Traci Donnelly: Using AI to Make an Impact

Speaker A: Hi, I'm Paul Ford.

Speaker B: And I'm Rich Cioti.

Speaker A: And this is the Aboard podcast. It's the podcast about how AI is changing the world of software. And we have a great show for you today. We're going to talk to somebody very special. Let's play the theme song and get into it right now.

Speaker B: Let's go.

Speaker A: Aboard. Rich.

Speaker B: Yes, Paul?

Speaker A: A board is an organization that helps you transform with AI, helps you build software more quickly, helps you get your org lined up with this new world.

Speaker B: Right? Yes, it is.

Speaker A: But I got a more fundamental question for you. Do you like dashboards?

Speaker B: I love dashboards. I'm a corporate executive. I'm the CEO of a board, actually, Paul. Yeah, Dashboards are great. Dashboards are the rage right now because people are spinning them up all day long. Because I loves to make dashboards. You point it at data and it makes dashboards. But there's a problem.

Speaker A: What's the problem?

Speaker B: No one knows how to consume them because there's more of them. They're complicated, they're often laden with stats, and they're hard to parse.

Speaker A: A lot of times people say, hey, we just need a dashboard. And now they have two problems.

Speaker B: They have two problems.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So what if the dashboards were a little smarter? What if you could ask the dashboard questions and get answers? And what if the dashboard surfaced highlights that you should pay attention to as an operator or a business stakeholder and whatnot.

Speaker A: We sound really smart talking about this. The reason we're able to talk about this is a very interesting, very exciting client came to us and said, could you help us build exactly these kinds of dashboards with AI?

Speaker B: A true executive.

Speaker A: Yeah. You fellows seem young and thirsty. Let's see what you do.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So let's talk about that, but not yet.

Speaker B: Mm M. We're hiring.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Before that. Just everybody knows we need product managers, we need designers, and we need engineers. Just get in touch, check out our website. Uh, subscribe to the newsletter. You can find out the kind of org we are. But we would love to talk to people who want, uh, to work with lots of really interesting clients. Because we have lots of really interesting clients. Natural transition. Very natural to having a very interesting client. Um, we often don't interview our clients, but you are a very special case. Hello. Welcome. Tracy Donnelly. It's wonderful to have you here.

Speaker C: Hi. Thank you. It's great to be here.

Speaker A: So we're gonna do a thing we call onboarding. I'm gonna just tell people who you are, and then we're gonna ask you all about yourself. You ready?

Speaker C: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: You ready?

Speaker C: Let's go.

Speaker B: I'm just feeling real natural. Real natural.

Speaker A: Tracy's extremely natural. I'm not. Okay, so I have you down. Let me consult the LinkedIn in my brain. You are the chief executive officer of the Child center of New York, which more people should know about who are listening to us. And you are the president and founder of, or I guess maybe co founder of make an Impact.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: Okay, well, welcome. Um, maybe you could tell us a little bit about those organizations.

Speaker C: Sure, I'm happy to. First, thanks for having me on. It's great to be here. Uh, I'm excited to talk about how excited we are working with you and where we're going.

Speaker B: This is good.

Speaker A: This is getting real good. Okay.

Speaker C: Child center of New York, I came to probably about 14 years ago. It was an organization serving about 14,000 children and families. About 30, 30 million dollars. Uh, now fast forward. We're about 120 million dollar company. We have about 80 programs in 100 locations, uh, serving about 62,000 people a year.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: Hit us with the mission real fast.

Speaker C: Sure, when you say Child center of New York, people think it's only children, but we actually serve zero to seniors. So it's basically to listen to the communities develop programs from the ground up, asking folks what they need. And we do tailor our programs for that. But we cover a span of behavioral health services through after school programming, child abuse prevention services, Head Start, early Head Start, uh, we have residential and case management, so a ton of school based stuff. Our goal is to make sure everybody graduates high school, changing the trajectory of generational poverty and doing also by partnering alongside the community, not thinking that we know the answers to what they need, um, but listening to the community and driving programming from the ground up and

Speaker A: now get us through to make an impact.

Speaker C: Uh, sure. So when I got to Child center, as I had mentioned that we were kind of small. We were also struggling with the things not for profits struggle with, which is how do you have transparency into your lines of business? How do you know what programs are working and not working? Because we have such a limited amount of resources with razor thin margins, we needed to figure out what was happening. And we were so financially unstable. So we figured out how to stabilize the organization and then how to measure what we were doing and being able to prove that the work we were doing was making people's lives better. And once we did that, it sort of, we were able to bring back to the board and say, hey, we Think we have the magic sauce here. We have a responsibility now to share that with everybody and anybody that is doing the same work.

Speaker B: And, uh, methodology.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker B: All of it's a way of working. Yeah.

Speaker C: And create a collaborative environment in our ecosystem rather than thinking there needs to be any competitiveness. Because I think, as everyone can see, there are more people that need help than the people that can give it to them.

