those calls and those meetings can really boost some of those down feelings that they have.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, well that's good news, If donors, so in a sense you're saying donors are kind of stepping up through this time.

 

Lauren Centrella
Absolutely.

They're stepping up there, even if it's, you know, maybe I'm giving as much as I can, but I just want to call and let you know that you're doing good work. I'm seeing you and I'm hearing you. I'm talking to my friends. ⁓ You know, it's the work that you're doing in our community is important and I see it.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Laura, what are you hearing?

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Really similar to Lauren, I work with a number of food banks and some other social service non-profits. And those who have been around a while, this is not their first rodeo, with economic uncertainty or just times changing rapidly. And those that have been through it before, especially I've been hearing this from food bankers that they know that during

⁓ times of economic uncertainty or times when policies are changing that they know will have a greater effect on their clients that they're serving, ⁓ that people tend to be more generous and they're seeing that play out. ⁓ But what I've really noticed is that what I'm hearing from my fundraisers is varied because their personalities, their experience, their own cultural conditioning.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
is different, right? And so their responses are really in line with how they respond to everyday challenges. And so some of my clients are very ⁓ good at just being transparent and messaging to their donors about what's going on. And those that are communicating early and often and continuously communicate with their donors are having those great responses that Lauren talked about.

And then others are just maybe more naturally anxious or maybe they haven't gone through something like this, or perhaps their leadership is not providing clear communication or a clear plan for how the organization is going to get through this or how they're going to continue to sustain the programs that serve their clients. And so they tend to be on the more anxious side of needing reassurance and just not really knowing where the additional funding is going to

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Lauren Centrella
Yeah, you know, I want to jump in here. I think that that's exactly right, Laura, that I'm seeing that too. And one of the things that I think is interesting, work, you know, several fundraisers from the same organization, and I can, you know, hear their responses to the same meeting, same news piece, and it can be different for every single one of them. And it's

you know, what else is happening in their life? What else has they have they experienced? Have they gone through this before? And that can really make a difference in how they're feeling right now. And what support do they have internally? What are their leaders saying? Are their leaders open to hearing about their stress and their concerns? Or is it a got to get out there and raise that money? Like, let's go don't have time for it. So I think that that

plays a big part as well.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Yeah, totally agree with that.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Well, Laura, are you seeing are some of the barriers that you're encountering for remaining resilient during these challenging times? What prevents people from being able to get through this?

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
That is a big question, Jeff. And ⁓ there are so many barriers in the way for all of us, right? ⁓ In a way, these times are things that people have weathered before, economic downturns, we've certainly experienced that before. ⁓ Policy, big swings in policy, ⁓ or the threat of further policy change. Those are things that

that many people have gone through

some ways these are unprecedented times where there maybe isn't a model or a map for what is exactly happening during these times right now. So I think for me, I think it really boils down to

 

Jeff Schreifels
Okay.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
what I see as a movement toward dehumanization. I think that's what we're seeing on a large scale right now, but I also really see this in non-profit culture. It's not necessarily new, but we're seeing the effects of it right now and how it places an extra burden on non-profit staff. And the rate of burnout is

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
higher than ever. It's a serious problem in the non-profit sector. ⁓ And I think, you know, first and foremost, leaders really have to recognize the humanity of their staff, of their team. They have to understand that they are under stress and uncertainty and that they have anxiety. But I think for me, I've been in non-profit ⁓ work, fundraising and management leadership for almost 30 years now.

 

Lauren Centrella
Thank you.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
And what I have seen in those 30 years is that, you know, non-profit leaders and staff are continually asked to do more with less. And we accept that as the norm. And I strongly believe there has to be a culture shift in the non-profit sector. There recognizes that we cannot continually expect our staff to put the humanity of others

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
above their own humanity. And this is exactly what's happening and that the culture is built around in non-profits. We care so much about the missions and about the people we serve, which is wonderful. We absolutely should have that passion, but we cannot run ourselves into the ground and burn ourselves out by never taking care of ourselves and, you know, never taking a break. We cannot serve people well.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah

 

Lauren Centrella
Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
without being well-rested, well-balanced, having access to well-being. And so I really call on non-profit leadership, ⁓ including boards and especially funders. ⁓ Foundations set a lot of these ⁓ bars very high in their requirements for reporting and even for getting grants, that it really leads the culture into this place where we're asking our non-profit workers.

