What to do when Taylor Swift calls

Lee Wochner: 
If you’re enjoying the podcast, please tap the follow or like button on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening. It helps other nonprofit leaders find us, and it reminds you when there’s a new episode. Thank you, and thanks for joining us. 

Imagine a publicist calling to say Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are giving your nonprofit two million dollars. All they need is your wire instructions, your banking information. Would you believe it, or assume it was a scam? 

That happened to today’s guest, Janice Weinman, CEO of Education Through Music, which brings music education to 20,000 students a week in under-resourced New York City schools. 

The call was a surprise, but the gift wasn’t luck. ETM had done the work and built the right relationships. Janice traces the gift back to people who knew ETM’s work, had indirect ties to Taylor Swift, and spoke up for ETM when it counted. 

Who in your circle could do that for you? 

You don’t need a superstar to make this work. Janice shares everyday habits that make ETM the kind of nonprofit people speak up for, from bringing donors into classrooms to turning artists into ambassadors. You can do these things too. 

If you want to set the table for big donors to find you, this episode is for you, right now, on How to Market Your Nonprofit. 

Jaclyn Uloth: 

Welcome to How to Market Your Nonprofit, the Counterintuity podcast featuring interviews with experts in marketing, fundraising, strategy, and leadership who offer how-tos and inspiration about how you can help your nonprofit succeed and grow during a time of chaos and change. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience in marketing, strategy, and nonprofit management, here’s our host, Lee Wochner. 

Lee Wochner: 

Janice, it’s great having you today. I am really excited to talk to you about a whole bunch of things that fly out of your incredible history of making sure kids in underserved communities get music education, working on arts policy, so many other things. Thanks again for giving us some of your time today. 

Janice Weinman: 

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Lee Wochner: 

So I’ll tell you I grew up in a family where one had to study music. That was a dictum from my mother. So my eldest brother studied accordion and accordion. My next brother studied accordion and piano, my sister did piano and I did piano and clarinet. 

Janice Weinman: 

Unbelievable. That is really unusual. Very unusual. 

Lee Wochner: 

Yeah. Well, good parenting and my mother was a driven person. So and you I’ve always been interested in social change, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody with such a resume as this. I mean a Juilliard-trained pianist, a master’s and doctorate from Harvard, leadership roles in the Carter and Clinton administrations. CEO of non several nonprofits. How did you go from the piano bench to education policy? 

Janice Weinman: 

So I played the piano for ten years when I was in Juilliard. I started very young. I had intended initially to be a concert pianist, but when you’re a Juilliard you really have to be number one in order to be able to represent your field and your institution. I loved it, but I didn’t think that I would ever really materialize as a concert pianist. And I pursued other fields and I pursued political science and sociology when I got to college and I felt that I could make a more of a community, more of a broader impact by going into some of the fields that I did education, sociology, political science. Because when you’re playing the piano it’s really in a way just one person communicating to somebody else. Admittedly at a concert there are many people, but you’re really communicating to one person. When you do education, you are really influencing so many more people. And it’s really it’s education’s a lifeline for people. And so I felt this was something I really wanted to do. 

Lee Wochner: 

I love your idea that piano communicates with one person even when there’s a symphony. And you know, I’m a big fan of Glenn Gould. And when I’m driving around and listening to something, let’s say the classical music station, and other music comes on, I can hear that it’s Glenn Gould before they say later it was Glenn Gould. There’s something special he’s bringing to that, and I don’t even think I could tell you what it is. 

Janice Weinman: 

Wow. 

Janice Weinman: 

That’s very interesting because once you get used to a particular genre or a particular artist or a particular composer, you really kind become attracted to that and you can really carry it through life as something that you really you know, deal with. 

Lee Wochner: 

Music has been a huge part of my life. And, you know, just to throw this out there, I can also always hear Brian Eno, who of course is just a producer. And I’m like, I think this is produced by Brian Eno. And then indeed, it turns out it was produced by Brian Eno. and there’s something about I’ve devoted so much of my career to the arts, there’s something about music that just infuses and informs people. So you’re connecting it to education in a way doesn’t surprise me. 