Speaker A: Sure. And then just to finish our onboarding, talk a little bit about your relationship with AI.

Speaker C: So I am an AI fan since the beginning. I brought this early on, before anyone was really. It was just when there were a few articles coming out and the capacity for what AI could do. And then I started bringing it to my board chair and saying, there's a large language model. I want you to understand what this is. I think we need to be ahead of the curve on this. And then started playing with it a little and sending things like board notes, things like that, to sort of get the board looking at it. And then fast forward to where we are now.

Speaker A: I don't know if the audience knows how unusual that behavior is for the head of a large not for profit.

Speaker B: I would go even further and say that's actually unusual for the head of a for profit. I want to rewind back to when we met. We expected. I expected a particular experience with the leader of a nonprofit or nonprofits. I thought it was going to be, we need some help with this old system. We got to get off it. But you, uh, wanted the orgs to perform better and you wanted them to do well and you wanted to assess performance and get good metrics out of it. That was unusual. And, uh, just to put a pin in it. And then I would love to hear how you got there is. We didn't pitch AI to you. You pitched AI to us, which was, uh, unusual. Tell us about your approach to management and how you think about how AI can help.

Speaker A: And I'm going to just. The project is like managing lots of data for different orgs. For different orgs. Right. So like medical data, HIPAA compliance. So it's not light stuff. Like, you brought us something very real.

Speaker C: Yeah. Because we're not in the business of doing things that aren't real or really. It's a very complicated business. Not for profits. And I don't think anyone ever talks about this because it's almost like you have to be ashamed of it when you start saying things like, we are a business and we need to operate as such. Which means I need KPIs and metrics and data. It is how we turned Child center around was actually having dashboards and metrics so that we had some transparency in real time, knowing what was happening. Not for Profits can get data on, like, quarterly terms. It's already happened. That's like history. And that's not how you run a business. So to me, and I've run not for Profits my entire career. It hasn't like. And I've been recruited to the for profit world with people saying, you know, oh, great, you can work in for profit. I believe for profit has a lot of me. And not for profits, not so much.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker C: And the business model, the business to me, of what I want to do every day is something I feel is of service to making something better. Right. That's what drives me and my leadership over the years. Uh, interestingly enough, I've had to, because I'm in the not for profit world, really had a balance with the data, the facts, and then separating that from feelings. And what. What does that mean? I thought you had to strip one of the other to be successful. And what I've really learned, and I've learned this from my teams and from the people we work with, including my line staff, is it is a beautiful balance of both. It requires the head and the heart because we're in the business of people. But you can't serve people if you're not in business. So business comes first.

Speaker B: You say business a lot.

Speaker C: Yes, it's a business.

Speaker B: It's a business. You have found that balance. But you must be viewed. We're going to get to AI in a second. But you're an anomaly, I think, in this world. Uh, I think you're. I've been in meetings with you. Your bullshit alarm goes off very quickly.

Speaker C: Yeah. It's very sensitive.

Speaker A: And loudly.

Speaker B: And loudly. What are we doing here?

Speaker A: I'm just gonna.

Speaker B: What is this meeting about? I've heard it. It's actually pretty great.

Speaker A: Tracy hit it with an Alzheimer. During one meeting where she. You just went. And I'll never forget this, you just went. I'm hearing a lot of whining. And it got real quiet and it was real good. I was like, I've never been able to say those words, but boy, have I wanted to. It was very cool. Rich and I talked about it for hours afterwards.

Speaker C: I lack a certain filter at times.

Speaker B: We just talked about balance three minutes ago.

Speaker C: I do. The balance. I mean the filter of, um. Because I think there's something. I've been studying a lot and reading a lot about and sharing with my staff, which is authenticity. I feel like I have twice the energy doing this work in my 50s than I did doing it in my 40s, because I. I have chosen not to show up for each part of my life as a different version of myself. I'm not going to come to work and be the CEO. I'm not going to then get in the car and go home and be another version of who I am. And, you know, there's a lot of performance with everything you do and not for profits. Like, I think our board was pretty surprised when I came in and said, okay, here's. Here's our P and L. Here's the entire organization. Here's what we should continue to invest in, and here's what we should divest from. Because. Because it doesn't pay for itself. So going to government agencies when I first got there and saying, I love this work, here's how we do it, here's what we're doing, here's our budget, and what you're giving me doesn't pay for it. And they were like, oh, well, that's all we have. And our answer was, then you should do it on your own or find somebody else that can. Because I am responsible for running an entire business with 1300 employees and all of these programs. I cannot keep a program that loses a third every single time. Our goal, as any not for profit, is to break even at a minimum, before fundraising. That means you have a healthy operation that can sustain itself and is functioning. Fundraising is meant to do what we're doing. Right. The work that we want to do to take this ecosystem to the next level. This means everything and every. Not for profit should care, because this is how you get funding. This is how we are seen as credible.