 

Jeff Schreifels
⁓

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
often times to work for less money, to work more hours, to care more about other people than they care about themselves. And that is just a recipe for burnout.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I was ⁓ speaking last week in Spain and I was talking kind of about this, like, what's the mission? What is our mission? And we've lost our way around. We think the mission is really the thing that we're doing to kind of save the world, that thing. But our mission is also our staff and volunteers. And we forgot that our staff are just as important. They are

 

Lauren Centrella
Yeah.

 

Jeff Schreifels
part of our mission to create an environment for them to thrive. And I said something like, so yeah, you save the world, but you burn yourself out and you hurt yourself. You hurt an individual. Like, why is that worth it? And we've kind of almost have this ethos that it's worth it to burn ourselves out and to burn our people out as long as it's helping change the world.

It's they're opposed from it. They can't be opposed. They have to both be something we do lift each other up and try to do mission and ⁓ That's a really good point

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Absolutely. I

agree 100%. I like to call it humanity first ⁓ leadership, recognizing these things. And the other thing I'd like to bring up is trauma. You know, we are asking our non-profit staff and leaders to put themselves in the way of trauma on a daily basis to help others. And we willingly go into that space and, ⁓ you know, engage because we are passionate and it's our jobs and it's our, you know, personal mission a lot.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
ways.

 

Jeff Schreifels
yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
But leadership cannot continue to put their staff in the way of trauma daily without also providing supports for that trauma and for healing, for rest, recovery. And that's not something that a lot of people are thinking about right now. And I think it's a big problem.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah

Yeah.

I know and

it's gonna it could it potentially could get worse right with You know here about with the government cutbacks and funding on all types of different types of non-profit You start to see already these non-profits cutting staff and not replacing them you know and Where's that gonna leave us, right? ⁓ So Lauren

How do you feel leaders, real good leaders, can come alongside their staff during these times? And what are some strategies so that people can actually feel heard?

 

Lauren Centrella
Yeah,

I mean, my first advice, you know, recommendation is communicate, communicate, communicate, over communicate. ⁓ You know, if you are, you can see in the horizon that there's going to be layoffs. Let people know, man, like let them let let them know that that's a possibility so that people who like can start looking for another job that they're not caught flat footed, ⁓ you know,

open the door so that you can have a town hall answer questions, even if the question is, we don't know yet. We need to get through the end of the fiscal year and see where we come out. We don't know yet. Don't be afraid to say that because I think that this kind of radical candor and openness and giving people the clarity even where it is, this is a hard decision. We don't know yet what the decision that we're making, but

We will let you know, we will give you a month's notice when this is coming, those sorts of things. think that's the biggest one. The organizations that I am working with, that the leaders are communicating, are having weekly staff meetings, they are sending out communications. Those staff, of what else is happening in their lives, are a little bit more like, okay, well.

We know what's coming, we're prepared, we're ready for it. The people whose staff or their leaders are not present, they're not answering questions are like, I don't know, you know, and that lack of communication just opens a void and, ⁓ you know, it's a vacuum and people will fill it with their own things. And you certainly don't want people who are concerned about their jobs, concerned about their colleagues' jobs out there also trying to raise money that feels panicky.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Lauren Centrella
it feels stressful. don't want the reason that somebody is giving to you is because they deeply care about your mission and the work that you are doing, not because you can't like make, you know, payments this month. ⁓ You know, you, you need your fundraisers out there communicating about that passion and the work that you're doing that is so important. They can't do it when they're stressed. ⁓ you know, so I think that that also just, it,

breeds distrust among your staff. That's not great. ⁓ And then the other thing that I think is even more relevant now in times of stress and uncertainty is celebrating the wins. ⁓ I know that that is not a natural state for a lot of people. And I'm not talking about giving everybody a participation trophy for

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Lauren Centrella
you know, showing up to work each day, but I don't know, maybe if they are going through something you can call out that they showed up to work that day. But it's not just the big things. It's not just the $100,000 gift that came in, but it's also the person who's answering the phones and is dealing with grumpy people all day or is processing the checks and they got it done faster this month than they did in a prior month. ⁓ Celebrating those wins too and celebrating them with everyone.

