Why Writing is the Ultimate Leadership Skill with Rebecca Wallace-Segall

[0:00]  there's limited understanding in the foundation world like in the education funding world there's little value on creative writing and just even weirdly writing um as a priority for funding there's a lot of funding for literacy when it comes to reading and there's a lot of funding for math but for the actual there's I could tell you there's like five foundations that prioritize this that see this that understand this as like a core ability if you have confidence in your writing it has TR it has Global impacts on your entire life and um I wish that there was I think that that that's actually I'm going to go back and say that's one of the most shocking things I learned in this space as a nonprofit leader welcome back to another episode of the

[1:04]  hard and hustle podcast today we're diving into the world of creativity storytelling and nonprofit leadership with her Powerhouse guest who has dedicated her career to empowering Young Voices through the written word Miss Rebecca how are you doing today I'm good thank you so much for having me Fran listen a pleasure I I'm so excited to learn more we were able to have a small discussion before the podcast um and I was just so excited to bring you on there's always leaders like yourself that are doing amazing things and we want to be able to highlight you so I I I would kind of give you um a good first question to get started which is Rebecca how did it all start for you take me back before ropia before the nonprofit world who was Rebecca as a Storyteller well I was a journalist I worked at the Village Voice for seven

[1:52]  years doing future stories and I also contributed um lots of pieces to other Publications like New York Magazine and the Atlantic and the nation so I was always wanting to work in alternative journalism work in spaces where I could really tell stories that weren't being told and often I was focusing on on issues that affected kids the most so I was getting to spend time working with I was get as able to spend time interviewing kids and um doing research about the impacts of different um different um activities in our society on kids but I didn't get to spend a lot of time with kids themselves love it and if you remember you built ropia from the ground up when did you have that moment that oh man this is actually bigger than me yeah

[2:41]  well there was I would say two moments together that really um well I guess I'm really answering the question like what's the moment that it was like this is bigger for me and I have to do something like I have to make this happen if if that's what you mean um like the moment before I started ropia I was like this is right yeah or just while building this you know maybe those small moments as you're building that you realize like you know not only am I doing something I love but this is so much bigger than me yeah so one of the first moments of that kind was when I was out in a school in um queens and I was working in an immigrant community and we had an end of the semester reading and um all these parents came and the boys went up there and I remember actually being nervous like I

[3:27]  hope the parents think that this work is valid I hope that they uh you know that they respect it or that you know they think I'm you know I'm not just wasting their time they came in to the school they left their jobs you know to come be there and as I was watching the kids read I looked over and I saw this Dad and he looked very like kind of emotional or stoic I knew he was thinking something and he came up to me after and he said thank you so much you show us who our children really are and I was so moved by that I asked him a few follow-up questions you know he was saying you know their humor their soul their questions their fantasies their deep thoughts their Reflections that he just didn't get a chance

[4:16]  to to always just sit there and take it all in and um I it felt really I just I I felt so deeply moved I knew that I I needed to do it more and I was still still figuring out the pieces I was still figuring out exactly what I wanted exactly what I felt the problem was in societ like what is the problem that I want to be responding to at this moment in my life and I was just putting the pieces together and I knew this was a very important piece and it just stayed with me forever and I say another moment which is actually quite different I was um this was a period of my life that I was taking off time from journalism I hadn't planned on leaving journalism um my editor unfortunately had passed away when I was there at the

[5:03]  voice the Old Guard were were dying literally and um leaving and dying and it was a hard time emotionally I was very close with my editor so I was just taking some time off just to you know I wanted to get connected to the actual to kids and help them tell their stories and um just fill up my soul and heart in a way that I needed it to be filled while I was mourning his loss and um I I live on the upper west side of Manhattan and a school a private school had heard that I was doing some of this work and asked me to come in and work with um some of their kids who were either seemed bored or socially not connecting with other kids or just needing that extra support for different reasons and this boy um another boy um started

[5:56]  writing this beautiful he's a really silly goofy kid like who was always like the big jokester in the class and he was a little overweight I don't know like I felt like he kind of got in trouble a lot got made fun of but very special kid and he wrote this beautiful Memoir it's a 12-year-old boy a seventh grader about not feeling masculine enough and not feeling like man wow at 12 at 12 and this was like you know a wealthy private school which I hadn't I didn't go to private school myself I didn't see myself as doing work you know I felt like oh I want to work with the kids who are are um have under resource not have all the resources in the world and you know so this wasn't actually like my personal mission to be in the school but I was asked and I was like oh I'll work with some kids who sounded like they needed some support again it was part of my little journey period you know um so