Speaker B: It's your reputation.

Speaker C: Yeah. It's credible investment. So I can say, yes, the money you gave me had this outcome. It was applied here. And this many lives got better because of it, because that's the relationship you should have with a funder. And you can't do it if you don't run like a business because they don't want to invest in that.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Interesting. All right, let me. I actually think this is important enough to double down. So you go. When you're going out to funders going out just to sustain the organization, it sounds to me like. Then it's like a kind of a sigh, like, all right, I'll help you

Speaker B: guys keep going, or to dig the organization out of a hole. That's not a good feeling for anyone. That's stepping forward.

Speaker C: It's not. And also everyone that gives you that money is going to say okay, so I give you this today. Will you be self sustaining will this now or are you going to keep coming to me every year for a check or are you building something? You have to demonstrate that the ROI is there and that you're going, going to be sustainable after it.

Speaker A: How did you get your org? This is not necessarily where people working in this field start. So you had to tilt your org towards these things. You needed to get that money in the door. You needed to convince the funders, the board and your team to align around this way of thinking for a big not for profit org. How did that go? That just sounds like it would have taken years.

Speaker C: Uh, no, we didn't have years. Right. I give this gory description of what it was like for child center and uh, when I explained it to the board, we had $7,000 of net assets. That was it. We owed $6 million to the government. So one of the things I said to them was, I said we are very close to not making payroll. I was deciding which vendors we were going to pay and not pay so I could make payroll.

Speaker B: This is when you first started?

Speaker C: When I first started within the first six months. And I said we have now crashed through the windshield and we are in an emergency room and what we're going to do in the next year is just stop the bleeding and then we're gonna have plastic surgeons come in and make us pretty. But right now we need to not die. So let's just get uh, let me do this. And then I went to them very shortly and said end I know we're slotted to lose this much money in our clinics. This is our annual prediction and I want you to invest $650,000 in an HRIS system. I want to build a team. I need to get dashboards implemented. I need to roll out all of these things. And I said you can either trust me or not, but I know what I'm doing. You will see an roi. Give me a chance. They I was fortunate. I am blessed to have like a really wonderful board that trusts in innovation and really care about doing this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so they trust you.

Speaker B: Yeah, they agree you have that reputation and credibility so that they can trust your instincts. And.

Speaker C: But that was the first test. So them doing that within the first year we were looking to lose $750,000 just in our clinics. Instead we turned a $350,000 surplus. So we had a million dollar swing in nine months.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: That gave them the sense of.

Speaker B: Okay, okay, there's a captain.

Speaker C: Yeah, this is. Okay, we know we're doing something here.

Speaker A: I mean, it's trajectory, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Help people understand. So that was seven grand essentially in checking and six million in the hole. And where are you now?

Speaker C: Uh, about 15, 16 million. And that's with also a grant that went over to help start make an impact M. So yes, around 16 million in assets. I also negotiated the owed to government in half over a long term plan with a quarter of the interest.

Speaker B: Um, government forgets anyway, don't worry about that.

Speaker A: And uh, then around four times as many constituents.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Okay. So just. So just a very different impact radius for this. Okay.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: For our listeners, the people that are in for profits, I think I want to tilt it now towards, towards AI. There's a lot. I'll give you a little what we're seeing out there. There are a lot of stalled AI initiatives in the business world right now. It's this insane hype cycle that slammed into everyone. People got anxious. People were like, well, what is our AI plan with? That's, that would, that's where the question would end. It wasn't about how do I run my business better or how do I get better insights? Which is the right leading question. Instead, it's like, what's your AI strategy? And fast forward to now. And there are a lot of organizations that have ambition, but really either don't have the appetite, don't provide enough cover so that they can take advantage of this tech and really have it make its way into benefiting a business. Talk about how you approached it from a leadership perspective, because we see this as a leadership challenge. AI is on people's desks, by the way, to be clear. But talk about how you got behind. You got, you got your org behind this.

Speaker C: Yeah, it took a minute. I'm not gonna lie. I mean, the board was, okay, yes, we see this, we know there's value. I mean, these are people out in the business world who thought, you know, okay, this is interesting, but how does this pertain to us?

Speaker A: And they know you.

