services and i have lived trying to long since who is the director and i have lori luck with the program director and i'm inviting them to come join us and talk to us a little bit about the work they do their experiences and share some things that we want to know and you want to know if you're starting a nonprofit or you've been in the world of the nonprofit for years and you really want to know how to keep it going some of the downsides upsides sideways forward and all of those great things so with that said i work with these young ladies young ladies i think and they're very special people to me welcome thank you and lori welcome thank you so with that said i'd like for both of you to take a moment and share some of your experiences tell us who you are what you do  pivotal point you services and pivotal point is a nonprofit organization that provides services in in the context of employment social worker for alameda county social services and wanted to provide more of an intensive type of support services to foster youth aging out of the system and left  job with alameda county social services to farm pivotal point and is started with my husband and social work colleagues of mine who also social workers and and one of the ministers at alan temple health and social services ministry ok so you're the founder yeah ok so you can hear a lot of and they've gone through the ranks a little bit i did a star program system became program manager and now program director and i've been there since two thousand and six so this is my seven years in november which i'm happy to say  administration and i started doing that at clorox i was there for about almost eleven years private sector yeah yeah and it is funny because i did get that inkling about working for a nonprofit while working there someone came there there was a speaker that came in one of our annual meetings michael preacher he was a comedian and he talked about working with boys and girls club or something like this from youth organization and when he did something chimed with in me and it was like oh my gosh that struck a chord and so i didn't start right away but i know that's where it began and i started like donating to united way because you could do that and i started volunteering with different organizations and made a decision some years later that ok it's time for me to give back community wise and i knew i needed some experience because i had worked with you and i did i worked at a group where actually i met rhonda the social worker there doing group work with the girls and then i worked at a camp for some summer so i got some experience working with you that way  and kept in touch with latron i want to new opened her was opening her own organization and we kept in touch over time and then i called right at the right time to when i was opening for me to go  i worked in the private sector before and there is a difference between the structure of a private business and the structure of a nonprofit business and a lot times people think that they could just transition easily if they were see a full upright in the private sector that they could be a c f o of the nonprofit world and it's not that easy so it was your experience how did you feel like you had the management kind of surf through that process well i am a creative person and a professional or business person i feel like fifty fift figure out how to transition it you at some point your nonprofit was what size in terms of finances how many grants and total revenue source well if it has varied over the years  in the beginning we grew fairly fast we had federal grants through the partner labor they grant through the state department of social services and a number of local grants through the alameda county social services and the city of oakland we were still considered a small nonprofit even though that our annual revenue was somewhere around eight hundred fifty thousand and we were able to sustain that for maybe about four years most of those projects were life  projects and with temporary contracts so after maybe about four years things started to change for us ok so change because they went from private projects to now follow it projects or projects that were no longer going to be funded it was a combination of old and we had a special foster care pilot project then started in two thousand  and ran through two thousand and eight and because fish kills who were governing the project left the agency and new people came in they wanted to do something different was in two thousand and six to two thousand and nine so the funding is never long term are it's not long enough to sustain the organization so we have to be creative to keep the restructuring and to sustain the organization and looking at ways to be a little bit more i guess autonomous and independent and not dependent upon government funding life we need to the first diversify our resources a little better and i talk about that a lot with that i think today in this world where grant funding is drying up as much as they're being very selective pray about who they fund how much they're going to fund and where they're going to put their resources so with that said that's always difficult because you don't know where the you're on the cutting it or you're on the downside or they're not even interested program side of that there's a diversity or muzi this some diversity in the funding sources so you may have one graph that's for this purpose another graph for this purpose and there's some deliverables that may not match or do it and so that is a unique process and when you talk about the private sector that's not something the private sector has to worry about and that is the way yeah i talk a little bit as a program director how you deal with different funding sources how you manage the fact that you have to make sure that you adhere to the program requirements and that is a job in and of in and of itself being a program director and then managing the people  what it is to the youth because they just want to be part of a program in particular like in the summer time and late the last few years we've been really focusing on summer employment before that it was a lot of if we' been in different locations sol what i have liked about being at the low point is each year were entered with very so what we're doing program life so that's beautiful about the creativity of it gives us on our toes s we know what funds are coming from where and some grants are easier to deal with through with the us some grants are harder with as far as the paperwork there and leave one program that we have right now it's very cumbersome as far as the paperwork however you know i've been working on it since i've been working there so feel like i'm an expert a master at it now mentoring life because when we do have mentoring she just says just let him come out tell me what we need to do and we'll fix whatever needs to be fixed so i have i would love to just share that with anyone like don't be worried about the men they need to have