Sam Olmsted
to say I’m good or whatever. All right.

Okay. Thanks for joining us, Michael. How are you?

Michael Williamson
doing well thanks for having me

Sam Olmsted
Absolutely. So can you just start off by telling us about yourself and your work at United Way?

Michael Williamson
Let’s see, let’s try to do this as quick as possible. I’m considered somewhat of a United Way lifer. I spent most of my working professional career at United Way in about 26 years. Probably approached more closer to 27, 28 years now in the nonprofit sector. But I’m originally from South Carolina, born and raised. Spent some time at the United Way worldwide offices in Alexandria, Virginia for about five years.

About 14 years ago, Give or Take brought my family to southeast Louisiana, where we nestled in on the North Shore and kids attended all the public schools and my wife’s practicing her craft and enjoyed every minute of it.

Sam Olmsted
Nice, I was just in South Carolina last weekend in Charleston, my first time ever there, I loved it. A little warm, but nothing we’re not used to down here. And I grew up in Washington, DC, so close to Alexandria and another great area, so fun to see paths cross like that. I’ll just jump into the first question after that. So can you explain why nonprofits are so crucial in addressing local issues?

Michael Williamson
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a great question. And it should feel obvious to folks. If not, I’m just going to state the obvious. We know that government alone cannot address all the social challenges that we have in our communities. And we know through history that it’s often been not just government acting alone, but the nonprofit sector and the faith sector working together.

in a more collaborative way to address some of the more intractable social challenges we face. And so nonprofits are desperately needed and we’ll probably get into it but they’re also

While they’re under-resourced, typically, they are extremely nimble and adaptive and can move much faster than other entities. For example, like government. The wheels of government sometimes turn slow. And for all the right reasons, nonprofits, certainly like United Way and others, can move a lot faster.

Eliza Fillo
You mentioned nimbleness and I remember reading how the United Way, right when COVID hit, Gull managed, what was it, like in three weeks or something, to raise millions of dollars, which I think that just speaks to that nimbleness. But you also mentioned challenges. I think resources are kind of a more obvious one, but can you talk to us kind of about the challenges that you face as the head of a nonprofit?

And I guess to piggyback off of that, how you create lasting change and not just like a band-aid solution.

Michael Williamson
that question. Let me start with kind of the pride point, which is our response to COVID, where in a matter of, you know, just two, three short weeks, we launched our Hospitality Cares Pandemic Response Fund in partnership with the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation. And quite honestly, I felt if we could raise a million dollars to help struggling hospitality workers that lost their jobs, we could call it a success.

Eliza Fillo
Ha ha.

Michael Williamson
We ended up raising $2.4 million and we gave 4,800 displaced hospitality workers a $500 check cash payment if you will to help meet any of the basic needs they were facing because they were out of work. We did that so fast and so to your point to our nimbleness and just the partnerships that came along the

businesses and organizations and individuals that all rallied because they understood the importance. But it started with seeing the local and national reports around the effects of COVID on the hospitality industry to like conversations internally. And next thing you know, we’re launching a fund and we’re blessed to have our friends at the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation that can help us do that. I think while we’re nimble and speak to the challenges that we face as nonprofits,

We’re often under resourced. We’re expected to do a lot with a little. We’re expected to operate on very, very thin margins. In some ways, we’re called on to act like a business as far as our level of professionalism and our ability to deliver results. But then we’re funded like a not-for-profit. But we pride ourselves on doing a lot with a little.

But I will make the appeal in the case for that a well resourced nonprofit.

that has a competent and capable staff team, because we have some of the best professionals out there in the world that work for our organization. You’re gonna get more bang for your buck, you’re gonna get a better return on investment, something that you would say would be comparable to a for-profit organization of business of similar size. But we have to kind of break that, we have to overcome that myth.

Michael Williamson
and break that stereotype. So when you see us and experience us, you’re gonna feel like you’re working with, you know, a 15 to $20 million a year business.

Sam Olmsted
some ways to break that myth. I mean, how do you break the mold and how do you make it so that nonprofits can work more streamlined and have that financial backing that they really need?