Janice Weinman: 

Well, I think music is so empowering. That’s I know that’s an overused word, but it is so empowering. It makes people feel good. It motivates people to really do better because people hear something that is energizing. They hear something that’s uplifting. They hear something that brings their emotions out. We always say it’s like a voice inside of a person and being able to express it is really expressing your inner voice. So I think that it’s very, very much something that empowers people. And look, from the very beginning people always sang or they always no matter where they were, they always had a tune that they would whistle or that they would hum throughout the world, throughout all times. So there must be something about music that people are drawn to and that really kind of comforts them as well. 

Lee Wochner: 

So now you are CEO of Education Through Music, which I really want to dig into here. Can you tell us what Education Through Music does? 

Janice Weinman: 

Sure. Education through music is really a unique organization. And when I say that I’m really not overstating. We provide music education K through twelve to underserved students in New York City public schools. We reach around twenty thousand students every week. But the thing about education through music is we provide this as a core subject. We don’t just come into the school and pr as artists and have students you know watch performers or hear performers, we are embedded in the school. And we are so much embedded in the school that it becomes part of the climate of the school. So we teach every aspect of music, every genre, every harmony, rhythm, everything that is involved with music. We draw from different cultures so that students can identify with the music that they learn. And it is really and then they perform. 

They can either perform in a choir or in a band or in an orchestra. And that really gives them the tangible part of understanding how music is formed, how it is performed, and how they’re part of that. 

Lee Wochner: 

That’s incredible. I mean I studied music in grade school and high school and then in college as well. And every phase of that really affected me. So how does a school become a partner? What’s the process? 

Janice Weinman: 

We only go to schools that are under cer resource schools, Title I schools that have a certain level of poverty rate. And we approach them. in many cases because we’ve been in the school system for thirty five years, school principals will refer us to other schools. We meet with the principal of the school who is our partner and we call our schools partner schools because they are a Department of Education schools. We hire the teacher, we place the teacher. And we are it’s by really by word of mouth that within school districts, one principal will tell the other about the services we perform and the impact that it has on their students. And that’s how we get additional schools that we work 

Lee Wochner: 

Is there a cost to the school to participate? 

Janice Weinman: 

Yes, but the cost to the school is one third of what they would have to pay generally if they had a music teacher, because we pay two thirds of the cost. We provide the teacher, we provide curriculum, we provide a hundred hours of teacher professional development a year. So for one third of the cost of what they would have to pay, they are getting all of those three things. 

Lee Wochner: 

So and how long have you been doing this at with education through music? Awesome. And and what have been some of the impacts on students, on teachers, on on schools? 

Janice Weinman: 

I’ve been doing it for five years. 

Janice Weinman: 

That’s remarkable. We feel very strongly that we need to evaluate the impact because, first of all, there are two types of evaluation that we do. We do the evaluation of our processes and we do the evaluation of our the outcomes. How do students do as a result of our program? And the outcomes are remarkable. So we have students if who have excelled in language arts. In mathematics and school attendance, which is such an important thing, far beyond their peers in comparable schools in their local districts. They do so many percentage points over over over ten percent better than their than their comparable s students. 

Lee Wochner: 

And why do you think that is? 

Janice Weinman: 

I think because many reasons. I think number one, they’re motivated. I think number two they learn to be disciplined and that carries over to their academic. I think that they are self-confidence when they see that they can either play or an instrument or have their voices heard. I think what’s also important to share is that not only in the academics do we see an impact, but we see a very, very big impact in their social and emotional development. 

Their ability to focus, their ability to share, because they’re in group settings, their ability to also on the other end of the spectrum, to be independent and to exert some of their own creativity, their own interests. and it is really has a broad based impact on what happens to students when they take music. 