[6:47]  um I I felt really deeply moved by this work with him and um and then a bunch of parents from that school asked me if over spring break I would run like a special little workshop for those kids in my home and the kids were excited the parents were excited I was so fulfilled I kept thinking about the kids and queens and the kids in the Bronx who are working with in different programs and I was like Wow parents from all walks of life deeply appreciate this work on many levels the literacy piece the storytelling piece the soul searching piece the you know the the uh self actualizing and the self- expression the self you know the this um validating experience that the kids in these families were having from the richest

[7:35]  and the poorest communities in New York I love it and yeah and so for me that was the next step of realizing that I asked those parents actually what they I actually asked the wealthier parents like yeah I would I would love to tell me tell me about your um what do you love most about the work we're doing you know and they were like oh our kids aren't writing at high levels enough even though they go to this well resourced school um so they love the literacy like they love the actual work of writing and learning how to craft effective stories they love the emotional piece they love that their kids were having a great time they love that their kids were getting the social emotional experience of sharing and bonding and I was loving it and the kids so that's when I started to realize there's something missing in our schools

[8:23]  across the board of course whatever's missing in the private school is often tfold in a public schools you know so this is this is a it was a I realized it's a missing piece in many forms of education and many places and that I loved it and wanted to figure out how to help so um that kind of recognizing in he Rebecca I want to ask like you talk about storytelling right um and you finished you've seen firsthand how storytelling changes life you I remember telling me you telling me that story about um that father that was just an awe to see that what's something people don't realize about the power writing that that truly changes the mind okay well first I could say you just triggered a certain memory that I I

[9:12]  want to say it's I've actually written for uh I've written for academic journals on this topic there is this notion that kids who've had trauma around writing like let's say kids from marginalized backgrounds who maybe were told that they didn't know proper English or you know got a lot of red marks over they're writing and so on and so forth um they will not like you know they don't want a writing camp they are going to hate it like you're just going to make them feel bad basically like if they do a writing program you're gonna make them feel bad so I would say that the misconception in some of our communities that seek to serve kids from marginalized backgrounds or underresourced backgrounds they don't give that they they they don't um understand that actually at least a well-run program but it's

[10:00]  most you know most nonprofit organizations that are going to go in of course I want to say ropia is the best you know I feel like we're the best of course why of course but yeah but most you know nonprofits in this space you know are gonna come in and have a transformative impact on the kids when they start to regain that confidence in that voice I that what people don't realize is that's writing is just storytelling but down on paper and every kid loves to tell a story so once you have the kids telling a story whether it's made up or whether it's true and then you even just start typing for them then they see the connection oh I wrote that I told that story yes you did yes you did right in front of me it was incredible you had the room laughing and crying right and that's your story yeah I was gonna I was gonna say something

[10:49]  because I'm in the spot now right as also a nonprofit leader myself where we're going into the scholarship phases for a very long time I've seen that um right in something was the way to apply for a scholarship but I believe that stories are also told better in person that they're told better by someone that that knows because not everyone's as you mentioned could be a good Storyteller but they're a good speaker you know and then if they can speak someone can write the story it just makes sense and now they can see like wait that's my creativity and it looks like that's what you're you know you're you're doing so do you believe that there is those that are really really good at storytelling and there's those that are really really good at writing and you're just bringing those moments together um no I I really don't see a difference but well yeah of course some people are theatrical and some people have great

[11:36]  timing and they know how they move their bodies and their faces sure you can get trained in it or have a natural gift at it I I consider that more performance ability but but if I think of The Art of Storytelling just telling a story uh just verbally telling a story and the Art of writing are actually the same in the sense that you're um you are you are just that that is what we're trying that is what we're showing kids how to do is how to just tell that story on paper so you're so um if you're telling a story to me right now and you say like and then he whispered blah blah blah blah blah right and like you're kind of like showing it you're you're you're saying it so we tell them okay tell your story so what