Michael Williamson
So I think everything to me, everything’s always a two-way street. You know, the one is we have to be able to deliver, like we have to be able to deliver results at a quality and scale that warrants the investment that an individual would make in us. But at the same time, individuals, I believe, need to have…

open minds as far as like just even just our implicit bias around nonprofits, something that’s developed, you know, throughout the history of nonprofits. The individuals themselves have to work on kind of overcoming those biases and just looking at us for the results that we get. The way we approach our work, the nimbleness, they’re like.

You know, as we were beginning some of our early transformative work, we were looking at not just nonprofits, but businesses. And we fully understood that, you know, in that case, we need to move at the speed of business. So what would a for-profit business be doing in scenarios that we were facing and try to model those types of behaviors? Because, you know, businesses are very shrewd about how they develop and deploy resources.

Eliza Fillo
Great. Kind of on a separate note, but maybe related, how do you feel like as a nonprofit you navigate partnering with the government and municipalities and companies? I mean, how does that work? I don’t really know, so I’m just curious.

Sam Olmsted
I don’t know either. Ha ha.

Michael Williamson
Yeah, it’s a great question. I’m obviously reading a lot of great questions. So kind of start with this idea that collaboration isn’t easy. And often, it’s messy. It’s kind of like that analogy, you know, you like to eat sauces, but you don’t want to see it made, right? You know, working across the public and private sector,

requires I would say a good strong center of gravity, like really understanding who we are and what our strengths are. And finding organizations, either for-profit businesses, you know, the private sector or the public sector, government entities that have similar goals in mind and make sure that those goals are centered as well. So they’re always the North Star for what we’re trying to achieve.

And then allow everybody to bring their authentic selves and their strengths to this collaborative table, proverbial if you will. That’s critical. But listen, there’s a lot of trust building that has to take place. You have to overcome turf. You don’t want to insult someone by suggesting let’s do something different because they may have been doing

Michael Williamson
to build trust. And quite frankly, with government, because we do a lot of work with government entities, we have to be willing to operate within the guidelines that they have that have been put in place either by order or by law. And so lots of paperwork.

Lots of reporting. It’s expensive to administer projects that have government funding, either federal, state, or local, because they’re very stringent reporting requirements. Not to say that’s not important. It is, and we pride ourselves on transparency and accountability, but it’s, and oftentimes, like…

the funding you get can barely cover, like anybody I think have for indirect costs, you know, it can barely cover those costs. And what we do as an organization, and what we do as an organization, like we step in and say, is this mission aligned? So we’ll subsidize some of those costs because it’s mission aligned and we’re looking for the results that we can deliver as a part of this collaborative approach.

Sam Olmsted
not to mention the reporter.

Sam Olmsted
That’s a good point also, when you say mission aligned, what is the mission? And it seems so broad. So how do you pick the projects? How do you pick the people? And does that fall all on your shoulders? Or how does that work?

Michael Williamson
So, you know, we have worked diligently to grow our relevance in the region, very intentionally starting about 11 years ago, but certainly from an action-oriented state, you know, 10 years ago when I became the chief executive officer. But doing the work, building your relevance and seeing as an authority and a leader in the space, our broader issue is poverty. You know, our objective is to eradicate poverty throughout Southeast Louisiana.

But we also kind of pull that down in some very practical ways by focusing on, you know, stability, economic prosperity, vibrant communities, and personal wellness. And so we operate in the spaces of education, health, and financial stability. And so when you kind of get below the surface of that, you can see the way we fund, who we fund, the work that we do, our public policy and advocacy agenda. They’re all aligned with that bigger, you know.

mission. And then that’s towards helping us realize our vision where equitable communities, where all individuals are healthy and educated and economically stable. And so, but it’s deep, you know, it’s, you can see it on the surface, it’s as cool, but it seems very broad until you get into actually how we do it.

Sam Olmsted
Yeah. But, and I, and I totally see that. And when you said about funding, do you also act as a group that allocates funds to different organizations? So you raise money and then, and then you send that out. Interesting.

Michael Williamson
Oh sure.