Lee Wochner: 

You know, we always talk about the connection between arts and I’m sorry, between sports and positive impacts. You learn confidence, as you said, you learn how to work with the team, you learn how to be results oriented, hopefully you learn some character and values. And I don’t think we tie it enough to the arts, which you just did, saying that you get similar impacts and perhaps even more by studying music. 

Janice Weinman: 

I think that sports is a very much of an American phenomenon. I think the arts has never been as prevalent a part of the lives of the American people. So I think they see it as an add-on or a luxury. We believe very strongly that it should be neither because it’s the students who come from low income families, black and brown students who are in in communities that don’t have exposure to this, who need music education probably more than anybody else. 

Because it gives them the ability to express themselves. And once you express yourself, you really build that confidence as you mentioned that allows you to succeed in life and therefore is really an important thing. 

Lee Wochner: 

It’s interesting, you know, you bring up in the United States this kind of paucity of cultural interest in the arts over the years. And one of the things I’ve I have a big background in the theater, and I’m a playwright and stage director. And one of the things I think about is we don’t really have a big theatrical tradition in the United States. Our performing arts tradition for comedy and drama was either vaudeville. 

Which was f later, or the circus. The circus has had elements of that. But in terms of how you compare it against Europe, we don’t really have that. And we don’t have we don’t have a great history of drawing room chamber orchestras or such. These things have come along a lot more recently. So to take your point, I think I’m kind of swimming around the public policy aspect. We’ve made the connection with sports. 

But we’ve not drawn a strong enough connection to music as an example. 

Janice Weinman: 

Well, I think sports is very much of a national a national thing. teams that people get behind. That’s harder to do in music or the arts. It’s so much more of an individual experience. And it’s not so much of a opportunity to really get excited, to get mobilized, to get you know, it’s a very different experience. It’s more introverted than it is extroverted. 

Lee Wochner: 

So I think you’ve touched on the benefits of music education and it it kind of pains me that we have to have to define that, right, for people because I would hope it would be self-evident, but I guess it isn’t. So essentially what you’re saying is cognitive development, academic success, personal growth. it there’s a benefit for families and the wider school community. And do you have a do you have a further general thought about why it’s important to fund music education? 

Janice Weinman: 

I think I think and this may sound somewhat trite. I think it brings joy to the kids’ lives. You know, that’s something that people really don’t experience when they’re in school. We have had children who tell us they come to school because they f love coming to school on days where they have music because they really enjoy it. We have testimonies, we have videos, we really see them flourish, we see them we see them be happy and that may be a very small element of what people care for or strive towards, but to the degree that we can in we can build infuse that in a child’s experience while they are learning, I think it brings a it makes a real big difference. 

Lee Wochner: 

Thank you for making a pitch for joy. We all need more joy. And I think you are absolutely right. So good for you. 

Janice Weinman: 

Yeah. Thank you. And I see it. I wish I wish you were here in New York. I’d take you to a school. You I’d show you these kids. They just they just are so proud of themselves. And that is something that that most kids don’t get. 

Lee Wochner: 

You know, the next time I’m coming to New York, which I go two or three times a year, I may take you up on that. I would like to see that. 

Janice Weinman: 

That would be great. We would love it. 

Lee Wochner: 

Let’s talk about marketing for a little bit. Okay. So how do you and Education Through Music approach marketing? 

Janice Weinman: 

We use multiple forms of marketing and at the root of our marketing is really the kids themselves. So we’re on social media, we have a website, we use our email, we do a number of things that in and we also have interviews that we conduct with our artists or with our school principals. But what we try to do in our marketing is to show the face of everybody who participates in this program. 

The students, the teachers, the principals, even our board members are part of our marketing effort. And which is good because many of them have been musicians and here they are at JP Morgan or they’re at some high level financial services company or real estate. And yet when they speak about the effect of music in their lives, it’s also a catalyst to other, a stimulus to other people to see that, you know, music can contribute to the long term success of the way people perform people live their lives. 