Speaker C: I, um, mean, and I did have a decent. It's now a decade working with them, and every year for 12 years was, uh, growth and profitability. Right. So that, that was a big change of what they had been seeing. So there was a level of trust that went with this and I was grateful. But internally, it is very hard to introduce AI into a world of people helping because it is people to people. Right. So When I'm starting with products that are helping to scribe a session or, uh, some way to help writing notes, this is the biggest pain point for most clinical staff is saying, wow, we spent so much time under the paperwork after the visit. We never get to like, actually. And half the time they're taking notes during a visit and that doesn't feel like you're paying attention. And it just is a bad vibe. So when I started even thinking, wow, I'm coming to their rescue, like, this is. They're going to be so happy to have this. It was like, this can't do it. I'm a human. Like, you can't have AI replacing what a human can do. And, um, I said, no one's looking to replace you. It's a tool. It's just like I came up in this field using paper charts. I had a pager, right? Like, these are things. And then the world evolves. And now you have electronic health records, now you have cell phones, right? So I said, this is just another mechanism of which you're part of doing this. And in addition, I would really love for you to, like, let's give it a shot. This is why I did this. But part two was it's really not optional. It's just like I wouldn't purchase computers for the organization and say, you can still write in paper, right? You can still use your paper chart. Even though I have a. This is like an investment in the organization and I want everybody to be using it. And so we actually even measured that. What was the adoption rate of the current AI we were using? I promise you today, if our AI in our clinics is down even for half hour, everybody's like, oh, my God. And I always talk to the biggest. The biggest naysayers of it are the ones that I bring to talk about it almost everywhere. And they say, I didn't believe in it. I didn't think it was good, but it's interesting. Freed me up the clients. It's a connection like this. Because now I'm doing a session. I'm not worried about my notes. I'm just gonna sit and I'm present with you the whole time. And I'm not anxious. And, um, they're noticing it. Everybody's noticing it. Right.

Speaker B: Interesting. It's worth highlighting though. You introduce the tools. A lot of orgs are introducing tools, but you essentially, and I think you, you said this, you kind of have to use these tools.

Speaker C: Yes, you have to. It's not because it's an investment you make as a company. And it's not cheap. And yeah, where we usually try to pilot things in, in areas to have an roi, but something like clinics.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Where we felt like we're rolling it out, let's roll it out. And people started picking it up pretty quickly.

Speaker B: Now it's become part of the muscle memory. They're doing it.

Speaker C: We use it as a recruitment tool. You come here, you don't have to write notes, you know, and people want to come here, they love it. And it's the same thing. You'll have transparency. I mean when I first did the dashboards, it was pushed back, you know, uh, the clinics. It would show how many hours you were doing face to face direct care services, how much time people take off, how long does it take you to do your notes. Like all of the things we, we highlighted was like this is intrusive. Oh, and everybody sees everybody's everything. Because I sent those dashboards out. Everybody's going to see what everybody else does because people are doing it and doing it well. And then the ones that don't. It wasn't. I've never fired somebody over them. We've never used them. Like, uh, it's sort of getting people comfortable with the relationship with data. Also is all data is good data, even when it tells you something you don't like. Because why do we want to stay on that path? Yeah, we're learning together. And my hope was I would say, oh look, Paul is on this dashboard. He's hitting all the metrics. How are you doing that? Like at lunch. What's going on?

Speaker A: I work so hard, you have no idea. It's just shocking hard.

Speaker B: Let's zoom in on a different use of AI and that is getting better insights across your many organizations to assess performance, to see bottlenecks, zoom in on where there are issues and friction and whatnot. Data and AI and non profits hold data to be very precious.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Like it's just a, it's an instinct, I think. How did you navigate that? Because now that's a little. That's a different puzzle than use this to take notes at the clinic.

Speaker C: Well, I think for make an impact the idea was inclusivity. Right. Having people that are particularly interested in data and AI and our. And I don't think people were tying the two together like I was early on. And the reason I tied it together, having dashboards out for the last eight years, nine years, we would hand these dashboards out and they were very useful to both line staff and managers. But what I realized it was only as Good. As the person that could interpret that data and think of the narrative. So then we began writing the narratives. Here's what the data is telling us, here's what's gone well, here's what we can do better.

Speaker B: Pre AI.

Speaker C: Pre AI. This is what we're doing.

Speaker B: Let me give you the headlines of what is are in these charts and graphs.

Speaker C: And that's never changed to date. So this is where AI becomes. I see AI because now I'm using it in my uh, personal life, in my professional life and I'm showing it to people and I'm showing my staff and they're like, how did you do that? How did we get that so quickly? And I'm like, it's easy, use this. And they're like, how? And I'm like, you have to give it the right. Like, don't think this does your job. It doesn't do your job. You need to know how to use it and what prompts to put in and then how to fine tune it so it learns you. And it's work. It is still work, but it's an art of being able to use it. And I started saying this is what we need for our dashboards to automate it, to give people the opportunity to learn so that we're not spoon feeding it. And then our managers are staying where they're at. Instead I want them to be thinking, what is this telling me? And I can ask.

Speaker B: You can ask, right?

Speaker C: I want to say, what does this mean? What can I do? Uh, part two is going to be, which I really want to do for Mai is now which leaders are using this tool as decision makers. Right. To make decisions and how is it making their business better, both in outcomes of those they serve and in business model.

Speaker B: So you want dashboards to assess the usage of the dashboards.

Speaker A: Hold on.