Michael Williamson
Absolutely, we have, it’s interesting, we’ve been doing some research as far as a, I would call it transformation 2.0 for our organization, kind of the next leg of our journey. And we came across this graphic that speaks to

These levels that organizations operate at to affect change from internal programming all the way through public policy and advocacy, and their layers, almost concentric circles. Based on our study of ourselves, we found that we operated all of those levels, and we actually do it exceedingly well, but you know, in a way historically, kind of our beginning in Southeast Louisiana almost 100 years ago, we’ll turn 100 next year.

It was around this idea of raising money and funding local nonprofits to deal with pressing issues. And we still do that. We still put out millions of dollars a year and grant some nonprofit organizations, while also funding internal programs like, you know, whatever.

It’s an off camera with the prosperity center in Bogalusa, funding public policy and advocacy, developing collaborations where gaps in programs exist or where systems need to be retooled. And so we operate at all levels, but we still fund millions of dollars to local nonprofits.

Sam Olmsted
Can you tell us about this BoGalusa project? Because a lot of times when I see you on LinkedIn, you’re wearing a suit. So this is a little different.

Michael Williamson
Yeah, you know, I put on the body armor, you know, when I’m going to meetings where I think it’s gonna be appropriate. I prefer the Live United shirt and the hat and tennis shoes and shorts on, but we’re actually a critical part of how we’re gonna work to tackle the issue of poverty and family financial instability is through what we call a prosperity center model.

Sam Olmsted
Hehehe

Michael Williamson
And it’s a one-stop shop for financial capability building services. Everything from free tax prep to financial education, to financial coaching, credit repair, all the way through to asset development and asset building. Actually helping individuals build the skills and save money so they can purchase that first asset house, car, you’ll start a small business, go back to school. We’ve even added repairs to homes to the list, given where we live, you know, in the country. So.

We have our flagship center, the Jane Wayne Leonard Prosperity Center, which is on Canal Street in New Orleans, 2401. Canal Street, we opened at North Columbia Street in Covington, Louisiana on the North Shore. And now we’re way up here in Bogalusa on August the 17th, we’re going to open the Bogalusa campus of our United Way Prosperity Center. So we’re in one of the offices right now. We did a neighborhood walk to

hang bags on people’s mailboxes with information about how they can access our services. And we’re excited to have to give a shout out to International Paper for their financial support, but also the new mayor in Bogalusa, Tyron Trumb, 23-year-old mayor who called upon us to bring more services to Bogalusa. So we’re up here walking the streets this morning.

Eliza Fillo
Great. You mentioned 100 years coming next year. Do you all have any things happening around that you can share?

Sam Olmsted
You look great by the way for a hundred.

Michael Williamson
I’m glad you said that because it’s usually my joke. But we do. We have, we put together an internal team that’s building on our plans for the next year. But our objective is to make everything we do throughout the year, every event, every experience, tie back to our 100th anniversary. And we’re looking at various ways to elevate that through various partnerships with entities that,

Eliza Fillo
Yeah.

Sam Olmsted
Hehehe

Michael Williamson
supportive and so there’ll be more to come on it but we plan to have a year long focus on you know turning a hundred one of the fun things about that is we have an archive committee that is going through and trying to source all kind of pictures and materials dating back as far as we can to our formation and I was in a meeting yesterday I was the hospital CEO who’s

grandfather, I believe it was, was the former CEO of a New Orleans company, very active in United Way. He just remembers as a kid seeing pictures of his grandfather at a podium with the United Way signage in front of him. So we’re trying to pull all that together and create this massive year-long celebration.

Sam Olmsted
It’s a great time for press and for leveraging that press that you know you’re gonna get in some capacity. We just had a client who celebrated their 50th year. And so we did a new logo and put out a press release and did all the things that you wanna do to draw eyeballs. Cause eyeballs are our money too. It’s fundraising, it’s donors. Exactly, exactly. You got the swag there. I like that logo too. So that’s pretty exciting.

Michael Williamson
Thanks.

Sam Olmsted
I remember the New Orleans Tri-Centennial too, which was a few years ago, and kind of all the work around that. And they had the different activations across the different parts of the city. So did you get inspired by that at all? Or where are you pulling this inspiration from?