[12:24]  are you doing right now oh you're Whispering okay so then right he whispered you know what I like we're literally just showing them yep what words you use to capture to depict what you're actually saying and it's very it's demystified and it's not rocket science that's the thing it is not rocket science I do not believe I I I'm not just saying it I'm not just like oh wow anyone can write I I really have experienced it for the last this is our 18th anniversary this April and it it's just a fact like it's not some like oh Lucy juy warm fuzzy thing I say to get kids to you know no if I every single kid that I work with and I just I it's really and I just literally demystify it great see you just whispered that right

[13:13]  whisper yeah they just get it and then they just start doing it more and more and when I help edit kids stories they okay you know like okay and I show them what I'm doing to the sentence like okay oh well look I'm editing like you now Rebecca yes you are it's yeah it's really just some some kids are growing up in environments where they're around that all the time and some kids aren't and then some kids you know got a lot of negative messaging either in their homes or their schools and you have to work through that trauma that I I'm using the word trauma I know trauma is a heavy word but that this word is used ly I say it's those deep root rooted issues that allows people to think that they don't have it in in them and that happens you know I mean there's adults that still are thinking that they don't have it in them you know but

[13:59]  you're taking something out of someone that know they do have them in it you know in them someone may have not been able to pull it out or someone may have hid that you know from them personally type stuff so I I definitely see how that you you've been an a you've been doing this for so many years of course it's working H have you had any one of those like full circle moments that you've actually had kids that go through it and come back and just oh my gosh want to be a part of it we're in that world right now because we're 18 years old so now we have our Lum it's incredible I get emotional talking about it I walked into ropia Yesterday every room I was in was an Alum who was setting up a workshop that they were going to teach you know and they're they're teaching here they're I we have a few Alum at the New York Times um we have a an Alum who has who's a book author and Alum who's

[14:49]  um um oh yeah he just published his like he he's really funny this one guy lwis he he tracks how many rejections he gets a year it publicly like it's part of his shtick so and so he'll say like just got my hundredth rejection but then he also shows every single piece he gets published that's amazing so when you celebrate him you're like you feel everything because you're like you know you can't get jealous you can't you know you know what I mean like you're he's just a beautiful role model he's like I am passionate this is what I want I have grit I have resilience I have passion this is who I am I want to talk about AI in this space do you feel that this is a tool that could definitely help support your client uh possibly or or even um some of the students to to help them

[15:38]  write or to help them get information like what is your thoughts on AI there's so much curiosity when it comes to leaders in this space yeah well I think that there's a lot of confusion right now among our youth about what's okay and what's not okay like how to engage it in a way that that's um totally logical right like of course if you're going to write um a sign that says you know the theater is over there or something or like you know like something very instructional or like when does it make the like logical sense to use it and when is it disruptive to your own education and when is it

[16:25]  unethical right so I think those are like the three things uh at least in my mind I'm sure there's many other you know other other uh angles to look at it with but um so um um I think it's very okay so I'm not in this space where we're using it just for logical reasons so that's someone else in my space s i find I see the disruptive aspects of it um I see kids are really like okay I'm going to you know there's a right competition I'm just going to use Ai and and submit a story and see how many awards I could win um oh is that fun and cool and weird and subversive I can just like pull it off the internet and get an easy award

[17:13]  so at ropia we're part of the Scholastic Awards Community the Scholastic Awards is the nation's longest running most prestigious writing competition for teenagers for okay Teen Writers and we as an they their model the Scholastic Awards model is that they have nonprofits administer the awards locally around the country so we run it in in a DC um because we have a DC Branch we don't run it in New York um so anyway we run our we run the pieces through different AI detectors and so does everyone in this community like all these nonprofits communicate with each other and you know this one girl submitted 10 pieces all AI generated um and you know

[18:01]  it's it's fa sad when we see that you know we looked into it and you know we see she's someone who has um won a lot of Awards in the past and probably what we find is that the kids who tend to cheat are the ones who are extremely high performing and they're so scared of like oh no everyone tells me I'm a a great writer this is my identity if I fail um you know if I don't win a words I'm in my identity I know I'm no longer who I'm supposed to be and you know it's quite devastating so um I think she probably fell into that category and then we have the kids who are the opposite like oh there's no way I'm going to be able to write anything I have low self-esteem I have no ability so it's like the kids on the extreme ends anyway that's a different story that's about cheating in general so you know I see unfortunately what my space is I'm seeing the destructive elements