resume in place a cover letter they need to be able to demonstrate to us that they've improved academically over the course of the year in reading and math so there are some  responsible some things that they're responsible for to to complete the program so if i was a young person or if i was a parent watching that's right i had a young person sitting next to me and saying you need to do something this summer how would what what would be the process for a young person contacting you and saying i'm interested in the program i want to pay chair yes yes i'm willing to do the work what would they do and how would they reach you well right now because of the fund that is helping us this year for summer well it's actually a year round program but we are having some work in the summer and that's for ages seventeen to twenty one so we do have to narrow down the ages right now because of that particular funding and they come in with the paperwork as needed they can call the office five one zero eight nine but have them come in and ten an orientation so we give them a overview of our programs our services the benefits that they can up while in the program and what we expect of them participating in the still this is an opportunity so please take advantage of it i want to talk a little bit about downsize like some of the bad the worst thing that ever happened to you you have so many years of experience and i want to hear with our lists our viewing audience some experiences that nonprofits have that if you had to do it again you would say oh no no i know and i will never walk that way so share with us an experience that you had you can tell in the story of us that talks a little bit about what happened and then what you did to correct it but you know if you had to do it again this is what you you the end of those contracts and found myself scrounging around at the eleventh hour and having to lay off a robust because of it  and didn't want to ask for help there were a number of things that we ended up doing to remedy that life we collaborated with other nonprofit organizations we were able to offset some operating costs by sharing a facility we were able to cut down on staff  costs in terms of how we can recruitment by collaborating with high schools where we can enter one classroom and work with thirty use on the spot versus having to go out in the community and it impacted us in a negative way when it was time to apply for funding and we had to show and prove what we did for the previous year and how we were able to be effective is very difficult to tell a funder when i had to layoff six people and my strategic plan was a solid enough and didn't work out and it's just very difficult to have those type of conversations with  with funders who are looking to invest in the organization and so i want to i want to share that you're not along most nonprofits or work where that is their problem  you know that you only have three years worth of funding you think they're going to renew you have a great relationship with the fund and all of a sudden they say we're not going to fund you for the next year you may relationships with your staff you have and you have a really nice running business is running very much like a machine and then his movie and it's hard to look at those individuals and say we're not going to be able to do this program anymore but then the thing that i share which is a thing that you just talked about collaboration if we go into them from the beginning makes more sense than it was hard to work with other people but you learn when you're under the gun right and the other thing is it's so important to treat it treat the nonprofit any you know profit like a business and if you had your own business and it was coming our your pocket and it was personal to  really it is the bottom line how much money do we have how many expenses do we have exactly and is this net and zero it is not getting there oh there's a problem yeah if you're spending more than you have there's a problem so laurie before we end this one of the things i have for you is i want to talk about any new programs that are coming anything you want to share with the audience about pivotal point so that they can see more about the organization and know you  pot pivotal point youth services is a wonderful organization a lot of the youth come work with us we even have some you that work with us in the summer they we are there as models for them a lot of them don't have support and so adult support so there you know we're there to mentor them to be there as a guide and so they keep coming back to us they'll  every summer lorie you know job again this summer you know we have a very good reputation in the community for being trustworthy the people who really care genuinely you know it's pretty seamless as far as you see it being seen as a number they don't like to be seen as a number and it youth organizations and it is a blessing to be at a small place because it is like a family feel and that if if a user is looking for that this is a place to come to get services and yes any time someone wants to donate we have a donation button on our website w w w p p y s dot org please feel free to donate so i want to share the i work with pivotal point it's just fantastic working with the two of you and your real team and really love what you do when it comes across the border you mean one good example of something that you could hear with our audience that is a good a working piece that they should know and if they continue that they can at least say we have some stability here right well i would say steve the quality of services and that we stay innovative with how we provide those services you know initially we come across as an employment certainly youth employment services agency but underneath that what we're doing is really teaching you to be change agents in their communities first you know changing themselves their character their mentality their family in their community to become entrepreneurs to look at developing and creating and producing and not just being consumers out in the in the world we involved are you then our programming there are very much involved in the type of services they receive and how they you know how they interact and engage in the community you know they were at them you know maybe even then the students are engaged and what it takes what it takes to produce a product what what it takes to make a factor how to run a business not jazz as a single a multimillion dollar business with hundreds and thousands of employees but yes that where you know where where in our second or third year with  s mahogany roots i want to say that this is a true piece where nonprofit can actually have a for profit business as well as a nonprofit this is keep them separated and still functioning and interacting so you also represent that  to become the entrepreneur is and they've started a business a beauty supply i mean beauty care skin care all natural now all now organic so i want to celebrate you twelve years