Speaker B: This is the ultimate executive.

Speaker A: I know, but I do, but I want.

Speaker C: That's what I'm going to talk to you about after this.

Speaker A: I want to nail down a pattern really quickly for the audience because I think this is really important. Which is here is all this data. This data has been gathered for years and years. The data is about, uh, medical outcomes and doctors and how they're using systems across all the many, many clinics. Right. This data gets aggregated and there are dashboards that allow you to report on how things are going at the different clinics and see the whole thing. Great executive tool. AI comes in to help people query and access that data. It doesn't generate the data, it doesn't sort of run the clinic. It is simply, it's an interpretation tool

Speaker B: to give people access smarts around the data.

Speaker A: And so that is, I think that this is where people get so confused about this technology because they think that you're, you've. When they hear this, they're going to think you put a bot in front of. In charge of the clinic, the chat box. And it's not that. It's all the stuff that was, that's there in the database is now more accessible to leadership.

Speaker C: Yes, without a doubt. But it's also the very important point you just brought there is that's the same thing in the clinics and anywhere else. No one in our that we're serving is having an AI tool do a session. It's always a human. But there's an accompanying tool that is doing all the bureaucratic paperwork so that the clinicians can be doing what they're here to do, which is serve people. Same thing with dashboards. Most people didn't go to school when they work at a not for profit to interpret data and be data analysts and data scientists. And they're not. We're not asking them to do that anymore. It's unfair to do that. Yeah, but I would just like, you know, we would go around and share our information. That was part of one of my negotiations with the state around how are we going to pay our principal? We owed this money. You know, child center had. Had sort of, uh, accumulated this debt and how do we pay that back in a real way? And the part was, well, you're going to talk to other not for profits and share what you do, share your dashboards. I could do that all day long. It didn't change anything because it's a culture change. It's sitting down every week and saying, let's look at this together. And I want to change the way you think. I don't want you just to take this and say what are the three things I need to do? What, what are the three things you think you need to do? I want to know how your mind is working when you look at data. So then I can see that's not on the right path. Or I can say that's a great insight I didn't think of. How can I take that another step,

Speaker A: help to coach this audience a little bit? Because this is another thing. I think. So here's a whole lot of data. A whole lot of data has just showed up about all the different clinics and so on. And what people tend to think is that should just stand on Its own. We're going to throw it over the wall. Everyone will be more productive. I gave them the data. Aren't I a good boy? But that doesn't sound like it works at all.

Speaker C: It doesn't work at all.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I mean, the 50 page PDF attachment in an email of charts and graphs doesn't do it.

Speaker A: But I got a lot.

Speaker C: It would speak to me, but it wouldn't speak to most others.

Speaker B: Most people.

Speaker A: But I'm Tracy. I need a culture where people act on the data. I got a whole lot of data, but I don't have that culture yet. What do you do? How do you get people to start to actually think this way and think sort of data driven and sort of work with this stuff? Because it sounds like you've done this a few times.

Speaker C: Well, you have to know your audience first. Right? So when we would go in these meetings and we would be looking at productivity, here's productivity or here's this and here's that. And I said, wow, I remember sitting in a meeting and listening to people talking and I said, oh my God, we have it all wrong. Right? They don't care about productivity. So what do you care about? Why are you here? As a social worker, what did you want to do? I want to help children and families. That's it. That's what they're here for. It's what they went to school for. So converting the language of data into the language of your audience. Right. So what is the number of face to face hours per week you are spending delivering direct care hours? Yeah, it gives me what I need, but it also is saying to them,

Speaker B: you could have helped more kids.

Speaker C: Yeah, I could be helping more kids. Like, am I only really helping? And this is when I really learned. It was a learning, uh, sort of exercise for me because I would say, what are you doing all day? Like, let's talk about it. Help me understand. What is your time study?

Speaker B: The brutal question of what are you doing all day?

Speaker C: Yeah, but what's a time study? What do you do from the minute you go in to the minute you leave? Because, and I said, I don't want to understand it because I'm trying to make you prove your worth. But I want to know what else you're doing other than what you came here to do. What did you come here to do? I came here to serve children and family. So outside of those hours, and then I pulled up the data, I don't even get to go to the bathroom. I don't go to lunch. I am so swamped I can't get it done. And I'm handling this and I'm handling that. And all of a sudden I said, would you be surprised if I said the average number of face to face hours spent in a 35 hour work week delivering direct care is 18 hours? It isn't. It can't be. And I was like, it is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So talk to me. And it was like, we're doing outreach calls, we're writing court letters, we're filing paperwork, we're doing this. And I said, so then if I take all of that away from you and you had an opportunity to just serve, serve people, wouldn't that be better?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: So you got it, you're drawing the link, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, you have to make that. And then I started saying, let's get engagement specialists. And then I go to the board and say, I want to invest in new positions at the front desk.

Speaker B: Desk, yeah.