I think also calls, you're, are a team, you are working together. Everybody is in this together. Celebrate, celebrate with people and celebrate the big wins, but also celebrate those littler, ⁓ kind of under the radar wins, I think is, is another really good thing. You know, encourage people, get them out there.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm

hmm. Yeah. Good stuff. Laura, what about on the organizational level side of things? How organizations and what are you seeing their leaders? How are they responding to what I would say? You know, we're we're in a crisis in our society right now

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Yeah, so I'm seeing, you know, we talked about before, leaders are all different types of people and respond in different ways too. So I'm seeing a lot of leaders respond in lots of different ways. So some of the organizations I'm working with are cutting back. They're cutting back staff. They're cutting back, you know, some of their fundraisers' supports and, you know, the things that they have in place to...

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
help their fundraisers do their best job. And some of them are putting extra pressure on their fundraisers during this time. And I'm sure on their program staff as well, maybe without that added support or like Lauren said, celebrating what is going

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
others are recognizing that they have weathered these.

similar crises before and that things will be okay and that they aren't cutting the supports that are necessary for their teams to do their very best during these hard times. So it really depends and I think that you know can't expect miracles to happen when you're either providing the same or fewer supports to your team. And so it really is

kind of across the board. I mentioned before I work with several food banks and ⁓ their leadership seems to be responding in different ways. And I have a background in food banking too. And so I feel really, really lucky that really early on in my career, the leader of the food bank I worked for, who was one of the founders of Modern Food Banking, said to me, you don't cut resources or fundraisers during a downturn.

that's the last place you cut because your fundraisers need to be armed with everything they can, including like support to, you know, their wellbeing and mental health and in order to go out there and continue to walk hand in hand with donors to solve these problems. If they're not supported, if the fundraisers are stressed, then the donors can pick up on that. And we all know donors,

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

.

Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
want to give to organizations that obviously they care about their mission, but also that have a plan and are able to communicate that plan and cast a vision that allows the donor to engage with it. And some leaders, you know, have a way to go with learning that and ⁓ others are very experienced or just very talented and they're seeing it and they're living it out.

So I really think it's across the board and again, just depending on that leader's personality or their experience. And you really see it on down through the organization.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, it's it's funny because I feel like just overall from organizations that there's like three camps there's the organizations and their leaders who are retreating cutting those kind of things. There's others that are kind of waiting, you know, like they're in a holding pattern. They're not doing anything really. They're waiting to see what actually happens. And then

There's a number of organizations that are actually expanding on their fundraising like for Veritus We've had a record number of new clients Sign up for for our services in the first half of this year At the same time some of the clients are moving out that are afraid, you know, and so they're retreating it's this weird mix and you're right, it's kind of driven by

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Correct.

 

Jeff Schreifels
personalities of leaders, board, you know, and...

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Absolutely.

It's really interesting to watch just from a sociological standpoint, but it's heartbreaking for some of these organizations and their teams ⁓ that they don't have that kind of support.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, it is.

I want to like tell all the fundraisers that are in the retreating, you know, like, okay, now's your turn to find those organizations that are expanding and like are not afraid to move forward and know that their services are needed more than ever. And we've got to do this.

 

Lauren Centrella
You know.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Absolutely,

but also like can they start to ask questions of their leadership? Do they feel comfortable enough to ask like what is your plan? Why are we retreating? Why aren't we coming forward with a plan? They could you know at least move the needle a little bit by asking some questions if nobody else is asking them and sometimes that's really hard to do.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Lauren Centrella
Yeah. You know, the other thing that I don't think can be understated, we're in summer in the Northern hemisphere, right? This is a time for vacations, but it is also a stressful fraught time. And it's like, know, there's some organizations that this is the end of their fiscal year. So, you know, they're cranking for the next couple of days. There's, you know, other folks, it's the middle of the year, but

Can you get away? Can you take time? And I think what I would say is you can, I promise that you can. The world is not gonna crumble when you step away for a few days or a long weekend or a week. But I think that there are things that leaders can do to help support that. you know, one, say that people should take their vacation time. But two, that you can't just say it, right? There's a lot of...

things that happen in the background that need to continue to happen, right? Can your gift processor take their vacation time? Well, not if it's the end of the fiscal year, because they've got to close out all of those checks, but what happens after that? Who can serve as backup? Do they have backup? Should you be thinking about who can serve as backup? And then how do you help that person, the person who took on another load of work for a week?