Lee Wochner: 

So when you say social media, who who is your who’s your target audience? Who is who is the person who’s gonna get you into that school? Is it the kids or is it the parents? 

Janice Weinman: 

Well I have to be very honest. Our target audience is well it’s a community largely writ, but it’s also our donors. So I would be I would not be I would not be transparent if I didn’t say that. Every nonprofit has to survive on the contributions that are made by different sources of funding. Sources of funding for the arts have declined under this current administration. 

There are very different priorities now and from foundations, from individuals. So sometimes our pitch in our marketing is about the need to be supported so that we can continue the services that we provide. And we do segment our we segment our marketing. We segment to different types of audiences so that we really can target the people that we are talking to and in the ways that are most interesting to them. 

We have a newsletter, we have an annual report, we do a lot of different 

Lee Wochner: 

So we have this, this is a marketing question again. We have this perception that, and you went to it with the funding priorities of the current administration. this perception that music is a luxury, which which is infuriating to some of us. So how do we and you know, therefore music in the schools is nice, right? That you know, that funding is nice, but we’re not doing it right now. when and I know this from personal experience. Having spent so much of my life in the arts. When budgets get tight, the arts are among the first thing to get cut. do you have any ideas about what we can do to protect that sort of funding? 

Janice Weinman: 

I think this is a very basic and it may be a little bit of a of a related way, but I think that people who make the budget are elected officials and they are school boards and particularly elected officials at the state and federal level, but at the state level and the local level. I think it’s very, very important to advocate for the arts. I think it’s very, very important to provide examples to people who are making those budget decisions. Now, is that an easy thing to do? It requires really a strategy to get to know these people, to get to understand why what what their needs are, but I think that advocacy is a very, very important part of really making people aware of the value of arts and education. 

Lee Wochner: 

Absolutely agree. 100% agree. how is you how do you balance so you said donors and I’m glad you said that, because of course that’s a crucial audience. How do you balance your marketing or link it with your fundraising efforts? 

Janice Weinman: 

We actually as I mentioned we segment our marketing efforts. We have specific things that we direct to our donors. we have letters with reports because people who invest always want to know the impact of their investment. We have direct outreach to our donors. we make that our business to make sure that people know that we know them. 

And that we appreciate what they’re doing. And that is a heavy lift in our marketing area. But to the degree that we can individualize as much as possible, our very high end donors, we do that, and we do that with foundations as well. We also try to take, as I offered you, we also try to take every donor over a certain level to a school so that they can experience the reality of what is going on. 

Lee Wochner: 

I’m very interested in going to that school because I would I would capture some photos and some images if we could use them and just help spread the word because that just sounds fantastic. 

Janice Weinman: 

Another thing we do is we take artists and we ask them to be ambassadors. we ask them to repost what we do. We ask them to be visible in their communities and talk about what they have seen in our schools. We do take our we do take artists to our schools, and to our concerts. I mean that is really a phenomenon. When you see these kids in their schools and their parents come and their siblings come and the community comes and the elected officials come. 

Janice Weinman: 

And they were all rahing to just all through the whole performance. It really makes you understand that this is, you know, you don’t have to go to a sports arena to get h hyped. You can go to a school concert and really get some emotion. And so I think it’s a very it’s a very enlightening and a very enjoyable experience. 

Lee Wochner: 

Yeah. That’s great. Now, I have to ask, just a few months ago, a musician I think everyone on the planet has heard of, named Taylor Swift and her husband Travis Kelsey, made a two million dollar gift to education through music. How did that come about? 

Janice Weinman: 

So this story is remarkable. We get a call on a either a Thursday or Friday from the publicist of the artists and of Taylor Swift and she says we have a two million dollar gift for you. Taylor Swift is giving out twenty six gifts, some at a million dollars, some at two million dollars as a wedding gesture. 