Speaker C: Because our, our social workers need to be doing what we hired them for, which is seeing people. It helps them and it helps us.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then running it like a business. How do you incentivize your folks that are over performers? Right. Nobody talks about that. Like it's just here's your productivity and deliver it.

Speaker B: Or is that a thing in. Not in the non profit world. Can you.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker B: Can you give out a bonus? Can someone. Oh, you can. Yeah. I don't hear a lot about that. And you do?

Speaker C: Oh yeah, we do.

Speaker B: Interesting. Do you see AI as in a way a usability tool for like you're a seasoned exec, you understand how to look at those charts. You don't mind the 50 page PDF, but for someone on the ground or their manager and whatnot, they don't know how to ingest this stuff like they do, but they would need to go to a training uh, on how to deal with data and all that. Do you see it as okay if I put this in place? It just makes it more approachable.

Speaker C: Well, it makes it more approachable and it also, I think gives people the autonomy they want in their job. You don't, I don't know anyone that wants to not be good at what they do. So all of a sudden you're getting dashboards and you don't know how to use them, or you maybe pick out a couple of things but you're not really sure what it means. And you also don't want to ask everybody because now it lets everybody know you don't know what you're doing. Right.

Speaker B: And you're looking at it the most

Speaker A: empathetic thing I've ever heard from a CEO. No CEO has ever been like, people just want to be good at their job.

Speaker C: Well, they do. I mean, you don't meet people they

Speaker B: are afraid to ask.

Speaker C: They're afraid to ask questions because it's also embarrassing. And now this is the reason when you started to ask me in the beginning about how do I get people and make an impact who are other organizations not in my organization, who I don't necessarily have any, uh, oversight or influence over, it is including them in like a data council where we have 15 members from five states and saying to them, what are the use cases, clinical use cases for this? And then showing them the demos that your team built to say, look, some of you have dashboards and some of you don't. For those that you do, imagine it could look like this. And they're like, oh my God. And I said, so your team can be opening these and you should encourage them. Open these, ask questions, look at this. And then we started realizing, and you'll remember every time I complicated our project was we need to pull in HRIS information, we need to pull in financial data.

Speaker B: That's the world.

Speaker C: We need to pull in all of the client outcomes data for whatever you're doing. And then how do we pick those things and put them into a useful running a business tool. But that does all of the other things everybody needs within an organization. And you know, I didn't walk into our meeting with you all blind to who you were. Right. I always have my team meet with folks first. When we had the intro, then I went to a webpage and I started looking at what you did and I was like, oh, this is interesting. And then I took it a little further and it was the AI that 100% captured me because I looked at what you built and what you've done. And then I said, they can do what I'm um, m thinking. And even though you hadn't done that precisely yet, I was like, they can do what I'm thinking. And what I'm thinking is what this field needs.

Speaker A: So Tracy, let's say, um, I've talked to a lot of NGOs and sort of community based orgs about how to use AI. And what I'm finding is there's a lot of people who are very leaned in and they want to do a lot of stuff. But then the rest of the org is like, no, this is too weird for us and we're not sure if it's ethical. We're worried about this, and they nibble at it and nothing happens, right? So advise that person for a minute. You're able to drive stuff through as an executive. But let's say they're in a community org here in New York City. They would like to move a few things along faster. They see specific use cases. What can they do?

Speaker C: They can embrace it wholeheartedly and then create the excitement and the energy and be inclusive. Have the discussions you're having with yourself about doing it. This is another thing that I think most executives are afraid to do, which is sit around a table with everybody from your line staff up and say, here's some ideas I have. I'm pretty strong on these three going forward, but there's another two I'm not that certain on. And, um, I'm toying with it. Could this help you? What does this mean?

Speaker B: And it's like you're thinking, asking for a dialogue.

Speaker C: You get a dialogue. Because when people feel like they're part of something and that they're like, I always go to the why. I'm not just doing things for no sake. I go to the why. Why am I doing this? First, I want you to know that, because I'm going to need you to trust me sometimes in a way that you can't quite see the end zone yet. But I want you to know we're going to get there and having that honest conversations. And then also, sometimes you get it wrong. Whatever forum I get it wrong in is the forum I correct it in also. So you have to get your people to trust you before you can move anything forward. So if I make a mistake, I say, hey, I know I walked us down this path and, and wanted us to do this. It was a mistake, so we need to change it. And I said, I'm sorry that I couldn't, uh, see this. These were the three things I saw. So with this, we started off doing make an impact is make an impact. Then I clearly saw, oh, my God, if we don't have a data platform, how will I ever distribute dashboards? And if we don't have AI, I can never scale what we did at Child center and how can we grow? And then that was harder to sell. First to the board, secondly to even people working in the program itself. We're like, oh, my God, now we're building a data platform. We're not a tech company.

Speaker B: There's a lot of that.

