303 Making an Impact Through Informed Decisions: Lessons on Philanthropic Leadership with Charity Navigator CEO Michael Thatcher | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

***DISCLAIMER: Please note that the following AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate and could contain misspellings or errors.***

[00:00:00] Mahan Tavakoli: Michael Thatcher. Welcome to partnering leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me. 

[00:00:05] Michael Thatcher: I am delighted to be here. Thanks for having me. Michael, 

[00:00:08] Mahan Tavakoli: you've done incredible things in leading charity navigator and can't wait to learn from your leadership of the organization, how far you've brought it and where you are leading it to.

But before we get to that, we'd love to know whereabouts you grew up and how your upbringing impacted the kind of person you've become, Michael. 

[00:00:29] Michael Thatcher: I was born in Venezuela. and lived there for the first five years of my life. Then my parents who were from the United States moved back up to the States.

And I think probably the most important influence in my earlier childhood was when I was eight years old, I was put into a Waldorf school, which was a Rudolf Steiner education that gave me a broader education, a different approach to things that opened my mind to a lot of different things that led me down a path of actually wanting to become an artist.

But also having strong math and science skills. And so there was this tension between art and what ended up being computer science, that's been a big part of my life. 

[00:01:15] Mahan Tavakoli: wiTh that computer science focus, you spent many years at Microsoft, Michael, we could spend an entire episode talking about that experience, but what got you to transition out of a very successful international experience?

At Microsoft to then lead Charity Navigator. 

[00:01:36] Michael Thatcher: I think ultimately what I've been doing with computer science was always collecting data and then trying to make a difference through the use of technology. So the work I did at Microsoft as the chief technology officer in their public sector vertical was really helping governments in different parts of the world do more of what they were trying to do, whether it was in education, in health, in economic and social mobility.

And a lot of that work ended up interfacing with the local NGOs and even the multinational NGOs that were working in those countries. One of the things that we had to do was articulate the impact that we were making. 

And we got relatively good at articulating the outputs. Let's say how many people we had trained in computer and communication skills that didn't necessarily articulate the difference it was making in their lives. And so part of my own sort of personal fascination was, how are we actually articulating the difference we're making? How are we making a difference? And if you think about it, I'm a chronic do-gooder, wanting to make things better wherever I've been. I also have another ailment, which is I have trouble choosing. And so binding charity navigator to me was a gift because I got to choose a way that was essentially going to if we were successful with a good rating system, money would find its way to higher performing nonprofits and that in turn would lead to better outcomes in the world.

That's part of the question of how I got to Charity Navigator. In other words, there was a perfect alignment in terms of what I wanted to be doing. The other piece of it was I wanted to lead an organization, and needless to say, I was working in a high performing, high profile tech company at Microsoft, but they weren't offering me a CEO job, whereas Charity Navigator did, so that was another part of it.

And then the last piece, which is deeply personal was that I had been through a pretty significant life change in 2011, my wife got sick, and in 2013, she passed away, and this was a cancer battle that she succumbed to, and that changed my life entirely, and I got to a point at that moment where I needed to do something that was really just giving back and just beneficial, in alignment with who she was, who I was, and Charity Navigator let me do that.

It also brought me home. We'd been living overseas for the last 10 years and I needed to come home. And so it brought me back to New York, which is really my home as far as I see it. What 

[00:04:11] Mahan Tavakoli: a beautiful way, Michael, to build on the love you had for your wife and the desire to contribute back your experience in technology and data.

And then your desire to lead an organization. So everything came together for you to lead Charity Navigator. That said, I imagine whether the team or the board must have looked at you and said you don't get it because your experience was so drastically different. How were you able to engage with the team and the board to bring them along with the change that you were.

[00:04:52] Michael Thatcher: Looking for I've been through some pretty radical transitions in my life. And I have to admit the transition from Microsoft to charity navigator was by far the hardest. It was also interesting because I was coming home. I was coming back to a place that I'd grown up in that I'd lived in for many years.