Michael Williamson
We did and there are United Ways across the country. We’re a network of United Ways across the country and across the globe. So you see others that may have achieved that milestone before us. And we look at what they’re doing. Ironically with the tricentennial, we had some.

We were able to contribute some historical information during that time. And then after the Katrina at 10, like the 10 year anniversary and the day of service took place across the region, our volunteer center had an active role to play on that. So we’ve been a part of lots of celebrations. And to your point, like we want to, for us it’s a celebration. We want the marketing exposure, you know, all the…

the brand exposure, if you will. We just want to celebrate what it feels like to make 100 years as an organization that has stayed true to our core while evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of the community. So it’s, you know, it’s gonna be a fun time for us to be able to do that. We want to be very genuine and authentic, you know. Yes, we will raise money around it. We got ideas around how we can do that.

but all around this experience of, you know, in a way, you know, 100 years later.

Eliza Fillo
I realize I probably should have asked this at the top of the podcast, but this is very much on topic. Can you tell us just a little bit about the history of United Way, Southeast Louisiana, kind of where it started, very quick, until where we are now?

Michael Williamson
Yeah, so started as most United Way’s did as a community chest, you know, here in New Orleans, evolved over time to the United Fund. Think about the history of United Way, community chest to United Fund. And I think it was the mid 70s, give or take, the United Way brand was developed. Actually, the name and the branding.

was developed and been united way ever since. And in New Orleans, we took up that mantle 100 years ago and been a part of that journey as we’ve developed from the community chest to what we are today. So true to our purpose and our cause, addressing some of the tough challenges in our community, but squarely focused on poverty and poverty eradication through both program funding, collaborative levels.

systems change, public policy and advocacy, the mobilization of volunteers, and doing all that and trying to do it exceedingly well.

Sam Olmsted
Yeah, thanks for the history. So, you know, as a business, we like to be living up to our values as well. We do quarterly volunteer events. Most recently, we worked with CultureAid NOLA, which provides food, I think no barrier food for tons of different families around New Orleans. And I just wanted to ask, give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about other programs that

you may work with or have in the New Orleans area just because we’re New Orleans headquartered and what you’re helping to do with food insecurity or homelessness or Some of the issues that we kind of see on a regular basis

Michael Williamson
So kind of once again, just reflecting on our history, our United Way helped develop what is now Unity for the Homeless. So that’s the homeless, the top of the pyramid as far as the homeless coalition in New Orleans, Unity for a New Orleans was started by the leadership of our United Way.

We continue to fund organizations that work on issues around food security, our friends at Second Harvest, and food banks throughout the region. We often partner with, interestingly enough, with Culture Aid NOLA, some of our post-pandemic ongoing work. We did some work between our volunteer center and Culture Aid NOLA, so know them extremely well. And we continue to try to find ways to foster the volunteer spirit.

And so we have our United Way hands-on volunteer center that’s supported by Shell. So thank you, Shell, for that. And that’s a place where people can go to connect with volunteer opportunities throughout the year. So I always encourage folks to go to unitedwayseala.org slash volunteer. You can sign up. You can get updates. And when volunteer opportunities appear, in other words, an organization puts an opportunity in.

It matches up with individuals say, hey, I’m interested in that stuff. And then, uh, and then they get notifications around those, those experiences. But we definitely encourage folks to money’s important. Like money is a fuel, but, uh, what we see is when individuals are connected. Personally, like when they’re getting their hands on the issue and their volunteer with the organization. Um, you see greater giving.

but you see greater levels of satisfaction. And also volunteering is good for your health, it’s good for workplace morale. You’ve seen that if you’ve had people volunteer, people feel good when they do that. And there’s, I think there’s even some scientific reasons and science behind that as well.

Sam Olmsted
Usually a lot of early mornings and maybe some hot days or some cold days, and you kind of drag yourself out there. And then by the end of the day, you’re just so happy that you, you did it. So, um, I definitely agree with that. Didn’t mean to complain there.

Eliza Fillo
Yeah, I agree with that as well. And while we’re on the topic, do y’all, have you found specific strategies that work best for recruiting or retaining volunteers, or do you have special strategies that you tend to use?