[18:48]  of it the very another thing for kids to be totally confused by something like 60% of kids in America have not had training on AI a lot of kids in New York have are kids in like well funded school you know just different kids in different schools have training like literally it's part of their education they a guest speaker come you know and they're starting they're able to wrap their heads around starting to wrap their heads around these issues but 60% of American kids don't have any training in it so they're just like oh okay let me try this they don't even know that there are AI detectors that you can like what's at stake and you know how you can what's unethical about it and how you could also harm yourself and undermine your own goals because it's actually cheating they might not even understand that okay so that's one thing is that I I think it's um I completely get it

[19:36]  right especially in the writing space because um I think that was the issue so many people have when AI became a thing right taking people's art taking people's work and and not being just authentically someone you know yourself because you're taking you're using everybody's stuff so what challenges do you think that AI may be able to assist you and your team in a perfect world is there anything uh within ropia that AI could possibly um be of an asset I I mean we are but it's not really the right it's as an organization yes um we have a tech team and they're they're building models like we're um we have a CRM you know so um and so our team there is exploring how they you know they're exploring that whole Space of using AI to build their different modules that we're needing for like different

[20:23]  communication systems so we are using it I mean obviously the whole world is using it um yeah yeah yeah and um so yeah they're different Corners that we are using it but you know for me what we talk about here is our kids and our workshops and we yes we did at first like oh maybe you know some instructors created some games of how the kids could play with AI and make you know create different story like play with it as a tool but honestly we don't really feel the need to um I think our kids really love not being part of that here they hear so much about it they know the whole world is trying to embrace Ai and when they come to ropia they just want to write their stories and they want to be um in a literary space and these are these are

[21:12]  not the kids that are hungry for that conversation in fact they're often trying to escape that conversation and they're very Anno they're very frustrated at school about the number of kids that are cheating and a number of kids that are you know that are um and you know there are these assignments that one of my daughters is getting in school because their school's trying to wrap their head around it where it's like you know like now she's being given writing assignments where they're supposed to play with AI and honestly I think a lot of kids that are deep in the writing space they're not hungry for that I don't know how else to say it like I know I sound so old school but but like this isn't a space where kids are hungry to explore AI this is a space where we're helping them find their voice get confident figure out who they are in this crazy world where

[21:59]  there's so much going on outside of you that is so confusing and so abstract but here you're just getting in touch with yourself your your your imagination you're sharing it with your community and AI is truly irrelevant to us and that's not I don't see that as our role at ropia I'm glad that they're having high level conversations or exploring AI in other contexts I don't I none of us here and we've have you know our directors like we really feel like this is a space where they don't need to do that and and that the kids aren't coming to us for that the parents are not coming to us for that and we're not here for that um but our back office team you know they explore it and they're using it to help us to help us innovate in many interesting ways um but but we're

[22:47]  not interested in that when it comes to a student facing but you listen if no one was doing AI with kids we'd be like oh we should be showing them something but because they're getting it from every direction that's not who we are for them no I love it I mean AI there's spaces where you use AI like you said this this is definitely um not one of them but to you know AI is still being implemented just not when it comes to the Hands-On with the kids complete respectful but you know there's still the organization is still benefiting it from um you know the backend helping with Community Driven information that may not be accessible 247 right so those are some of the cool spots but yeah I could definitely see where in the writing it doesn't make any sense ESP when you you don't want them to go to school and start using chat GPT to writeessay we want them to be the kids in school who are like guys you don't

[23:36]  have to do that here we want them to be the leaders in their space we want them to go into school saying you don't have to do that here let me show you these tips you know you can do yourself you see what I mean yeah yeah yeah 100% listen I completely get it so let's talk about the nonprofit world it's not all sunshine it's not grant money what's been the hardest lesson that you've actually had to learn a as a leader yeah um well I could tell you like as a leader a really important lesson that comes you know you start a nonprofit you're so idealistic I want to create the best environment to work I want everyone to come to work every day and love it um and something you realize over time like and it's not just me I'm in a community of you know like Founders or CEOs and we talk about this stuff but

[24:25]  as you get bigger and bigger not everyone just sees you as a cool fun creative Innovative person you you become boss right and that's normal they start seeing you through a lens of power right this is probably a concept I don't know I it's a concept that a lot of people become familiar with over their years of leadership that you're like oh man why won't they just talk to me and be comfortable with me and you know tell me if they have any issues or any problem it's because you have power over them right and so of course and some people are less comforable with that than other people are right some people know how to navigate that very smoothly and other people are you know makes them very anxious so it was realized one big shift for me was when we started to get big enough where we had a much larger junior staff and people started to see