Although I've been away for 20 years. So New York had changed a lot since the the early 1990s. Microsoft's, over 100, 000 employees, significant resources. I got to charity navigator. We had 16 staff and 20 board members. Even that math is actually really interesting. What I did in that process and the way I had to really get going was first and foremost was to build trust with the board of directors.

At the time that I joined the organization, the founder, Pat Dugan was still chairman of the board and very much a very strong figure in the governance of the organization and in how things took place at Charity Navigator. Becoming a trusted entity for Pat and the respective board of directors at the time was absolutely essential.

And so my first year, I really spent a lot of time building that bridge and maintaining it. At the end of my first year in the organization, Pat retired and we had new board leadership and the new board chair was also someone that I had a very good and a strong relationship with. Michael, 

[00:06:18] Mahan Tavakoli: How were you able to do that? I have clients and a few of them run Major nonprofit organizations, and at times they are so mission driven that they focus primarily on the mission and not as much as they should on the board and bringing the board along. How were you able to engage so effectively with the board?

Of course, they had hired you. That said, six months later, they can question why they hired you. How were you able to bring them along? 

[00:06:51] Michael Thatcher: A couple of things. First of all the structure of boards in the nonprofit sector is, and can be a bit of a wild card. Because it's very different than in a for profit board structure where you're brought in for very specific reasons.

Sometimes nonprofits board people that have an interest in the subject area, or they are friends of other members of the board, or they're trying to figure out what does it mean to be on a nonprofit board. And so It's a part of the structure that can sometimes be the most beneficial or the most randomizing.

And so I think from my own experience it's important to have a strong board of directors. It's important also that board be supportive and, it's one of the things that we see, board does governance. The organizational management is actually driving the process.

The board wants to see progress, right? So one of the things that was important to winning the trust of the board was to show that we were going to continue to make progress and deliver upon our mission. So part of that was really being crystal clear on what is our mission. How are we delivering on it?

And what I found when I joined charity navigator was that the finding ways to actually just show our own progress, ironically, just demonstrating our own impact and doing that was important that also allowed me to really focus in after that on my leadership team and  as a team, how we were working.

Then, there are different things that I had to go through in terms of structuring the team and growing the organization, which, happy to talk about, but that was a bit different. 

[00:08:29] Mahan Tavakoli: You said, ironically showing impact. I have to tell you in working not only with nonprofits, but a lot of for profit organizations and.

Teams, including leadership teams, showing that impact and that outcome orientation is very hard in organizations, but it is essential in order for you to bring your team along both the board of directors that you were able to bring along and your senior leadership team. So how were you able to get the senior leadership team aligned with where you wanted to take the organization?

Once you had the full support of the board.

[00:09:06] Michael Thatcher: I think a big part of it was about respecting efforts that had already been started. So not trying to come in and say, we're doing it all different now, but really allow the team to engage and keep engaging. The other piece was really taking that time to observe what was working well and what was missing.

And one of the anomalies that I found when I got to charity navigator was we had a leadership team of roughly 6 people who had been in place for 10, 15 years, and then we had junior level staff that were roughly, the other 10 were less than 2 years in role and generally what I understood fairly quickly was after about 2 years, they would cycle out of the organization because there wasn't really a path.

There was no upwards mobility at that point. And so what I realized was I needed a middle layer. In the organization, and I very quickly started creating systems to enable a middle management layer within the organization so that I could actually provide some kind of path forward for the, up and coming junior staff.

And I'm happy to say, one such individual is now part of my executive team, who's actually been sort of part of the organization for the full eight years that I've been here. And so it's two parts to break it back down again, ensure that we were maintaining the current plans and actually delivering on those things, but then also growing the people within the organization.

And then ultimately, it also led to bringing in some new blood. At leadership levels. And then also some people did actually cycle out of the organization from the existing leadership team. 

[00:10:52] Mahan Tavakoli: So as you built this Michael, you were energizing the team alignment with the board.