Michael Williamson
Well, because of limited capacity, we tend to work with our top companies. So we offer our top 60 company supporters turnkey access to volunteer engagement coordination services. And so it’s an easy way to get to a lot of people through one point of entry. So if we go to pick a company, then we go through a point of contact there, we offer volunteer opportunities. And you might have 10, 15, 20 or 100 people.

show up to be a part of that experience. That seems to be effective. The employers endorse it. They know it’s important to their employees. They give people the latitude to do it. Or they try to reward them. Some will offer grants to the organizations they volunteer with if they put so many hours in. So they incentivize it. That seems to be the most effective. And then people to people. I mean, as much as…

digital and social media are kind of like the thing today. Standing in front of somebody and saying, hey, why don’t you come out and help with this is still extremely effective. That’s why we went door to door here in Bogalusa. Like getting people to come and interact with you, personally engaging is still extremely, extremely effective.

Eliza Fillo
I think the last couple of volunteer events, besides the non-work related ones, I definitely was asked by friends to say, hey, I’m going to this thing Saturday morning, do you want to tag along? I was like, sure, why not?

Michael Williamson
Good for you.

Sam Olmsted
And that actually kind of leads into another question about inclusivity and getting more people into the tent of volunteering. A lot of times nonprofits work with marginalized groups and vulnerable populations. And what’s the best way to make sure that your work is as inclusive as possible, your volunteers are, your corporate partners, and just making sure that you’re kind of representing the folks within your areas?

Michael Williamson
Yeah, that’s a great question too. We have been very intentional over the past seven years around developing out our DEI muscle and our internal, external strategy work around that, both so that we’re thinking about our employees, obviously first and foremost, to make sure that their experiences are positive because we have folks from all walks of lives, genders, race, et cetera.

And so we focused on that. That allows us to connect in the community more genuinely and more authentically. And you have to think about like volunteer experiences. You mentioned that on the world Saturday, well, you know, people are working during the week and they need to work during income.

So you have to be able to do those things when they’re able to break free because they want to get back to their community and be like culturally sensitive about like their experiences. And we think about that, like where are we going to volunteer? What are we doing? How are we going to, how are we casting this so that folks feel like everything’s being done in a respectful way. You know, if we’re going into a neighborhood to do a neighborhood cleanup, somebody’s gone and kind of made the rounds with the other neighbors and make sure we all know like.

and hopefully garner like trust and some engagement there. But I think starting with ourselves, both our staff and our board have been working to become, you know, far more in tune with who we are as an organization and the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion for us as an institution. And that shows up in how we engage externally in the community. It shows up in…

Organizations we fund, we admitted 21 new organizations, 21 new BIPOC led organizations in our recent round of funding. So it’s very much, and I say we’re on a journey, we’re nowhere near where I think we should be, but we’ve also decided we’re gonna be very authentic in our approach. As an organization that’s been around a long time, there are preconceived ideas about us, we wanna work to change those, but do it the right way.

Eliza Fillo
It’s kind of a general question, but you mentioned that money is not the only thing that supports y’all, but what can people do? What can we leave them with saying, we should do this? Is it volunteering? Is it figuring out who y’all are funding and then supporting those nonprofits? What does that look like?

Michael Williamson
Sure, I would encourage everybody to try to do all three to the level you can do. Give, be a donor to things you care about. Hopefully you know a way you can help you with that. If not, you find the thing you care about and give to it. That’s a positive thing. Then advocate. I think, and volunteer, but I’m going to go back to advocacy because we’ve talked about giving, we’ve talked about volunteering a good bit, but the single most effective way

that we can create change at scale in our communities is through advocacy geared towards changing public policy. Because we’ll never fundraise our way out of issues that are associated with poverty. But we shape policy at local, state, and national levels.

Then you see change at scale. You can literally move billions of resources, billions of dollars of resources in a way that can be aligned and far more effective with certainly our mission. So we encourage people to sign up for our advocacy alerts and pay attention to our legislative agenda. We go to Baton Rouge, you know, join us there. And sometimes we ask people to go up and testify, tell about your lived experience and what this policy means to you. And

if it was fixed, what that could do for you and your family and your community. And so I think, you know, public policy and advocacy, and we’re unique as an organization, as United Ways go, that we have a strong focus on public policy and advocacy, and we put an immense amount of resources against it because we understand that’s what’s going to tip the scale.