Speaker C: That's what it gets to like. We don't. And I said, no, we're. We just Give our data to everybody and get nothing for it. So now we're going to control that. We're going to have the data. And I want all of you guys, as not for profits, who are the same as me giving it out and getting nothing back in any meaningful way. Let's put our data here and let's all agree on how we're going to do this and what we're going to

Speaker B: get out of it. Yeah.

Speaker C: That is what has people now saying, hey, do you have the mvp? Are we ready? When are we onboarding? Yeah, when. I thought that was going to be me dragging, uh, people along.

Speaker A: You know, what, you know, what really strikes me is a lot of people are very good and totally reasonable objections to AI as an industry. There's a lot of. And what you're saying is like, no, no, don't. That, that's fine, that's fine. That can be on the table, come with a set of cases that are going to help people do their job, help them work with their constituents, help them, you know, accelerate and treat it as a tool, and then have that conversation. Don't let it be this sort of general, how are we going to fix the world situation. But go back and focus on the kids, focus on the centers, on the

Speaker C: clinics, and also don't negate what you're feeling right there are. You do read things and you'll hear horror stories. And I said, okay, but we're not doing any of that. Like, still, come to me and tell me what you're afraid of or what it is you're afraid to move forward with, and then give me an opportunity to tell you why you don't need to worry about that. And if you brought it up and I wasn't seeing it, then thank you. You've done me a favor. Right. Either one. But I've even been having these discussions with the state saying, don't go ahead and ban it. I'm on an AI group. So we always look at the legislation that's coming out, or we hear somebody, you know, uh, an assembly member or a councilman or a congressperson saying, oh, AI, we have to stop it. And I feel like, oh, God, what are we doing here, folks? And right away we start looking at legislation and figuring out ways to talk about what it's doing in the industry. Which is why you'll get the sense that I'm always in a rush. I want things done yesterday. Because if we don't get ahead of

Speaker B: it, it's a bit of a race.

Speaker C: It is. If we don't get ahead of it. But we will be subject to them coming to us and telling us what we can't do. Um, I already want to prove to them. Don't come back and tell me this. This is all the good stuff. You see what we're doing here. I believe we have a lot of folks lined up in a good place to be ready for this. People are waiting for this product.

Speaker A: You are in a rush, but you seem to have a lot of time for people's anxieties and fears.

Speaker C: You have to. It's part of leadership where people don't trust you.

Speaker A: Richard. I know. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Two observations, and I think these are observations.

Speaker A: This is the. It's time for the takeaway. You know that.

Speaker B: Let's do the takeaway. I think two things. Uh, first off, if you are a commercial business, this is a great podcast to listen to. There is a lot of resistance, there is a lot of friction around deploying these tools and getting organizations to embrace them.

Speaker A: Deploying any tools.

Speaker B: Deploying any tools.

Speaker C: Don't even call it tools. Don't call it AI. Don't call it AI.

Speaker A: Just makes it worse.

Speaker B: Change with a hint of threat.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: There's a little.

Speaker B: It's a little threatening.

Speaker C: That is true.

Speaker B: Right. And so I think two things come to mind. One is, um, rather than it being a decree, you have a dialogue with the people that you're asking to use these tools. And I think there's not a lot of that. I'll full disclosure. Some people come to us at the C suite level and say, get this into my org. We can't do that.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: Like, we need you to get in there and engage. Number two, which I think is the more important point. Make a business case, not an AI case. Your business case is you're going to see more kids, you're going to have a better day, you're going to work more efficiently. You can make business cases. I don't. I don't need to share examples in the for profit context. Many business case. Start with that. That's the conversation we like to start with. Start with that. When you talk to your own organization. I think that's a big deal.

Speaker A: I mean, we've said this many, many times in many different ways. This technology is useless without a metric or without, like, go back to the customer like that. That doesn't get settled. Everybody's just trying to jam everything in and show how smart they are. Go back to hours spent with kids or clients being happy or just whatever People reaching back out. Uh, it doesn't just all have to be aimed around yet another transaction as quickly as possible.

Speaker C: No, it goes back to what you said before. I believe that you don't not want to be good at your job. Not this kind of job. So if, in the end, I can show you that what you are doing every day, which is really emotionally taxing work and saying what you're doing is making a difference. Because here's a kid that is in treatment shorter. Here's somebody that's back with their family sooner. Here's somebody that's graduating from elementary school into middle school. Here's more kids graduating. Then you're saying you're making a difference. Yeah, I'm making a difference. I'm part of something. I'm part of this big machine, and it fills people's battery. It recharges you. And so all that matters. Yes, Rich, you do need to care about people's feelings.

Speaker A: We're gonna work on it. I'm hiring a therapist.

Speaker B: There's the YouTube short guys.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Lots of nice technology people out there. Maybe some of them are billionaires. What could you use? What? How? If people want to get in touch. Money.