I want to visit for a second, the purpose of the organization and the mission of charity navigator. What is charity navigator all about before talking about how you were able to actually grow its impact and its reach? 

[00:11:16] Michael Thatcher: Charity navigators mission is to make impactful giving easier for everyone.

And that means we are about democratizing philanthropy. We're about providing information, tools, resources, ratings to the average American donor so that they're able to make smarter giving choices. One of the key components of impactful giving means that you're actually looking at.

Nonprofit impact and not just looking at their financials. And so I think that's probably what attracted me to charity navigator was to work on impact assessment and to try and do that in a scalable fashion. When I joined the org, we were rating roughly 8, 000 organizations. We were doing that primarily based on the tax information that they provide the IRS and then public data that was on their websites.

But we as an organization had launched an initiative called Charity Navigator 3. 0, which was the first attempt that the organization had made it looking at something we were calling results reporting and That's what brought me to the organization. Ironically, when I joined Charity Navigator, literally I'm signing my contract with the organization.

The CN 3. 0 was shelved and it was basically deemed not something that we could go forward with. So it was that work I had to restart. And it took us a little over a year to really get that going again, but get us to a place where we were doing it, a more holistic assessment of nonprofits.

And Looking at organizational impact and, I'm proud to say that where we are today, 8 years later is we now have a rating system, one where we're covering 219, 000 charities right now are rated by charity navigator. So huge increase in the number, but we're also rating organizations now based on impact and results, culture and community leadership and adaptability.

And also accountability and finances. So the accountability and finance pieces is still there somewhat of a backbone because that's the easiest data for us, but we're doing so much more now. That was a whole journey in and of itself, but it's what actually got everyone excited about what we were doing in organizationally.

[00:13:29] Mahan Tavakoli: That's a significant change because before you had taken over, there was a lot of criticism of charity navigators approach in terms of how. Nonprofits were being assessed. Now, at the same time Michael would love to know your thoughts on the fact that a lot of organizations, including nonprofits, have a hard time with trying to measure impact. How are you able to do that?

 Needless to say, there's not a simple answer. There's not a one size fits all answer. And what we have worked on is essentially a cost per outcome analysis of organizations.

[00:14:11] Michael Thatcher: And what that's looking at is you take a specific program service area. You do an assessment, you look at the academic literature on the outcome that is determined in that service area. In the literature, you'll see what sort of the basic components are, what the average costs are.

You then also factor in a counterfactual. So if nothing was done in this particular instance, what would happen? And then you apply an algorithm across this, looking at all organizations that are just working in that program service area. Let's say, it's planting trees for reduction of carbon emissions, 

 There's a similarity. We're only doing tree planting charities compared to tree planting charities. We're not suddenly mixing it in with something totally different. You can then, remove other externalities, and you can come up with an average cost.

You then calculate that as a comparison to the benchmark, and then Figure out which organizations are more cost effective than others. And so that is the current approach that charity navigator has towards what we're calling an impact assessment right now. It works with. Direct service interventions.

It doesn't work so well in the area of advocacy. And so right now we don't have a means of doing that. And so what we're doing is we're iterating where we keep growing the number of program service areas that we have algorithms for applying that across the relevant charities and then keep looking for new ways to grow.

So this is something that's going to take years to really get full coverage for. But it's an ongoing process. 

[00:15:49] Mahan Tavakoli: I imagine it's something that needs to be constantly fine tuned based on the marketplace, the kind of feedback that you're getting, and as better data is available.

So as you're doing this fine tuning, I also wonder with respect to the organizations. is This a tool that is used and charity navigator used by nonprofits to help improve their systems or is it a rating that they get and then every once in a while it's revisited? Are there examples of charities that have actually used this to become more effective to increase their impact in order to increase their ratings?

[00:16:29] Michael Thatcher: What you're describing is clearly something we aspire to. And I think 1 of the things that charity navigator, 1 of the big changes that we had to go through. And I'm going to, I'm going to take my time answering your question because this was not this has been an 8 year process for us, which is really the 1st thing that had to happen.