Sam Olmsted
Yeah, I’m so glad that you mentioned that because I also think that kind of answers Eliza’s first question about lasting change. Because, you know, you can only, you can only do so much on an individual basis. And if you’re changing the laws and changing the way that our society operates, especially toward vulnerable and marginalized people, then you’re going to have that lasting change. And, and it seems like, you know, Louisiana has had one of the poorer populations for a really long time. So.

Um, what are, do you have any sort of big public policy pushes that you, if you could wave magic wand would do?

Michael Williamson
Yeah, so, and I appreciate the focus on long lasting systemic change because that is in fact like what we what we’re here to do. I’ll start to answer the question at hand with the fact that we do a study that usually comes out about every 18 months called the Alice Report. And the Alice Report is a study of financial hardship and Alice is an acronym.

which stands for asset limited income constrained employed. And it’s really kind of the basis for how we approach our work around, stability and prosperity of vibrant communities and personal wellness. Because what it tells us is individuals in Louisiana and Southeast Louisiana is the same, don’t earn enough money.

or make enough money, depending on which way you look at it, to meet their basic needs. Some live in poverty based on how our government defines it, you know, the federal poverty level. And others live slightly above but still can’t afford the basics of housing and food and transportation. And often they fall through the cracks because they don’t qualify for government assistance because they’re not poor enough.

but they’re too poor to be able to afford their basic needs. And so that drives our policy. We’re trying just to create a greater understanding of what is a livable wage in Louisiana? You know, there’s the debate around minimum wage and minimum wage changing it polls very well, if you look at polling, but it’s hard to get done. And we’re using the Alice report to talk about what a livable wage looks like based on where you live, this is what you need to make.

to make ends meet. We think that’s a tool not just for individuals to advocate for themselves, but also for employers to understand the challenges facing their people, which COVID made that even more obvious. And so obviously the wage debate needs to be elevated. We need to find ways to a street employers to employees, find ways to grow wages, also addressing issues around affordable housing.

Michael Williamson
There’s that teeter totter effect of as wages go up and demand goes up, you get that. So you’re trying to find that sweet spot around how do you create more affordable housing so the folks that are Alice, lower income households can afford to have a safe sanitary place to live. We believe heavily in early care and education. That early start, those formative years, even prenatal through…

you know, fourth grade are like essential years for long-term sustainable positive outcomes for.

for our young people. And so we’ve worked hard to get more funding for early care and education. So the last legislative session, there was 52 million in, it got taken out, 44 million was put back in. You know, there’s a lot of back and forth. We got dedicated funding for early care and education. We saw that in New Orleans with the city of New Orleans dedicating $3 million to early care and education, which allowed them to tap into a state matching fund as well. So education, early education are important.

And then other policies around things that are barriers to family financial instability, you know, access to capital, access to programs and resources that are going to help. We work a lot of banks around banking the unbanked, you know, because having a bank relationship is essential in this world. But a lot of people don’t have a relationship with their bank. And so, but we have a full agenda that we advocate for every year, kind of lined up with the majority of that.

Sam Olmsted
Wow, I think we basically just scratched the surface on everything that you do, but we’re gonna wrap up here. And before we do, Michael, is there anything that you wanna promote or let people know about or where to find you as an organization?

Michael Williamson
Absolutely. I think two things each thing do is visit our website at United Way SLA.org. I’d immediately go to the connect page because that way you can find different ways to connect. And of course follow us on social at United Way or at UW-SELA is our handle and find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I’m on LinkedIn, Michael Williamson. I love followers. I post a lot of stuff out there because I bounce around. So anyways, but follow us, pay attention, and reach out to us if we ever be of service.

Sam Olmsted
Well, Michael Williamson, thank you so much for joining us, and thanks for taking the time out of your schedule. You were a fantastic guest, and we really appreciate it.

Eliza Fillo
Thank you.

Michael Williamson
Thank you very much for having me on.