[25:14]  me through that lens of power and I realized that I had to not worry like not lament that not be like oh poor me they're don't just understand it understand this is this is life and it's that self developing that self-awareness respecting it you know and then just taking you know figuring out those boundaries that are appropriate for you and other people you know and realizing that's just the way it is and just to be respectful and warm you know like figure out how to now relate to people in a way that you may never have related to them before like for me as a journalist that was definitely never the kind of dynamic I ever had with anyone you know um so with any you know no one ever treated me that way you know or saw me that way um so I

[26:03]  think that's a that's a that's a huge experience for people or for Founders I want to go back memory-wise well I can but you can 18 plus years ago if you could go back to year one and give yourself that one piece of advice what would that look like 18 plus years you've had to learn so much in this business and the nonprofit was Spectrum okay it I'm I'm going back so I'm I'm doing more the leadership thing than the nonprofit thing I don't know if you want that or not but first i'm going to do the leadership thing okay go ahe as a leader I would say that um to understand that lesson of the people are going to see you through a lens of power and and to learn like I wish that at a very young age I knew the concept of thank you for your feedback um from your staff

[26:51]  you know so for year you know like my first few years when I had the junior staff and you know um just learning about uh when you have a small team everyone's giving each other feedback and it's fun and exciting but then it's different it's it's just different when when the structure is different right so then um I I wish that I just um learned that like was mentally prepared for for what that means and what that was going to feel like and that professionalism of like how you navigate that okay so that's leadership from the nonprofit world I wish that one advice that I would give myself is um probably gonna get a lot of NOS before

[27:38]  you get a [Laughter] yes I mean always that's yeah yeah uh that wasn't shocking to me though I guess as a writer I don't know like that part um I had the grit for it um I think I think just being prepared for so we we are a two ition based organization um so people pay sliding scale and then we have some we have some grants for our like 20% of our kids pay full uh sorry 20% of our kids pay nothing and then we have so we have funding to cover that part of our community and we have funding to bring us into like all different schools like Title One schools but as times have changed post pandemic and we don't bring

[28:27]  in as much with we still do it's just I we've always had Diversified streams of capital of of Revenue that we've always had but I I do wish that we spent more time with the grant development i i people always said oh it's so amazing that you're not dependent on grants I wish that it was more 5050 and not 8020 got it uh so yeah so I guess that's one thing I would have figured out I wish that in our early days we figured out um that piece to become a 5050 yeah C so I'm a big believer when it comes to speaking things to existence so I'm G say let's dream big if someone dropped $10 million in your lap today for uh

[29:15]  ropia what's the first thing you actually do with those $10 million um so there's um our Dream before the pandemic we were at that place where we wanted to do a capital campaign for the 10 million the 20 million um and we our dream is to have a like um a writing like like writing Museum like a WR a writing Cultural Center um probably somewhere in the upper west side but probably a little bit north northern and the Upper West Side um where it's a place um where it's almost free you know there's some pay there's like like The JCC like different like the Y and um the 92 Street Y and the Y YMCA like you pay for some things but everything's very affordable so having this endowment where it's very

[30:04]  inexpensive but there's some fee maybe that where you stay uh uh where you have um full access to the building and there's just constant workshops and performances and special guests and authors and um a writing Museum in the lobby and like basically just a fun and a a cultural center that celebrates literary Arts that's very accessible and very empowering that's diverse um that uh has different um in coming exhibits that are um that come like the lobby is filled with like you know different exhibits of like different authors and different books and different moments in history and different genres that's just like an

[30:51]  exciting one of those super exciting fun creative places to go in the city uh with your family with your kids kids and for all ages that serves kids and adults yeah yeah I I I think that's um amazing and I know we speak we talk about speaking to existence it's going to happen just because we talked about it so I can only imagine just remember to call me remember to call me when it happens okay and let me know that it actually that yeah maybe you could have like a podcast room yeah hey I'm I'm so excited for that it's actually pretty cool do you think that there's um there's so many shifts happening in education right now obviously politically as well but do you feel like creative programs like where I told are actually fighting an uphill battle or do you think the tide is actually turning with what ropia is doing for the community well you know the Common Core I don't know if you followed the Common