Was to transform the relationship that we had with the nonprofits that we were evaluating when I joined the organization. You rightly call this out. There was criticisms. There was some skepticism. Also, the ratings were something that were applied to the charities. Based on us evaluating tax forms, not based on any interaction with the charities themselves.

And so we either had no relationship or at times we had adversarial relationships with some of the charities that we were assessing. In order to have a system that's actually representative of the people that you're evaluating, you actually need their input. You have to do it in a very careful way so that you're not in any way sort of creating conflicts of interest, but it's essential to have a working relationship.

So the big thing that we did with our rating system was 1, we set up feedback mechanism so that we could get. Responses back from the charity. So what was working? What wasn't working? We set up expert groups in the ratings evolution so that we had voices of really measurement and evaluation experts that were helping us with that.

We also set up and we still run this very, it's running on a regular basis is a consultative council of nonprofit leaders. It's a group of about 30 to 35 nonprofit leaders from a pretty wide and diverse set of organizations, large, small old and young. And we ask leaders to sit on the council for a two year time period where they're able to give us input and feedback.

 We're getting input on how is this working for you? Is it helping you in running your business? I think the reality is there's some organizations that get great value from our ratings because they're really starting out and they're building capacity.

[00:18:31] Michael Thatcher: You have others that have been around for decades. That probably need us much less than we need them. And so I think there's a push pull in this, but our goal is for this to be useful for the charities, as well as useful for the donors. I 

[00:18:46] Mahan Tavakoli: love the perspective that you bring to this, which is to a certain extent, you're also now viewing the charities as.

Clients in that they can therefore benefit from interactions with you through dialogue with you and the services that are provided. It's not just that you take third party data, evaluate them, and put out the evaluation in the world. You're looking to help them increase their impact, not just assess them.

 It's funny, we talk a lot about charities and we talk a lot about donors. All this work is being done for end beneficiaries, right? And if the outputs from the charities are not improving, if the dollars aren't actually going to making that difference we're spinning our wheels.

[00:19:35] Michael Thatcher: So ultimately we're trying to help people. We're trying to help the environment. We're trying to, there are a multitude of things that, and causes and outcomes that we're trying to achieve. That has to be something that we're looking at. And ultimately, if I think, one of the things I wish we could change is this notion of giving.

Okay. And think of it more of investing in social change because then that's a mind shift that will actually help donors look more towards what did my money do versus how was my money spent? Because I think this obsession with how are you spending my money? takes us down the overhead path, which just isn't productive at this point.

[00:20:16] Mahan Tavakoli: I've had so many conversations where people sometimes complain about the salaries of some of the executives in nonprofit sector. And the alternative that I share with them is, would you rather have people who are not competent doing these roles. So it should be viewed as an investment in the community, and you want the best people to deliver on those outcomes for the recipients and for the community as well.

So I totally agree with that sentiment. Now, there's been a lot of different trends over the years, Michael right here in DC region, Steve case is big advocate for impact investing and then trend out of Silicon Valley, is effective altruism. We'd love to get your thoughts and the role they play in the future of philanthropy.

[00:21:10] Michael Thatcher: I think, it's many roads, and ultimately, the impact investing, I think, has tremendous potential and it is making a difference. They have the same problems we do, which is articulating the impact, they're also trying to make money or a little bit of money.

 And I think that's honorable and can help bring people towards thinking about social outcomes as well as thinking about their own bottom line. Effective altruism has had a fairly strong impact on Charity Navigator. And it's when you look at the cost per outcome analysis that we're doing, I would say it's inspired by effective altruism.

We're less absolute. In the causes, because effective altruism tends to pick the causes and then looking for efficiencies within those causes. So that your dollar is really going the furthest. We don't feel we need to go that far. Our goal is to.

Allow the donor to choose what they care about, and then we're going to help them find the best organization that's actually meeting the needs of that. 