And you were one of the organizations. So we thought it was spam. We thought it was a joke. So they said, send us your wire instructions. So we all grouped together, should we send the wire instructions? Should we not? Is this gonna be, you know, a fiasco? Well, we did, we took the leap. And the next day we got a wire transfer for two million dollars. We think that there are two reasons. first of all, she has been involved with the community foundation in the South that has known us before. That’s number one. Plus we have a board member whose record company she her records are on the on that label, that record label. So I think there were two things that made a difference. But I must tell you we did not expect it. We did not apply for it. 

We did not ask for it, it just fell in our life. And I you should have been in our office, everybody was running around it, screaming and hugging and carrying on. So you with when you get two million like that, that was a natural reaction. 

Lee Wochner: 

Well, it’s a response to the good work you’re doing too. I mean word has spread. But she is an amazing person. She has created millionaires among the people who’ve done her load-ins and such. She’s created whole economies every place she’s had a stop on her tour. And look what she’s done for kids getting music education. That’s an incredible story. 

Janice Weinman: 

Thank you. You know, I’ll tell you a little anecdote. I got a call from a from a station that said, Would you be there milk her she has many critics for what she did giving the these grants. Some people feel that she wanted to enhance her image, other people feel that she wanted to make people think that she was a not just an artist, but more than that, would you be willing to speak to those critics? I said I damn well would. 

And I got on the radio station and the next thing I know there’s this thing, CEO of ETM bashes critics. I was so happy that I could do that. We’re always cynical. We’re always cynical about the motives of people and here she was doing it out of the bottom of her heart.

Lee Wochner: 

That’s wonderful. Well that that’s also why I liked it when you made the case for joy. Cynicism accomplishes nothing and gets nobody anywhere. it’s just it’s just a killer. And whatever you think of, whatever whether one is a fan of Taylor Swift’s music or not, she is clearly not a cynical person in anti cynicism. And I just think she’s a big plus. So so you got this two million dollar gift. 

And I have to tell you, I wonder if I would have shared that ACH information or if I would have thought it were spam too. I mean that seems crazy. good thing you answered. how how did this gift inform your marketing? Did you do anything after that? Did you get any further attention because of it? 

Janice Weinman: 

Yeah. We got a lot more attention our on our as very every aspect of our social media, our viewership climbed, our engagement numbers climbed. I mean significantly. Over in some cases over in the hundreds percent and even into the thousand percent. We did a special appeal based on that and we said follow in her footsteps, for people to do what she had done. To allow students to follow in her footsteps. So we did a national appeal on that. and so we did take advantage of that particular gift and we saw that as a way to really connect her to what we do. 

Lee Wochner: 

Well, congratulations. That that’s an amazing success. And again, yes, it fell into your lap, but it fell into your lap after you are doing this work and getting known for this work and generating real results. It’s obvious. we’re gonna take a short break here, but when we come back, Janice and I are gonna talk about leadership, resilience, working with boards and funders, and how systemic change really happens. Stick around. 

Jaclyn Uloth:  

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Lee Wochner: 

And we’re back with Janice Weinman, CEO of Education Through Music. So let’s talk about leadership and resilience for a little bit, because our nonprofit management people have a have an important job and sometimes a difficult job. So one of the things that you’ve done is you’ve described nonprofit management as a symphony, one that requires 

harmony between board governance and executive execution. Can you unpack that for us? What do you mean by that? 

Janice Weinman: 

I think it very simply that if the board leadership and the professionals are not playing are not partners in what they do, then there it’s much more difficult to accomplish the goals. And I think early on in the relationship of any CEO and the staff, not just the CEO and the board members, early on there’s gotta be an exercise in which people talk through the goals of the organization, the priorities, what it is that they feel needs to be spent on, what it they feel is the most important thing for the organization to accomplish, so that there’s everybody on the page on the same page. I would say that the so that all the bows of the orchestra pull in the same direction. But really it’s a matter of establishing common goals expectations and priorities. 

Lee Wochner: 

When I was leading nonprofit organizations, I had the great experience of terrific board members and board chairs. And I had a bad experience with a bad board chair once that was difficult. So what what happens when one of these sections is out of tune in nonprofit management? 