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Lauren Centrella
You know, could you give them an extra comp day? Could you be a little bit creative in some of this? You know, there's the vacation time, but in this time when, you know, maybe money, you can't give bonuses, you can't give an extra, you know, set of things here. Could you give some extra time? Time is money is value is compensation. Are there ways that you can be creative to help encourage people to take the time off, but also help the people who are

helping those people take the time off, encourage them to do that work too. Because I think that that's also part of it. You don't want to burden your colleagues. You don't want to leave your donors in the lurch. Who's going to be the person who answers the phone? Help them think through those steps so that they can step away, take a week off, really know that they can rest, recharge, not have to look at emails. Don't send them a text message in the middle of their vacation.

Like really let them step back. And I think that that is incumbent on a leader to know that, be aware of that and really help their staff get there. You can't disappear for the summer and expect them to all take on your work. You've got to help them take the time off too.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Yeah, that's such a great point. think, you know, organizational culture and leadership, you have to cast a big vision and set policy to support it. But it's also in those little everyday things like you're talking about, Lauren, like make sure your managers, your supervisors are talking to their staff about taking time off, that they're monitoring the fact.

of whether or not they're actually taking off. ⁓ you know, it's been a common kind of thing in non-profits that we kind of get proud sometimes about how much PTO we've banked and not used, and that needs to absolutely stop. ⁓ If you're thinking from a humanity first perspective, then you must ensure that your employees are taking time off and that you have mental health days. ⁓

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm. Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
baked into your culture and your policy. ⁓ Because otherwise you're ignoring the humanity of your employees. And that is not the way forward.

 

Jeff Schreifels
you

Yeah.

Yeah.

 

Lauren Centrella
those

vacation days, that is a soapbox as a leader that like that is part of your compensation in the US like that is part of your compensation package. Do not let that company that organization even if they are doing the best work in the world, do not let them not pay you your full amount and vacation time is part of your compensation. Take it, take it, take it, take it.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Absolutely.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Our bodies

are not designed to work 365 days a year. So again, like, it's not just important, it's critical, it's foundational now in these times and to move forward, building the kind of world that we all want to build. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this work. ⁓ That you should not have any jobs at your organization. You should not allow it as a leader.

 

Lauren Centrella
Yes.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah.

I tell you, yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
that that person cannot take a week off during any time of the year. It's not okay. You are ignoring their humanity. You are telling them they don't deserve time off at the same rate or at the ⁓ same level of accessibility as their coworkers.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Yeah,

I feel like our European colleagues got this down a lot better. I mean, I was there for a week. I went to two separate conference, one in Italy and one in Spain. I tell you, even at the conference, it's like chill vibe at lunch. They take two hours for lunch. They serve wine at lunch.

Like this is during the conference I've never seen anything like it and everyone was just Interacting having a great times having this converse conversations, but it was so much more relaxed And I've the afternoon sessions were great, even though they were drinking wine at lunch I was like I feel like these folks have got this that we we're missing something here like Europe understands like August

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
That was hilarious.

 

Lauren Centrella
That's why they were great.

 

Jeff Schreifels
They're all gone. No one's working in August. And sometimes I'm like, come on, we gotta do something. But you know, actually, it's not a bad idea. They come in knowing September is when they come back and they're like ready to go, right? So there's something to learn there. Gosh, I'll tell you, I wish we could learn from that. All right.

 

Lauren Centrella
Yep.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
after a good long rest and rejuvenation. Yeah. I think it is ⁓ upon us, it is our responsibility as leaders, as coaches to break through this culture of productivity that we've lived under for so many decades now in America. ⁓ It is incumbent upon us to show the way towards wellbeing and towards

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
us all being able to experience our full humanity and have meaningful work at the same time. We should demand, we should not take less. I am on my soapbox now, but ⁓ I'm just like, wrap it up.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Yeah.

Laura's gonna go home. She's got her sign. She's ready to go to work. I love it.

Now, I want to know from both of you, like what are some things that the two of you do personally to help coach effectively people who are under a lot of stress? you taught your, you know, major gift officers are and mid-level officers a lot, most of the time seem to be under a lot of stress, you know. So what are some of the things that you help them with?

that our folks can learn from here.

 

Lauren Centrella
I mean, planning, the short-term pain for the long-term gain on this is like where I stress deeply, deeply, you know, it is, it is an ad, take an admin week, get everything planned out for the year, but then maybe for the next three months, right? Or for the next two months, if you're towards the end of the year, but get all of that planned So then all you have to do is execute.