[00:22:13] Mahan Tavakoli: What I hear from you is that you're taking the best from effective altruism. We're trying to balance it with the fact that you don't always maximize things for the future potential, which in some instances, effective altruism does

you've done that really well over the years, Michael, as you mentioned, growing from. 8, 000 nonprofits being rated to over 200, 000 being rated and you've done this through one of the most transformative periods that many organizations, especially nonprofits have been through.

And that was what we experienced over COVID. We'd love to get your thoughts on how did you lead Charity Navigator over COVID? How did The organization change as a result. And how did you see the philanthropic community changing as a result? 

[00:23:07] Michael Thatcher: Let me start by COVID was such a unique none of us have experienced anything like that. It was incredibly unique. I think every country had its own experience with it. The one thing that we've observed, because we're looking at enormous amounts of nonprofit data, COVID had a 

very mixed effect on the nonprofit sector. In some cases it put organizations out of business in others, they've doubled or tripled in size. And so it was really a question of where they sat and how they actually managed to navigate across the pandemic for ourselves going into COVID.

We were roughly, I think the team was about 18 people at the time. We were based in northern New Jersey. We had an office. We actually, ironically, signed a six year lease on January of 2020 for a brand new, big, beautiful space. We sent everybody home on March 13th of 2020. For a couple of weeks we are still working from home and charity navigator is a fully remote organization we have our office.

We use it periodically for team meetings, but we're also now a staff of 41 people based in 16 states across the country. And what we did during covert, and I think what was absolutely essential was 1 recognize that we had a global pandemic. And send people home. We had prior to the pandemic really coming into place.

We set ourselves up so that we could work remotely. We always had. And, since I've been at the organizations always had a fairly generous work from home policy so that people could spend 2 or 3 days a week where they were working from home. Which meant that we had remote in capabilities.

We actually tested that in November of 2019. There was a snowstorm on a Monday. So we did a dry run of working remotely where all the meetings happened virtually.

All of the interactions on Slack were as they had been. And so I think we knew we could do it when we went into shutdown, we basically made sure everybody had the equipment that they needed in their homes. The other big change that we made was I used to have weekly one on ones with my staff.

I went to daily check ins with my direct reports and I had my direct reports do the same with theirs. There were 10 to 15 minutes stand up meetings where we would just check in. And a lot of that, particularly in the 1st, months of the pandemic. Was just, are you okay? How are you as a human being?

And so it was really addressing the human beings that were working in the organization and making sure that they had regular connection points. Some of us live alone. Some of us have. Young families, some of us were living with our parents, so there was a whole multitude of different life circumstances that the staff was living with.

And so making sure that everybody had what they needed. And then also we had opportunities just to get together and talk about things because not only was there, the global pandemic, but there was also, the murder of George Floyd

and this was really upsetting to all of the staff. And so finding times to actually just connect in and say, Let's talk about this. How are you feeling about this? Just creating open spaces for that. And I think that caring and support really lent itself to letting people feel like they had what they needed and then they could work.

The other piece that was incredibly important for us was. Charity Navigator really came into its own during the pandemic because one, we were there, we were at the interface between donors and the nonprofits who were actually doing something about the pandemic racial justice. We were all super motivated.

We saw the difference we were making in the world. We saw the generosity of millions of Americans that were looking for resources. Where can I find a good organization that's doing something about food scarcity, huge problems. And so I have never worked through a more motivating time period in my life.

I think also we're all pretty tired. The last thing I'll say is, and this is something that was a bit of a, this was a journey for me, but it's using the digital tools that are there. I'm a little bit older. I'm used to the coffee cooler chats, I like running into people in the lunchroom and having that conversation.

The lunchroom's gone. It's a slack channel now, which means you got to show up on those slack channels. And so finding ways to actually spend time on those slack channels. Also creating non work related meetings. So we have a Thursday kudos meeting. 