Janice Weinman: 

So I can tell you I’ve had the same experience. I’ve worked for a lot of different boards. I’ve chaired boards. I’ve been on boards. I think when it’s out of sync, the whole organization really feels it. it’s hard to determine what to do next. It’s hard to determine who should be doing what. I think that there in those kinds of cases it is critical that. Well, this is easy to say and not easy to necessarily accomplish for the two parties to sit down and talk about their differences. In some cases it might even need a mediator so that somebody is listening to both sides of why there’s a difference of opinion or a difference of attitude. And I think that ultimately, that that’s probably the only way that can be that a resolution can be found. 

Lee Wochner: 

Hm. it is important to make sure that you’re on the same page, that the that the board and the executive leadership of the nonprofit agree that this is what the organization is, this is what the organization does, and this is how the organization does it. Because if you disagree, you’re just not going to get anywhere easily. 

Janice Weinman: 

That’s correct. That’s correct. I think sometimes it really depends on a more establishing a more inform informal relationship. Establishing not just a business type of relationship, but getting to know the individual personally, being able to discuss things at that level so that you can break down the barriers. that too is not easy to do. It takes time, it takes trust. The biggest issue among a board and the staff is trust, whether or not there’s confidence in the staff and whether or not the staff trusts them. 

Lee Wochner: 

So let’s talk about funders for a moment. How do you lead with funders rather than just respond to them? Because they’re funding the mission. and sometimes I wonder if some level funders therefore expect things in response, whether they’re appropriate or not. 

Janice Weinman: 

I have found that I have found that here at Education Through Music, unlike other organizations, let me say that, the funders are very generous in the sense that they feel that they’re making a contribution to a cause. They’re not making a contribution to their own corporation, their own personal ego, their own advancement. 

In every case we have really worked with individuals and with companies and with foundations where I think they believe in the cause first before they really commit in any way to doing some support.

Lee Wochner:

I like to think that every donor to a nonprofit is making a donation to advance the mission. And so I’m what I guess my real question is, have you ever had the misfortune of running into someone who also wanted something else from it? Like Taylor Swift clearly wanted nothing except to do some good, right? Do some goodwill. She doesn’t need anything and she didn’t want anything. And I have to tell you, the idea that people attacked her for that is maddening to me. I mean, just maddening and cynical. but it I think in in the relationship with funders, it’s important to maintain a relationship that says, here’s what you got, you did good in the world. and 

Janice Weinman: 

Yes. 

Lee Wochner: 

And there’s no other expectation. 

Janice Weinman: 

I think it depends on the type of organization. If it’s an organization of a very prestigious level, I think there’s a lot of interest in recognition among peers. And I think that that is something that drives some people. If it’s a very prestigious organization, I think sometimes people want their names on certain things. We are not that type of organization. 

I have worked in an organization, believe me, that was immense, international, that people really wanted recognition. That was part of their motive. I don’t find that here because it’s just not that kind of an organization where you can get much recognition. So I think it really depends on the on the type of organization, the size of the organization, the constituent of the organization, the board, if there are four people that are you want to oppress or you want to keep up with. Then you’re looking for certain things, but I think that’s not the case in this organization. 

Lee Wochner: 

And if we’re talking about recognition, I think that’s just a positive because you want people to get some recognition so that other people will follow them and also support the organization at a higher level. let’s talk about change for a little bit, systemic change. so from your time in the White House, two White Houses, if I’m if I’m correct, the Carter administration and the Clinton administration, what did you learn about how? 

Janice Weinman: 

Yes. 

Lee Wochner: 

Systemic changes actually forged. 