You don't have to think about it. can, you, you're just going in and you're, you're looking, you're checking your, know, whether you've got it scheduled on your outlook calendar or you're using our DEP for your touch point planning, like just execute on that with that planning that I think is probably one of the biggest things that I see. And the fundraisers that I coach that have done that work in their busy seasons, whether that's end of calendar year or some other time are like,

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Lauren Centrella
my goodness, I am so glad that all I have to do is this work and I don't have to think about the work that I'm going to do. I don't have to go through that. I mean, I think so I think that that's probably one of the biggest things. But then the other is is having them slow down. ⁓ You know, there's there's always this frantic pace. I'm so busy. I got to go do the things and I've got to call this donor and send this email and it's like, wait, wait, wait. What are you going to say?

 

Jeff Schreifels
you

That's it.

 

Lauren Centrella
with this donor? I get that you're gonna email them, to what end? What are you gonna put in that email? What's the motivation for this? What are you trying to learn? Where is this going? Let's take a second and really make this thoughtful. Did you think about including this other thing? I heard that you said that this donor really likes this aspect of your work, and you just told me last week that there's gonna be a big update. Do you need to send that email now, or can you wait a week?

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Yeah.

 

Lauren Centrella
Can you, you know, and so it's this like giving them a second to pause and plan and think and be strategic, which really then helps them, think, come out of, you know, our 45 minutes together with their action items, their plan to move forward and then have that ability to breathe a little bit.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Yeah, I agree with all of that, Lauren. And I think for me, when I start with a new client or new fundraisers, I just try to start planting seeds as I'm teaching them the baritous way and coaching them through implementing it. I just plant seeds and remind them of their own humanity. I and that it's really their highest should be their highest priority. So make sure they're at their best so that they can give others their best.

I remind them to rest, to take breaks, to go outside, get up from the computer. You know, some of our fundraisers are making phone calls to donors all day long, or they're planning for a big meeting the next day or the next week. They're busy and they have a lot going on. ⁓ So just reminding them to take breaks and do things to like remember that they have a body and that their body has needs.

I mean, it's as basic as that in the beginning, but also like Lauren was saying, coaching them to the plan and coaching them through executing it is what works. Even like that's the secret, right? That's a secret during uncertain times. That's the secret every day, whether things are going great or whether they're really uncertain and rocky. have a team right now that has been

 

Jeff Schreifels
I'm not good.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
I think with their just two years now and they have been putting their plans in place. They're all all major gift officers and they have planned and executed all year long in their fiscal year in Saturday. And so even though they are a team at an organization that has already experienced funding cuts and there's talk of more funding cuts and more policy change to affect the clients that they serve, they have

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm. ⁓

 

Lauren Centrella
Thank

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, I love them.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
clients is to stay with your donors if they do decrease their giving. Don't put them to the side. You have to continue to engage them and have the same kind of relationship that you had with them before. You know, perhaps they had, you know, some of the economic downturn affected their own portfolios or their own ability to give.

 

Lauren Centrella
Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You're right. mean, acknowledge their own humanity. These donors want to give and if they have to reduce, if they have to reduce their giving, they're not going to feel great about that. You know, so yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Exactly. They don't care less right now. They care more.

And you can't go silent on them. That's the worst

thing you can do. then another thing is something Jeff that I've heard you say time and time again that has really stuck with me is never assume anything on behalf of your donors. Never assume their economic situation. You don't know. Don't, you know, hesitate to ask them during this time. Don't hesitate to ask them to increase their giving during this time.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yes.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
They know their situation and they will tell you whether they can do what you've asked or not. Don't limit your own thinking and your own vision for what they can do to help execute your mission.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yes. Yes.

That's really good. Now I want to ask you, what about for you two personally, what do you do to alleviate stress? What are some practices that you personally do that maybe those that are listening can glean from?

 

Lauren Centrella
taking summer Fridays. So I'm holding my afternoons on Friday ⁓ for me to do whatever it is, which may be absolutely nothing. The other thing that I did and this was, you know, early on, but ⁓ I have I've limited my scrolling, right? Like I have my Instagram so that it says, ⁓ you've been on for 15 minutes time to turn it off. And it's just a good like

 

Jeff Schreifels
What's this?