Four things that happened in that meeting. There's a kudos award, which is given from one staff member to another staff member. So you're recognizing someone for something outstanding. They did in the last week that kudos award passes on a weekly basis. The person who's running the meeting changes every week.

So everybody gets a chance to lead the meeting. Then in that meeting, the person running the meeting calls out the favorite charity of the week. And then after that, we do other kudos for other people that want to recognize other people. And then we do some kind of a random icebreaker question. What's your favorite scary movie just random things to just have exchange on things that are really not work related, but allow us to build a culture and community within the organization.

And so it's setting up these structures and then. showing up, you've got to be at the meetings. From senior to junior staff. These are important meetings. They're as important as meeting with a key donor or a key customer or a charity.

In other words, making that meaningful. Those are some of the things that we did, which I think really made a difference. And then also helping staff and all of us see the difference we were making through the giving process during what was a really difficult time in the world.

[00:29:11] Mahan Tavakoli: I love the example that you set, Michael, both in terms of showing the care and concern, which is most important for the employees and how from the sound of it.

The organization is even better and more capable as a result of going through this digital transformation. Now, a lot of CEOs that I interact with, Michael, whether for profit companies or nonprofit are having quite a bit of indigestion with trying to do remote work. So you mentioned some of the things you're doing. I would love to get some more of your perspectives of is your culture as healthy and vibrant as it was before.

And do you see that this remote culture can help the organization succeed in the future? Or do you wish at some point in the future to go back to more of an in person environment? 

[00:30:13] Michael Thatcher: So I've got relatively strong views on this. I'd say no, I see no advantage to us going back to an in office environment.

 I Can understand why in certain businesses it would make sense to have. Either an in office or a hybrid environment. Something I borrowed from Microsoft was Microsoft runs a workplace health index. where they basically look at engagement and workplace connectivity.

[00:30:38] Michael Thatcher: We just ran our survey highest scores we've had in 5 years. If that survey is a metric worth following we're doing well on that front. I think it may be generational, this belief that we have to be physically in person.

And I would challenge my peers, at least from an age perspective to get out of your comfort zone and go meet the younger generation where they actually function and they live because we didn't grow up that way. Stay with the times. That is one challenge I've put out there.

 I think the hardest is for young, let's say starting employees and not having that mentorship of someone to follow at a close level, how you set that up in a virtual environment. I don't have a good answer for it. In other words, but that is the thing that I think we're going to feel tension.

There I know I learned a great deal from shadowing people. From being at the coattails of a great leader and seeing how they functioned in meetings. You can see that on a Zoom meeting and you watch your superiors, how they interact in difficult situations.

You still learn a lot. It's different than being in the room. But I also think the other thing that we've done, which is maybe a little bit hybridization. Is that we bring in teams to meet, we still have this office, because we did sign a six year lease and I'm still bound to that.

We use our office so I'll have the programs team will fly in or a subset of the programs team or the marketing and communications. I'll do a week retreat where they use the office and they spend that time together. We gather folks that are around and so we have the connectivity that we need. I do think it depends on the nature of the organization. We're a website and a ratings agency for the most part. I think we're in a better place today than we were six years ago. 

 Michael, what I hear from you is a lot of intentionality with respect to making those connections happen, making sure that people are part of your Thursday meetings and contribute

[00:32:44] Mahan Tavakoli: the analogy I draw for many of the leaders is the way. Many school systems transition to online learning. The curriculum wasn't written for online. The teachers weren't trained online. The kids didn't know how to be online. So they were all shoved in there. And no wonder it was an absolute disaster. Good for the teachers that put a lot of effort in it.

However, there wasn't the intentionality, the thinking and the approaches that would make online learning work. Same thing with organizations. It's not just saying. Let's be online. Let's use the digital tools. It requires different thinking, which sounds like you have done with respect to some of your approaches with your team.

[00:33:30] Michael Thatcher: Yes. And I think that there's a psychological component. As a manager, if you're not able to observe your staff, there's the perception of everyone slacking off. That's where measurement systems come in, just look at the results, if the outputs are high, then clearly they're doing their work or they're just super smart.

