108. How to Foster Grief Informed Teams at Work - Michael Turner

Michael Turner, CF Foundation, We Are For Good Podcast

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Overview

Meet Mike. Have you ever met a nonprofit leader whose passion for their mission just wants you to understand their story? Well, that guy is here. And he's brought a seriously incredible story to our conversation. And he's having the tough conversations with his team who are receiving mental health support unlike anything we've seen in nonprofit. It's wonderful to see. We're talking grief informed teams and we have a special surprise for our listeners at the end of the episode. Warning: Bring tissues.

Today’s Guest

Michael Turner, Executive Director, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation - Rocky Mountain Chapter

“I just encourage everybody, don’t always try to think of the one-to-one replacement. Think of the 10 to one replacement, by being strategic and being smart about those conversations and those families and folks and donors you’re working with.”

— Michael Turner, Executive Director-Rocky Mountain Chapter

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

How Mike “fell” into his career - 3:23
Cystic Fibrosis & the fight for the cure - 7:26
Compassion fatigue & fostering grief informed workplaces - 11:38
Through the philanthropic lens - 18:48
Changing the culture - 23:04
Mike’s One Philanthropic Moment - 25:53
Mike’s One Good Thing - 34:41

Powerful Quotes:

“So literally, the only rules I gave myself when I was looking for a new gig was I wanted to do good work with good people. And that was it. I didn't restrict myself to education or health or social services or anything like that. I just work with good people with a good mission behind it.” - Mike

“Our job here at the foundation is to raise money to fund the research to find ultimately find a cure, but also, you know, fund those studies and lab research to find therapies and better treatments for people with CF so that they can live longer and more fulfilling lives.” - Mike

“We don't talk about things like that, right? Like you don't cover what it's like to talk about loss and talk about grief in a workplace or everybody has these grief beliefs that they grew up with. And most of them are you keep your mouth shut, right. It's just not really talked about. So the upper-level folks at the CF foundation said, we want to change that because we think it's not healthy for our staff.” - Mike

“This idea of loss is this huge ripple effect that we just don't really think about in terms of it touching so many different things.” - Mike

“So many people, including myself, are just afraid to say anything because you're afraid to say the wrong thing. It really is truly okay to mess up as long as you improve and know what to do the next time.” - Mike

“Even by virtue of listening, your compassion and your empathy are growing, your understanding of what life looks like for these families is informed. And then you can take that and put it into your programs in your fundraising, which I think is just brilliant.” - Becky

“Bravo for focusing on mental health, because they're just not this is like, again, the elephant in the room and nonprofit, that we are not taking care of ourselves. And we are not focusing on how can we take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our families, our patients, our students, our whoever our target audience is.” - Becky

“The longer you have staff together and the staff is there, the better people can do their work and the more community buys in and the more connections you're building.” - Mike

“So friends in leadership, invest in your people invest in their mental health.” - Jon

“You know, as somebody who works in the event space, it's really hard to organize something in the nonprofit world where you're giving, you know, a pretty universal, you're given a pretty universal thumbs up by 3000 people a day, right? It was fascinating to watch the nurses, the doctors, the volunteers, the staff, from the University of Denver come in and organize things.” Mike’s One Philanthropic Moment

“It's been really amazing to see the amount of giving and the amount of support and the amount of time going in to keep and make people more healthy.” - Mike’s One (more) Philanthropic Moment

“It really is about finding the small incremental growth places that can help you get those ultimate big wins.” - Mike’s One Good Thing