[31:37]  Core those 10 years like what so H man um so I don't know if you followed this but about 10 years ago um when the common Corp was ruled out with common Corp had very idealistic ideas behind it you know there everyone in the whole country should have a decent access to a decent level like decent standard of education and it was really like a bipartisan um idealistic approach to like some kind of standardized education and stand um uh St to standardize um what all of our kids are getting in American education but what happened is that the guy The Architects of the of the curriculum said uh quote unquote quote unquote no one gives a what you're

[32:26]  what you think or feel it's how you write like this was part of the this was part of the curriculum that was now being standardized around the country um so actually ropia exploded during that time because schools started shrinking their um their literature curriculum and their creative writing curriculum and kids were starving to write kids were hating like that kids were becoming less and less um contempt in their schools in their writing program and so we became a place like we were responding directly to this problem um so you know we we always yeah and so we we're always taking note of these things and I'll tell you one other thing that I I um there was a trend in private education that also impacted public education for

[33:13]  a long time where they were not teaching they like oh don't teach grammar don't teach spelling just it's like the opposite of like the strict Common Core Curriculum where it's just like write what you feel and everything you know and like don't you know and and the kids will learn grammar through osmosis you know through the air and so at that time we had community members say to us um Rebecca you know why aren't you guys offering essay writing like school like actual skills based writing this is a long time ago because they're not getting it in school you are a writing Community you are our Writing Center like you're the writing nonprofit why aren't you doing this and so we realized that after a lot of a a lot of reflection as an organization we met

[34:00]  together thinking about our mission and we developed a an essay writing program that is still Joy Based that is still you know it's still completely aligned with our approach but that absolutely focuses on um this unskilled based writing and that really impacted our program as a whole because at ropia we really believe we are writers we love we're we're language Geeks so we we we believe that writing does have to come from the heart but also for it to have impact it has to be written with with precision and with skill um so we really we really teach both so we are um so we have we have responded to these different Trends in Academia and uh in in um different curricular trends that are just honestly they the the the policy the education policy becomes so

[34:50]  focused on the idea and not on the children and so we are you know completely we are focused on the impact on the children we're much more devoted to their experience than we are to the policy to the pedagogy to like the idea behind it it's okay we understand the ideas behind it we get why these I you know we understand the academics and the policy makers who are obsessed with skills based learning we understand the Joy Based learning we marry them together I love it here on this podcast the hard and hustle podcast myself and Kean um another host you probably seen him throughout we we really love helping leaders amplify their mission what's one challenge that ropia is actually facing right now if any that you wish you had more support

[35:37]  on yeah thank you for asking that um we um we need um we really want to get back into schools we have been in schools we we go we are in schools but a lot of it is just about um the the school leadership at the time the chancellor leadership it's like the people who are rooting for you and love the impacts of your program bring you in and then when they change schools or they they they leave their jobs then suddenly you're not in the school anymore so we have to rebuild it so um we really always just need help in um that visibility in our school system um visibility in um

[36:27]  but for you guys um I mean really I guess just this kind of show in itself just like amplifying the impacts of this work um this you know writing is different from math and that you know obviously all of these different academic all the all the academics impact the social emotional life of children with writing it is so deeply connected to the entire identity and well-being of the child it's sharing it's the confidence in Sharing who you are in paper this has impacts on your own sense of self this has impacts on your on on your ability to have um to grow and to to have access into different um diff different professions in your life right like if you don't

[37:14]  have the confidence to write you have limited options in your future so I mean we see this as such an entirely holistic need and it's it is a pathway to success it's a pathway out of poverty it's a pathway to you know to um mental health and you know to so I mean I I think just honestly having having me here I'm so grateful for um absolutely yeah giving the visibility to the importance of this kind of work because oh that is something actually that that is um I just realized now is the answer there's limited understanding in the foundation world like in the education funding world there's little value on creative writing and just even weirdly writing um as a priority for funding there's a lot

[38:02]  of funding for literacy when it comes to reading and there's a lot of funding for math but for the actual there's I could tell you there's like five foundations that prioritize this that see this that understand this as like a core ability if you have confidence in your writing it has TR it has Global impacts on your entire life and um I wish that there was I think that that that's actually I'm going to go back and say that's one of the most shocking things I learned in this space as a nonprofit leader is is that is that there's little is that there's such little uh yeah support or like recognition of that in the funding world yeah I'm asking you one last question um based off what we were just talking about before we get into the fun question which is the question that another leader has given you blind