 And you need to figure out how to get them to do more work. We like seeing things. This takes me back in the 1980s. I was writing database applications for small businesses in New York City. And we used to do a lot of our work remotely.

And then we realized that psychologically the businesses were upset because they didn't see us in there with our sleeves rolled up, writing software, I don't need to be in your office to write code, but we ended up having to show up, come on, there are better ways of measuring productivity.

[00:34:18] Mahan Tavakoli: That's why one of the unfortunate things, as you talk about, Michael, I laugh about is that we still are using how many hours people spend in the office or how busy they look as a sign of them being productive. All of this person came in early or stayed until late and they look busy. They could be.

Surfing websites as far as we're concerned, but they look busy, so they must be productive. So I appreciate you making a point that there are obviously roles that require in person presence and in person interaction, but some of what. goes into the organizational culture and connectivity can be done very well digitally as well, which you've done at Charity Navigator.

So what I wonder, Michael, if we project into the future, where are you looking to take Charity Navigator now? 

[00:35:10] Michael Thatcher: So there are two primary things that I'm focused on. One is, I mentioned we've, , over 200, 000 organizations with the rating.

A lot of that is still just the information from the tax forms. And so part of what we're needing to do is harmonize the quality of the rating so that we actually have an impact and results assessment on all of those 200, 000. So there's a kind of a filling in of the different elements of the rating, so that it's a really, a very robust articulated story of that.

And then I think the other area that interests me enormously is assuming we're able to. get that within the United States. It's potentially, international expansion 

[00:35:50] Mahan Tavakoli: there is a lot of value that you can bring, especially to countries that have the same level of reporting transparency

now, in part based on your tech background Michael, and also the fact that you're very data driven. One of the transformations that we are going through is generative AI. So AI has been around, but now some of these tools are making access to data, conversations with data, and then predictions based on data a lot more effective.

Would love to know your thoughts and perspectives on how do you see AI Machine learning generative AI impacting first charity navigator and then secondarily the entire space. 

[00:36:39] Michael Thatcher: So speaking first to generative AI within charity navigator, where we've been doing some experimentation is in the areas of search. We'll train a a GPT model. Information will then merge in other external data and allow for the user to search. And they'll get results about the charity that they're interested in, but then they'll also get a much richer response to that. The challenge, of course, is it still needs some human supervision to make sure that there's not nonsense that's mixed in with that.

So that's early experimentation. There's work within just our engineering and software coding where there's repetitive tasks. GPT is fantastic for that and filling out the repetitive. Nature of some of the coding that has to happen. There's a similarity also in that from a customer success perspective, particularly in more email type communications, where we often get very similar questions, either from donors or from charities about specific elements of the ratings or functionality.

And so you can accelerate time to response through some of these models. And so That's some of the very specific applications that we're looking at ourselves. I do think the ability to refine and actually understand and this is a bit spooky, this side of it, but we all have a digital footprint, 

so what the AI is going to know about you and what it's going to know about me and our respective preferences it can be used in a positive way and in a negative way. But in actually figuring out what information or what types of organizations that I think you would be interested in.

So more predictive analytics. And, helping you find really the organization you're looking for based on what I know about you. Now, I think I say there's a spooky side to it because it makes its way into advertising

but if you really found the organization and the type of organization within the geography and for the specific type of people that you really cared about, I think that would be meaningful to you and so how to do that in a responsible way that's actually ethical.

There's a lot of tension around this right now. And then to the broader side of your question of how does this affect the sector at large? One of the big debates that we're having is how do we avoid propagating the systemic racism and biases that we already have through these models.

And I think that is something that there's a lot of effort there and really trying to make sure that there's balance in the model so that we're not just propagating some really systemic problems that we've had all along.

[00:39:30] Mahan Tavakoli: I love what you shared, Michael, both with respect to first of all, the systemic issues that exist at a conversation with Renee Cummings.

