Lynn Margherio is the Founder and CEO of Cradles to Crayons, which "provides children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive – at home, at school, and at play. We supply these items free of charge by engaging and connecting communities." Cradles to Crayons uses a lot of volunteers - of all ages - to meet their mission goals.

Lynn joins host Steve Boland to talk about the importance of volunteerism as a component of building both service delivery and community support for nonprofit missions. The Cradles to Crayons "Giving Factory" (a warehouse where volunteers can give to their mission) has thousands of volunteer visits every year and Lynn talks about leveraging that commitment to further engagement in the mission work over time. Lynn talks about growing from faxes and spreadsheets to using a customized Salesforce implementation (more on Salesforce for nonprofits in this podcast episode), the importance of relationship and connection with volunteers, and much more.

Lynn also has a TEDxBeaconStreet talk about building an "army of empathy" including volunteers and building a culture of connection from a young age.

Bithiah Carter is the President and CEO of Give Black Alliance, which "seeks to create a strong Black community capable of advocating on its own behalf and identifying the necessary resources to support its vitality."

Bithiah joins host Steve Boland to talk about the origins of the Give Black Alliance and the tools they use to engage the community around understanding the impact of Black donors and conversations within Black movements. Bithiah shares about the Giving Black reports sharing information about specific cities and case studies, the #CouchConversations series available on their website, and a challenge for all communities to meaningfully engage in Black philanthropy.

Anne Nies is the Director of Science for Submittable, and Sam Caplan is the Vice President of Social Impact. Submittable is a platform to help "clients further social impact through programs that reach millions of people around the world."

Anne and Sam join host Steve Boland to talk about five specific principles that Submittable is deploying as it makes Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools available in their platform - both for nonprofits and those organizations that support charities. The principles include AI as; Empowering, Accountable, Transparent, Equitable, and Private & Secure. Anne and Sam discuss how these principles help their whole user community understand their tools and choices. There is more information at https://www.submittable.com/ai/