[38:50]  question right so let's flip it if someone wanted to actually support ropia they're listening and in a way that is just not writing a check because that could be supportive but how could someone that does not want to write a check but feel they want to give other ways what would be the best way for them to actually move the needle within ropia what you're doing in your mission um someone outside of ropia yeah um just someone wanted to get involved and maybe it's not just writing a check but well we uh how do they get like volunteers we could be volunteers it could be someone that could maybe is there something that you guys are missing that you could definitely need some Community Support let's say someone from New York is listening to this and they're just thinking to I love what she's doing you know and maybe I could write a $50,000 check or maybe I can and what does Rebecca need okay so um we

[39:41]  definitely um we we need um support I would say uh grant writing support I as an organ I as an organization I think that having but not just any grant writer I I you know like if there's someone who's like um has like tremendous experience in the field and specifically um understanding what I'm saying about the fact that we are a writing focused literacy organization it's such as Niche space um I would any a person who's um or a potential board member who is very familiar with that space um with grant writing and with um uh with funding right writing literacy

[40:28]  um when it comes to just like any you know someone who just wants to be part of it we do have um we always need volunteers when it comes to our um 50 of our kids every year get one-on-one support throughout the whole year that's been funded through the good foundation yeah um and so um we're you know we go through periods where we're hiring volunteers so that's always a wonderful way to get involved um and um I I mean really like that is um those are the I I think I'm sorry that's no listen grant writers are very important I get it in the nonprofit space a good grant writer someone that

[41:15]  understands the niche could definitely uh be so beneficial to a nonprofit space I 100% get where you're coming from all good no wores but now time for this blind question Rebecca as we uh wrap it up here every guest they actually ask a blind question and they also answer so right now you'll be answering one and then you'll be able to ask your own blind question the blinding question that I have for you here that our last leader left was every leader has a has had a take a risk that made no sense on paper but they felt it in their gut what was yours o well the very first one I ever had was um uh 16 years ago my first she actually her birthday was yesterday my my daughter was born and my husband who worked in um nonprofits for the previous 15 years um you know he he did

[42:05]  operations and ropia was growing and I needed to bring an operations person and I just had a baby and we were like we kept looking over the numbers I'm like oh I'd love to bring him in here because we have a kid I need to hire operations person wean the numbers I'm telling you 15 times and they never made sense and then we were like screw it and then we he just did it you're like I'm like I can't just pay and bring someone else in when you're right there you have all the skills and we have a baby right here um so uh that was one big leap of faith and then you know we grew um so so before the pandemic we grew about from six to 20% every single quarter since we since I founded it it was just you know we um we we were a four and a half we're four

[42:53]  $4.2 million do organization um at the height of the pandemic since the pandemic we've had to do some rebuilding and we're smaller now we've contracted but um just saying that that was a great choice we came in and uh and it was wonderful but that was very terrifying that made no sense but we take risks but but then it's to answer more broadly we take risks all the time we are whole staff like we are we love creating games and program oh yeah we launched our Sleepaway Camp that felt insane that felt insane none of us had ever run a sleep away camp before um parents were saying like like oh you guys should run again we're like really one of our one of our longtime directors is a huge sleep away camp kid like she was a huge sleep camp kid she's like let's do it and so we tried it with 40

[43:40]  kids we had a great time and now we run a 200 kid Camp every summer every since ever since so I love it that was that felt crazy but in the end I love it it was the best thing ever so what is your question to the next leader uh you someone asked you a question but I want you to now ask the blind question for the next that we have here on the hard and hustle podcast okay my question is um what was the scariest moment you ever had in your in your career in your in running your organization as run organization yeah what was the scariest moment I love it well guys this is Rebecca ropia do org is that correct ropia lab.org or that's where you guys can get more

[44:28]  information it's been a pleasure having you here miss Rebecca and speaking about what your nonprofit does but also your leadership in the community um and I listen we spoked about some things like that $10 million we're speaking things into existence if you guys want to help her make sure you guys go check out the website my name is ephra this is Rebecca we thank you we'll catch you guys on the next epe thank you so much thank you so much for having me it was so much fun best of luck with everything