 

Lauren Centrella
I'm not going to miss anything. It's the internet. It'll still be there or it won't and it'll be fine. ⁓ Just being really mindful of how I'm using my time and the time that I am giving to other entities, things, my attention is worth good things and it should go towards good things.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
I love that. That's so important. I am so I'm a former workaholic. I'm a recovering workaholic. ⁓ I am the you know, I was part of the culture that I'm now, you know, trying to change. And I hit burnout about three and a half years ago and, you know, really significant burnout. And I ended up thanks to a wonderful board and some

some great colleagues who were really supportive of me, I was given a sabbatical. And that's another hill I will die on. That needs to be written into every non-profit's policy. ⁓ I was able to take a sabbatical for two months, and that saved my life, literally. ⁓ And it also allowed me to step back and really think long and hard about how I had been

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
showing up in my work and how I had been modeling that for others. At the time I was a CEO of a non-profit and I had been building in ⁓ policies that I felt were much more forward thinking and more humanity first. ⁓ As we grew the organization, but I realized when I hit burnout and you know, after I was recovering that

had not actually been modeling those practices. So I was continuing to work too much and not take time off while I was putting policies in place so my staff could do those things. And so I only got half the picture, right? Like you have to model this and you have to live it out yourself. Otherwise, your team's not gonna believe in it either. Or they're gonna think, you.

 

Lauren Centrella
and

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mmm.

That's it.

Yeah, yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
say you want me to do this, but you're not doing it. So if I do it, I don't really feel comfortable that I won't get reprimanded or something like that. So that was a huge lesson for me. And because it was a significant burnout and my recovery took a number of months and ⁓ I'm still learning every day, of course we all are, but I don't work Mondays. I don't work Friday afternoons. I have built my work schedule to be flexible.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
I, because I'm a consultant, can, I can have that flexibility, but it's something that I worked hard toward for about four years to put myself in a place where I could have the kind of work life and lifestyle and that balance, ⁓ to be able to not just survive, which I was doing, you know, barely doing at that point of burnout, but to really thrive and have lived my best life.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
And so that's part of what I do. I also do a lot of breathing exercises. I've found those to be tremendously helpful. And even, you know, especially when I still had a full-time non-profit job, ⁓ learning to take little breaks, micro breaks throughout the day, breathe, notice your body. Does your body have needs? What are you feeling in your body? Just those kinds of simple things.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
take a lot of practice and a lot of reminding. So that's something that I continue to do. I do yoga a few times a week. That really helps me stretch and breathe and just take some time to not think about the busy world and what all is going on. ⁓ And then I think my way of showing up in the workplace has a lot more to do with connection. Now,

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
than productivity. And I'm finding that if you pay attention to connection and relationships, then you will be more successful. That was kind of a mantra that I accidentally discovered and developed in my CEO role is we put relationships over results. And some of my team was like, what are you talking about? I have never heard a leader say this.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
I don't believe you. We've got federal grants. We've got to report these outcomes. And I just kept saying it kept saying it. And then it became part of our culture. And they saw how important that was and how much better results they got when they had relationships and they engaged and communicated with their teammates or with their partner organizations. And of course, that's exactly what we teach in fundraising at Veritus.

 

Lauren Centrella
Mm-hmm.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
is it's all about the relationships. It's all about connection. And I have found that that makes a huge difference in the way I'm able to show up at work. I'm able to show up with vulnerability. I'll tell my clients on a call, like, hi, it's great to see you. ⁓ I'm about at 30 % today, but I wanted to show up for you. I'm here for you, but I'm struggling a little bit. So if I'm not as quick on the uptake, I just wanted to let you know. And then they, of course, they're like,

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
I totally understand. had a day like that last week and blah, blah, blah. So and so was there for me. It's a lot of times it's the small things, but it's not easy to implement the small regular daily consistent practices that result in resilience.

 

Jeff Schreifels
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Thank you so much for that. That was that was awesome. And Lauren, Laura, thank you for joining me on today. This is a great conversation and I hope people listening really can take this in. ⁓

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Sure.

 

Lauren Centrella
This is good.

 

Jeff Schreifels
This could be revolutionary if people actually I go back to what you said, you know around humanity, you know and Do we see each other? Do we show up for one another? And how are we doing that? ⁓ So thank you for that and for all those that are listening today Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time

 

Laura Lang (she/her)
Thank you, Jeff.