Janice Weinman: 

So let me tell you that I absolutely loved working in actually I didn’t work in the White House per se. I worked in the US Department of Education as the assistant to the US Secretary. I loved it there because whether it is true or not, and whether the impact is really tangible, you felt that you were promoting, creating and promoting an agenda that was intended to reach as many people as possible and at every level and w across the board. now big bureaucracies are difficult, they’re in transit intransigent, they are s you know, l worlds unto themselves. But to the degree that the legislation or the act or the or the guidelines that or that are being developed and the policies that they have far reaching impact if properly enforced at the local level is really an incredibly important and heady opportunity to have. 

Lee Wochner: 

What’s something about how policy gets made that you would think most nonprofit leaders maybe don’t understand, but should? Because we need them to advocate for their missions. What do you have advice for them? 

Janice Weinman: 

I think that policy is made through a compromise, negotiation, compromise, bartering back and forth, being willing to come to terms with something that is a little bit less than what you want, a little bit less than what you expect. But you know, shooting for the perfect never gets you the good. And so I think that not for profit leaders tend to be ideological. With a less of a practicality than they possibly exist. That may not that’s certainly not a generalization, but it is certainly advice that I would give that you’re not compromising your principles, you’re not compromising your ideals, if in fact you negotiate or you work out an agreement that is not 100 perfect, but at least it gets you to the next step. 

Lee Wochner: 

If I could take what you just said, I would put it on ever on billboards all across the country for nonprofit leaders to see this because I see a lot of this, that the ideological perfectionism gets in the way of I got 60 or 75% of what we wanted. And look at the achievement we’ve made. And I understand where it comes from. It comes from a passionate desire to impact change and do it in a big way. But as I was saying just yesterday in a meeting with our own team, I said, you know, when you hit a triple and it gets batted in, it counts just as much as the home run. 

Janice Weinman: 

Right. 

Lee Wochner: 

so thank you for saying that. That doesn’t get said enough. all right, so every leader of every sort has hard seasons to carry on my baseball metaphor. Can it is there a time that you’ve run into something rough or challenging and how did you handle it? Is there something you can share here that people could learn from? 

Janice Weinman: 

I’ve run into very tough rough patches more than once. I’ve run into rough patches when the there was a disconnect between the board and the executive. and I run into tough patches when it was difficult to implement what we had agreed to. The only thing you can do is be honest and transparent and say the reason I What didn’t happen is for the following reasons. sometimes people will accept that and understand that you’re at least recognizing where the shortcomings were and where you failed. It’s difficult to do that because you don’t want to look weak. You don’t want to look incompetent. but I think people value transparency and they value you know, the honesty. I had a situation in which I did not do that. 

I had a situation at a not for profit where I tried very much to cover up my the mistakes that were being made and the difficulties that were being were happening. I will tell you it was a disaster because I didn’t do that. It was early in my career. But I’ve learned since that you have to, you have to come forward and say where there’s a problem, why and how can we resolve it. 

Lee Wochner: 

In October of 2003, a guy I knew at a nonprofit accused me of shading the truth. Not lying, but shading the truth. Well, you tell different answers to different people in the way and he said that Bill Clinton does. So I didn’t like hearing it. 

And I resolved that I was not ever gonna be anything but completely honest after that. I don’t think I was such a liar before that, but I heard him and you have to listen to your critics, right? I commend you for your admission here. And I just I I’m just determined to be as honest and forthright without being hurtful as I can. 

Janice Weinman: 

You know what’s interesting because you have to have self confidence in order to be honest. And it took me a long time not to feel defensive about when I did something wrong. When you if you at least express it and p people don’t think you’re weak or incompetent. They think something went wrong. You yes, you didn’t handle it well, but you’re willing to admit it and you’re willing to find out how to improve it. by not doing that I think you really just aggravate the situation. 

Lee Wochner: 

Last week I was in Arizona chairing the meeting of a nonprofit that I belong to. And I said to and so it’s a bunch of leaders, it’s a room full of leaders, we’re all figuring out what we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna run our things. And I and I said, you know, I’ve made every mistake we’re gonna we’re gonna cover. And it’s true, I think I’ve made every mistake we’re gonna cover over the years. 

