Akilah Watkins

And they still really aren't.

But over the last few years, under the leadership of Dr. Akilah Watkins, who's the president and CEO of Independent Sector, that organization has seen the nonprofit staffing crisis.

They've begun to understand its significance.

And they've begun to study the issue more.

So, there's an organization, a nonprofit itself, called Independence Sector.

It is run by Dr. Akilah Watkins, who has been a guest on this podcast.

And they did a study, this is the seventh time that they've done this study, where they surveyed Americans along with Edelman Data and Intelligence to examine how the American public views nonprofit and philanthropic organizations.

And They talked to thousands of people broadly, they did focus groups, and this year's Findings are really important for us to know the trust in nonprofits is really high 56% of Americans report high trust in nonprofit organizations that is far more than government far more than corporations far more than media and even far more than philanthropy philanthropy is Now, nations are actually lower than nonprofits.

to me about what happened there, like what you saw.

Well, and I first want to call out Akilah Watkins in that picture that you just showed.

Oh, my gosh.

I think we all were fangirling.

And so it's important for me to have that representation and for folks to be able to hear, I think, from the top, what the perspective is on the future of the sector and the future of engagement and hopefully, the future of cross-sector collaboration, right? So I'm really excited to hear from her on all of those fronts.

I'm thrilled for our panel, which will include David Daniels, CEO of Bainham Foundation, and Dr. Akilah Watkins, the CEO of the Independent Sector.

Their conversation is going to be tremendous.

I will sit on the stage and be quiet most likely unless they want me to say something about Virginia.

Go to thecne.org to make sure you get registered.

They've got an all-star panel coming to that luncheon.

The Lieutenant Governor, Dr. Akilah Watkins from the Independent Sector, David Daniels from the Bainham Family Foundation.

It is a wonderful collection of leaders in the sector.