Speaker C: I could use money. I mean, let's all just be straightforward, like, you know, I am. Every time I talk to even a foundation, I say, and they say, how can we help? I said, money. It's why I'm sitting here. We are building. If you look at this, and I tried to have this conversation even with my board, I said, this is a tech company. We're doing a startup and building a platform that is doing something most folks in our field haven't seen. We're doing it with hardly any money in a very short amount of time. Because you all do it very quickly. That's the other reason I went with you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Anyone you talk to about building data platforms, it's going on forever and ever. And they gave me long, long timelines. If it's long, it's wrong.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's the clip I want on Instagram.

Speaker B: Just, by the way, learn how to talk to people.

Speaker C: That is true, though. It's like, because you guys can do it more quickly. That's why I picked you. I'm like, they can get it done quickly. They all have the AI overlay. We can be. I love your team. Right. So every time I needed a little switch.

Speaker B: Keep going, Tracy.

Speaker C: No, I'm. Seriously, I wouldn't. You know, I'm straightforward. And when I don't like it, I call and I say, We've gotten calls. This is not going to work. But every time I say, I need this. Yeah. It's like, okay, when do you need it by? How does this look? Am I on the right track? And they add. I'm like, I need a bell and whistle. This is a big foundation. I get it. And I said, but don't give me a smoke show because if I can't do it after, don't build something now that we can't do later. So there's integrity behind our product. When I talk to your developers and say, this is what I'm thinking. Can you guys do this? And they're like, we can do this, we can do that. We can't do this piece, but if we do this, you'll get that information. I'm like, okay, then do that. Right?

Speaker B: It's a dialogue.

Speaker C: It releases this dialogue that goes back and forth. But they've never said no.

Speaker B: Yep, yep.

Speaker A: No, no, no. When we like a mission, it doesn't always have to be a, uh, not, um, for profit mission, but we like a mission like this is going to directly lead to outcomes for the patients in your system. And that is very exciting.

Speaker C: That's a reason and hopefully everybody else is and make an impact. Now we have 711 purpose driven organizations in 25 states. If we can get this product to the place we need it and get more folks on it, we will be creating a benchmarking that we have never had in our industry since I've been here.

Speaker A: All right, I got three URLs to close this out. You ready?

Speaker B: Do it.

Speaker A: Make animpact.org Yep. I bet it has a donate page.

Speaker C: Yes, it does.

Speaker A: We bet people listening should get on that donate page.

Speaker C: Every penny counts.

Speaker A: Childcenterny.org Did I have that right?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: That one have a donate page?

Speaker C: Yes, it does.

Speaker A: Then we know what to do. And then aboard.com at the very, very end, if you just.

Speaker B: No donate page, though.

Speaker A: No donate page. There's different ways to donate to a board. Check us out. Tracy, this is incredibly helpful. The work is really, really good.

Speaker B: Universal advice, really.

Speaker A: We don't have all the clients on. We really wanted to talk to you because every time you leave, I bet

Speaker C: you say that to all the girls.

Speaker A: No, because every time, every time you leave, Rich turns to me and is like, why aren't they all like that?

Speaker B: Yeah, he's a proper executive.

Speaker A: Yeah. He's just like, man, wow. She's, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, man. There aren't a lot there aren't a lot of them. So it's really good. And I think, just for the audience, like, I really wanted people to hear how a, uh, proactive strategy can also be really empathetic, but really proactive at once. And I just sort of. I just don't. I don't think people have that conversation. I don't think people are thinking about the metrics. They're just thinking about, I guess we got to do AI now. And I think it's, take it back to that metric, take it back to success, and reject everything that isn't that success.

Speaker C: Yeah. Because you can't. Because it's. You know when people say, well, you're running it like a business, but we deal with people, I said, that's why our stakes are higher. I'm not making shirts here. Um, we're saving people's lives. M. If you stitch a shirt wrong, someone won't buy it. If they don't like the color, it's no big deal. Maybe you don't look good that day. These are people's lives. We're talking about changing the trajectory of generational poverty or kids graduating or making sure people are with their families and in the communities and not in institutions. Yeah. I care a lot, and I am going to be passionate and make sure we're doing it the most efficient way so that every single penny goes to the mission and we can expand it.

Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. That'd be amazing. Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: Thank you for doing this.

Speaker C: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Rich.

Speaker B: Yes, Paul.

Speaker A: Okay. If somebody wanted to get in touch. Helloboard.com and then people also, if they enjoyed this episode, we'd love five stars. We'd love that. Like on YouTube.

Speaker C: Thumbs.

Speaker B: Thumbs.

Speaker A: All of it. All of it. It's really good. And, uh, check out aboard dot com.

Speaker B: Yes. And there's a case study for the make an impact work on aboard dot com. Check it out.

Speaker A: Very proud of it.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Okay, let's get back to work.

Speaker B: Let's go. Have a great week.

Speaker A: Aboard.