This conversation digs into some of the fundamentals regarding our own assumptions about what things should look like for marketing and business, how those tropes got created, and offer a vision for what can be when we reassess what’s important. There’s a lot of hype around bringing marketing to the masses, and our guest Lindsay unpicks the inefficiencies and false narratives that make common approaches counterproductive and costly. This is a conversation about humans and how meeting human needs where they’re at is a scalable approach to bringing more successful outcomes and mitigating externalities that get in the way of genuine connection. Episode Show Notes

This episode is as much a Coda to some of the discussions we’ve been having throughout 2022. It is perhaps an opportunity to change the narrative and set a new course for how we engage with the impact economy as businesses and technology leaders. We also announce some exciting news: Tim has officially launched thehumanstack.com as the outcome of work that has taken place over the past four years. Travels, connections, trust building, mentorship, and the value of constantly iterating our thinking are the themes of this discussion. Along the way, we make a bookmark for a future episode called “Tim and Tracy Tell All The Stories.” Tell us what resonates with you on this one because we’re trying to tackle some big themes in the context of what feels like a constant crisis happening around us. Enjoy!

Tim and Tracy take a deep dive into an uncomfortable place regarding the technology industry's externalities and how they are addressed.  This is a conversation about what drives us apart as much as what brings us together and what it means to have a shared value system, guidelines, and parameters of use.  This episode is for the dreamers and thinkers - industry leaders, nonprofit executives, leaders of reconciliation on the Left and Right, and those who want to create a third pillar of understanding how the impact economy works with technology.  Suppose we're willing to accept that we are lost without creating mechanisms that identify and remediate these externalities. In that case, the challenge becomes what the shared definitions and means that can be equitably and inclusively established are.   Episode Show Notes

Listen to this episode to learn how data can be shaped toward human dignity. It’s easy to get bogged down in abstraction when it comes to understanding the importance of data in our world. What we collect informs what we accelerate and act upon, and unless what we collect inclusively represents our humanity, what we accelerate will continue to exclude. Our guest Meena Das walks us through a tactical series of connections that will better inform our data collection mechanisms and lead to greater impact and empowerment for humanity. The most important takeaway from today’s discussion is that what moves us towards better outcomes isn’t rooted in performative or feel-good intentions but requires us to return to our roots of connection with each other, first and foremost. Otherwise, everything else built on top of our data collection, including artificial intelligence and public policy, will remain part of the enforcement of power and privilege rather than democratizing the same. Episode Show Notes

You’ll learn so much from our guest today, including that civic association was built on volunteerism, that there are nearly forty thousand nonprofit technology organizations, and how important the makers of this space are. This episode connects a history of movement organizing with the world of information technology. We talk with Billy about his groundbreaking work navigating the local, ad-hoc, democratized, and unseen work of technology makers with the global need for infrastructure and support. Billy’s history uniquely positions him as a leader in bringing to light what it means to be in service to the impact economy with technology instead of being in service to technology as consumers. Along the way, we also talk about how polarization has crept into technology and the need for breaking down barriers to dialogue - which are frequently erected when technology is created to stimulate addition, gamification, and reward ever-divergent narratives.

Digital security has always been something that nonprofits and the greater impact economy need to consider – as the world of technology has grown and evolved, so has the need for organizations to consider the why, how, and where of their data.  More importantly, what it means for the constituents they serve.  This discussion is both eye-opening and for everyone in nonprofit leadership who needs to understand these evolving needs.  However, the most important thing for us all to understand is that we can no longer live in a reactive space, and there are attainable, understandable means by which this can become proactive and beneficial.  We’re joined today by Joshua Peskay and Kim Snyder from RoundTable Technology for a discussion on making these shifts across the impact economy.  Episode Show Notes

Tim Lockie and Tracy Kronzak are in Puerto Rico with Aimee Cubbage, Founder, and Principal of Cubbage Consulting. Episode Show Notes

Episode Show Notes

Episode Show Notes

Our first ever LIVE episode of Why IT Matters with keynote speaker Woodrow Rosenbaum, Chief Data Officer at GivingTuesday.org. Episode Show Notes

This episode will remind you that incredible people are out there putting their intelligence towards making it as simple to give to a nonprofit as it is to checkout with Apple Pay. Our time with Tina covers a lot of philosophical and practical ground, and what ties it all together is the understanding that as leaders and business professionals, especially those serving the impact economy, we will elevate each other more when our values and actions focus on meeting each other where we’re at.  It’s really easy to look at things like DEI, business ownership, software development, and cryptocurrency – all topics we cover – as siloed from each other.  But, the real lesson we take away from our time with Tina is that it’s the connections between these that will strengthen both our purpose and our goals. Episode Show Notes

Change is constant and in our recent history, the changes have been grand and rapid. Like all things, Why IT Matters has also been going through a transformation, and this special edition episode goes into the recent changes with Why IT Matters, the podcast, and your awesome host Tracy. Episode Show Notes

Humans are not technology, and our behavior governs success as much as the actual palette of tools available to us.  After over a decade of trying to understand the importance of helping humans navigate change, we discuss the need for a diagnostic, our diagnostic framework, and the fit of humans to technology. Our conversation begins with the context in which digital transformation takes place, and why we can’t ignore systemic inequities, but then dives deep into helping this land for individual organizations. Tim and Tracy also talk about their weeks and what they’re on about as a way of leading into why connecting, being generative leaders, and learning how to lean on others is critical to any success. Episode Show Notes

For nonprofits and the impact economy, technology is everything. But how we’ve come to expect it to show up as business leaders, nonprofit consumers, and philanthropic givers needs to be completely inverted. This is a conversation that picks apart from top to bottom why and how we can center our actions on humans and lead with values. Moreover, we cover why leading with values is becoming increasingly important for the next generation of nonprofit leaders, and the effects it produces when connected to marketing, transformation, and implementation. If you’re a giver, a business leader, or an application developer, this is a conversation not to miss, because, if you’re not leading with value and humanity first, you’re missing out. Episode Shownotes