But if you don’t make any mistakes, you don’t learn from them. And if you don’t admit them, you’re not leading a life of moral clarity. and you know, so I said, you know, when we talk about these, I have no judgment. I just want to be part of helping you with them if you’ll help me with mine. I but I’ve made every mistake we’ll talk 

Janice Weinman: 

Yeah, and I tell you something, particularly when you’re in a leadership position, you want people to feel that you’re not vulnerable. You want people to feel that you are you’re you have the all of the characteristics that are necessary to be a leader, so it is hard to express your weakness or hard to say I made a mistake ’cause you don’t know how people are going to react. 

Lee Wochner: 

Real leaders, I think, show some of that vulnerability. The fake leaders who get in the headlines all the time, the tech bros, really infuriate me. But yeah, one of the examples I like is somebody who worked for Warren Buffett made a one point nine million dollar mistake and sheepishly admitted it to Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett said, Well, please don’t do that again. That and that was the extent of it because 

Janice Weinman: 

Yes. 

Lee Wochner: 

You have an honest person who’s otherwise doing a good job. We all make mistakes. And the person I said I made a mistake and admitted it, which was a moment of strength. And so Buffett kept that person. 

Janice Weinman: 

Well he too is an a generous human being. because somebody else might not have reacted that 

Lee Wochner: 

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. you have so much wisdom and experience. So let me ask you, let’s wrap up with some some advice if we can. What what is one thing that you wish nonprofit leaders who are listening could do? Should what should they know or do to make a stronger case for their mission? 

Janice Weinman: 

I think that nonprofit leaders need to learn how to advocate. I think they need to advocate in not just their own a small arena of delivery or of a of their goals, but in a larger arena so that there is a momentum among communities to understand the value of what they’re doing. Sometimes I think that not for profit sticks so specifically to its own agenda that it doesn’t think about who might be tangential but important to their mission. And I think it’s important that not for profit leaders reach out to as many people as they can, whether it’s legislators, whether it is the business community, whether it is government partners, all of those particular potential partners, I think, are very important. 

Lee Wochner: 

Then let me ask you something different. 

Janice, what makes you feel hopeful? You know, we live in this period where so many people seem to be lacking hope. I mean, it’s deeply troubling to me. Do you do you feel hopeful? 

Janice Weinman: 

Not always, no. I do not feel h hopeful all the time. I think I think you know, you have to look at the long term. I’ve lived a long life. but I still continue to live believe in the long term and I think the not for profits also have to do that. They can’t take their strength from every day or even every year. They’ve got to look at the long term. I think people have to do that as well. Ultimately things do get corrected. 

Particularly in this country, particularly in the things that we’re working on. But it takes a long time. So people have to have a long term view and they have to have patience. And they also have to have trust in other people who will be partners with them in reaching what they feel is important for other people. 

Lee Wochner: 

Where can people learn more about education through music? 

Janice Weinman: 

So they can reach me by Janice J I’m sorry jweinman@etmonline.org. 

jweinman@ETMonline.org. 

Janice Weinman: 

correct. 

Lee Wochner: 

Awesome. it has been a real delight getting to spend some time with you and I am gonna come visit you in New York. 

Janice Weinman: 

I sincerely hope so. I really do. It would be wonderful. And I thank you for this opportunity. I really enjoyed it and I hope it has some impact. I think it will because of you, ’cause you know how to ask the questions and how to make it meaningful. Thank you. 

Lee Wochner: 

Yeah. 

Lee Wochner: 

well thank you, Janice. I mean you’ve you’ve had an incredible career a and a lot of success on behalf of of the things you care about. And thank you for doing that work and it means a lot to spend some time with you. Thank you. 

Janice Weinman: 

Thank you. Thank you so much. And have a good weekend. 

Lee Wochner: 
You too. 

Jaclyn Uloth:  

Thanks for listening. How to Market Your Nonprofit is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please like and follow the show. Visit counterintuity.com to learn more.