She's a professor of data science specializing in bias and data at UVA and talks about the potential of it. That said, some of the biases that can be baked in and the impact that they can have on the outcome. So we need to be mindful of that. And Louis Rosenberg, who is a pioneer in AI, VR, and AR also talks about the incredible potential for AI to be used to influence.

Now the choices influence for good or for bad, because there are predictive analytics to know. Based on all I know about Michael, and I know a heck of a lot about Michael, this is the charity or this is the cause that Michael might not even know that it will meet his needs or his desires or his goals best.

So there is real potential on the positive front with that predictive analytics as well. 

[00:40:36] Michael Thatcher: And the one last thing I'll say on it is, these are algorithms. 

[00:40:40] Mahan Tavakoli: It's always good to keep that in mind, Michael. I don't know how much you have played around with some of these tools, but some of them are becoming really good. And some people are confusing them with real entities and real peoples. 

[00:40:54] Michael Thatcher: We love to anthropomorphize.  

[00:40:55] Mahan Tavakoli: I appreciate your thoughts with respect to where the technology is headed. I would also love to get your thoughts, Michael of where you see philanthropy headed and the role you want Charity Navigator to play in that. 

[00:41:13] Michael Thatcher: ThIs is a very personal view.

I've worked in both the, for-profit sector, the nonprofit sector. I've worked in academic research. I'm a multinational person. I have three passports. A Venezuelan passport, a US passport, and a Swiss passport. I like variety. I like choice. I think we are ultimately humans.

I find borders really constrictive. I find business models really constrictive. And what I've noticed is you have a ton of for profits that are doing great things in the world. You have a ton of non profits that are doing great things in the world. You have impact investing. What I'm hoping for is that we're all going to coalesce around efforts That bring good to the world and also allow us to have , decent livelihoods.

What I would love to see with philanthropy is a kind of a merging, because more and more like large corporate brands that are really co opting the do good message right now , they're transforming lives for blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. And, many times they're doing it right.

I Stayed at Microsoft for 15 years because I felt that my contribution was bringing good things to the world. I'm staying at Charity Navigator for as long as I have because I see that we're bringing good things to the world, and I think it's more and more people are getting bought into that.

Also the younger generations are very much interested in social impact. And that's where the interest is. Forget about business models. Let's just have social impact that's actually making it a better environment to live in. So that's my wish,

When you say philanthropy, I'm happy to see the lines get gray and muddy between the different business models. As long as we're actually Predominantly leaving things better than the way we found it what a beautiful 

[00:43:00] Mahan Tavakoli: perspective where Charity Navigator can also support those outcomes and that impact we're looking for.

It doesn't matter which organization it's making the difference, having that impact. That's what matters most. I 

[00:43:16] Michael Thatcher: agree a hundred percent. Who are you and what's your contribution? 

[00:43:19] Mahan Tavakoli: You've done a magnificent job in leading charity navigator, Michael, for the audience to find out more about charity navigator, where would you send them to?

And how can they find out more content, both on the organization, follow you. 

 The simplest is charity navigator. org. That's the website. There's a lot of information there that you can find about the ratings, about how to give lists that are topical. If you want to reach me directly, feel free to send me an email at mthatchercharitynavigator.

[00:43:54] Michael Thatcher: org. 

[00:43:55] Mahan Tavakoli: Michael, I love The approach you have taken and the value you've brought through your leadership of charity navigator, having been involved in nonprofits, my entire professional life serving on boards, having worked with many of them over the years, I see people with the right intention on one extreme saying.

Nothing can be measured and trying to avoid measures at all costs and having worked in business on the other side. I see a lot of the wrong measures, having organizations and people do the wrong things. The balance is somewhere in the middle, having the right measures to have. And impact and make a real difference.

And it requires those adjustments. So I really appreciate the attitude you've taken and the approach you've taken in helping individuals, organizations make a bigger difference in our communities, in our country, and soon enough in the world. Thank you so much for this conversation, Michael Thatcher.

Thank you.