Bitcoin, crypto, blockchain, and many other terms have flooded our conversation space over the years and most recently began to get traction in the impact economy world. For nonprofits, it is no surprise that when individuals want to donate, they will do anything in their power to be able to accept those funds. But what happens when those funds are no longer good ol’ cash? Tim Lockie and Tracy Kronzak are joined by Justin Edelstein, Co-Founder at Arkus, and begin to chip away at what this new world means. This episode is meant to inspire you to get curious, understand the potential of blockchain, and most of all, take a small first step in exploring this digital world that is quickly on its way to changing how we view the nature of technology and our personal “digital” imprint in this space. Episode Shownotes

Tim Lockie and Tracy Kronzak take on the mythology of technology as it should work for impact organizations and the realities of why it doesn’t.  In their first one-on-one conversation, they explore how the mythos of technology failure is supported by wide-scale marketing to under-resourced organizations, what changed both of their perspectives on their work, and why Now IT Matters as a business is now working the way it does.  This is for leaders looking for new ways of engaging with the clients they serve, and an informed take on the journey making these changes as a business engenders (spoiler: it’s a complete rebuild).  Tune in for a professional “Why IT Matters,” as part of a series we hope to offer that lets you take advantage of our understanding of the ways in which the technology world is changing. Episode Shownotes

There are moments when we wring our hands together and ask, “What can be done?” When it comes to the events of the past six weeks, much of America has been asked to understand a new reality regarding our assumptions about Eastern Europe, and Ukraine in particular. This episode is for those who want to know what to do: we cover not just Ukraine, but the culture of “giving a damn,” and where it will take us as leaders, business owners, mentors, and volunteers. We’re tapping into Alesia’s lived experience to not only discuss how to be better business people serving impact organizations, but how to be stronger mentors to each other, and translate that communal experience into times of crisis like Ukraine is experiencing. This is very much an education in Eastern Europe wrapped in a bow of how we enable others to succeed. Episode Shownotes

We talked with Mallory Erickson, the tour-de-force behind What The Fundraising podcast and creator of the Power Partners Formula™, about the similarities between the isolated fundraiser and the isolated technologist at nonprofits. Spoiler alert: it’s all about the stigma associated with having highly-refined pieces of knowledge that create dependencies that aren’t entirely accounted for in how nonprofits operate and develop their culture and strategy.  We uncover her “ah-ha” moment of breaking the silence of how nonprofit fundraisers feel about the work they’re doing, their fears and goals, and the journey it set her on that led to her business.  This episode is a conversation about how we react to the work we’re doing and what it leads us to bring to the work itself: Mallory helps leaders unpick these reactions and assumptions and develop positive outcomes for their organizations.  We also talked about the net effect of philanthropic and evaluative organizations that categorize nonprofit operations on how fundraisers (and technologists) approach their work and what are considered successful outcomes. Notably, how the “business as usual” we’ve been conditioned to expect is no longer serving us.  Ending The Stigma is a must-listen conversation for fundraising and technology executives, organization leaders, and business partners that help the impact economy. Episode Shownotes

Industry executives and leaders got together for a groundbreaking discussion on how the definition of CRM is changing for nonprofits, and how the current landscape of tools and strategies available to nonprofits is rising to meet new opportunities and expectations. Why IT Matters brought together a panel to reframe the common understanding of CRM as a single tool investment and challenged assumptions regarding what is possible with today’s purpose-built and highly-integrated cloud technologies, especially alongside cloud infrastructure platforms. The panel also talked about how data platforms and technologies serving nonprofits can work together better and drive shared impact and efficiency for the benefit of all organizations. The panelists: Gabe Cooper - Virtuous Julia Ford - HubSpot Tim Sarrantonio - NeonOne Tim Lockie - Why IT Matters Tracy Kronzak - Why IT Matters Here’s what was covered: What is the new definition CRM and why does it matter to nonprofits and the impact economy? In a future of non-platform solutions what does this look like for everyday nonprofit staff? What does this mean for CRM Business structures, and what does it mean for business partnerships? How is your company building toward this future, what are the strategy and technology components? What are you doing differently? What does customer success look like? What does customer failure look like? How do we identify and prevent unneeded technology implementations? What’s the impact of emerging global technology innovation? How connected is global (and corporate) innovation trends spur nonprofit innovation trends? What roles and actions should nonprofits take to own the innovation of the technology designed for them? How do we ensure ownership of nonprofit data and its portability in our work? How do we elevate POC and women-owned businesses that are emerging and looking for business partners and opportunities?

Episode 2 is one of the most honest conversations we’ve had about creating authentic, supportive, and safe workplaces we’ve ever had.  It’s one thing to say that a company is “family” and supports staff from diverse backgrounds, and it’s quite another to look through the eyes of Christine Priester at how these intentions land and the outcomes they produce on a person.  Christine discusses how she “turned her pain into power,” and the tactical components of what she’s felt were most supportive by the organizations that employ her in her career.  In Christine’s case, this was walking through the journey of leaving behind her experience with human trafficking, what she needed for true support in the workplace, and where businesses can learn better to support others like her – and more importantly, reframing broad brushstrokes of intention towards diversity, equity and inclusion efforts towards specific actions.  Here’s the bottom line: unless individuals can see themselves in your organization and their experience, they’re not being supported.  The rest of the conversation is what, from her own experience, Christine needed to be seen and supported in her career and community and the humility and approachability of others necessary to facilitate it.   Christine’s Go-Fund-MeNational Survivor NetworkPolaris Project Episode Shownotes