We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

523. How to Use Storytelling, Data, Partnerships, and Advocacy to Drive Systems Change - Sixto Cancel, Think of Us

April 01, 2024 We Are For Good Season 9
523. How to Use Storytelling, Data, Partnerships, and Advocacy to Drive Systems Change - Sixto Cancel, Think of Us
We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
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We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
523. How to Use Storytelling, Data, Partnerships, and Advocacy to Drive Systems Change - Sixto Cancel, Think of Us
Apr 01, 2024 Season 9
We Are For Good


Meet Sixto. He’s a nationally recognized leader in driving systems change in child welfare to improve outcomes for youth and families. As the founder and CEO of Think of Us, he spearheads fundamental change in child welfare systems nationwide. He’s sharing how Think of Us secured a groundbreaking $47.5 million investment from the Audacious Project, which convenes funders and social entrepreneurs to support bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. This investment is set to transform support for families and children in need🫶 Everything about Think of Us is innovative and Sixto shares the ins and outs so we can all grow with these same mindsets🌱

💡Learn

  • How to lean into new mindsets + innovation
  • The impact of research, tech, storytelling, and advocacy on child welfare
  • Strategies for creating impact at a systemic level

Sixto joined us on the podcast 2 years ago and if you haven’t heard his first episode with his background and founding of Think of Us - queue up episode 262!

Today’s Guest
Sixto Cancel, Founder + CEO, Think of Us


For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/523.

Register for ImpactUP: July 11th!

Registration is live! Head over to impactuprising.com to learn more.

About our Sponsor Jitasa

Jitasa comes alongside missions to specialize in bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services exclusively for nonprofits. If you’re looking for a financial partner who truly understands your mission, visit jitasa.com to learn more.

About our Sponsor Percent

Percent helps nonprofits find new opportunities to save by unlocking product discounts from the world’s leading software companies. This month we’re partnering with Percent to highlight LinkedIn’s discounted tools for nonprofits. Ready to get started and begin accessing discounts from the world’s leading software companies? Sign up at weareforgood.com/percent

Meet - Good Friends - our listener support community here at We Are For Good. Good Friends comes with perks - exclusive episodes with Jon and Becky - including the Good Brief - our monthly cliff notes of the greatest takeaways + lessons learned from that month, PLUS exclusive bonus content and AMA episodes where we answer your burning questions and tap our community of experts.

Head over to weareforgood.com/friends to learn more 🥳

Support the Show.

Support the Show

If you love the podcast, you’ll love Good Friends, our listener support community here at We Are For Good.

Not only do you get these perks, but you’re hanging with the most rabid fans who are restless to grow the Impact Uprising. This movement of believers are powering our free content and community with their monthly support, and Whoa Nelly, are we excited to invite you in.

Learn more today at weareforgood.com/friends.


Join the We Are For Good Community
You can think of it as the after-party to each podcast episode 🥳

Say hi👇
LinkedIn / Instagram / Facebook / YouTube / Twitter

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers


Meet Sixto. He’s a nationally recognized leader in driving systems change in child welfare to improve outcomes for youth and families. As the founder and CEO of Think of Us, he spearheads fundamental change in child welfare systems nationwide. He’s sharing how Think of Us secured a groundbreaking $47.5 million investment from the Audacious Project, which convenes funders and social entrepreneurs to support bold solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges. This investment is set to transform support for families and children in need🫶 Everything about Think of Us is innovative and Sixto shares the ins and outs so we can all grow with these same mindsets🌱

💡Learn

  • How to lean into new mindsets + innovation
  • The impact of research, tech, storytelling, and advocacy on child welfare
  • Strategies for creating impact at a systemic level

Sixto joined us on the podcast 2 years ago and if you haven’t heard his first episode with his background and founding of Think of Us - queue up episode 262!

Today’s Guest
Sixto Cancel, Founder + CEO, Think of Us


For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/523.

Register for ImpactUP: July 11th!

Registration is live! Head over to impactuprising.com to learn more.

About our Sponsor Jitasa

Jitasa comes alongside missions to specialize in bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services exclusively for nonprofits. If you’re looking for a financial partner who truly understands your mission, visit jitasa.com to learn more.

About our Sponsor Percent

Percent helps nonprofits find new opportunities to save by unlocking product discounts from the world’s leading software companies. This month we’re partnering with Percent to highlight LinkedIn’s discounted tools for nonprofits. Ready to get started and begin accessing discounts from the world’s leading software companies? Sign up at weareforgood.com/percent

Meet - Good Friends - our listener support community here at We Are For Good. Good Friends comes with perks - exclusive episodes with Jon and Becky - including the Good Brief - our monthly cliff notes of the greatest takeaways + lessons learned from that month, PLUS exclusive bonus content and AMA episodes where we answer your burning questions and tap our community of experts.

Head over to weareforgood.com/friends to learn more 🥳

Support the Show.

Support the Show

If you love the podcast, you’ll love Good Friends, our listener support community here at We Are For Good.

Not only do you get these perks, but you’re hanging with the most rabid fans who are restless to grow the Impact Uprising. This movement of believers are powering our free content and community with their monthly support, and Whoa Nelly, are we excited to invite you in.

Learn more today at weareforgood.com/friends.


Join the We Are For Good Community
You can think of it as the after-party to each podcast episode 🥳

Say hi👇
LinkedIn / Instagram / Facebook / YouTube / Twitter

Speaker 1:

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 1:

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2:

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 1:

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 2:

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 1:

So let's get started. Becky, we've got a two-peat in the house.

Speaker 2:

We have a podcast alum and, honestly, if I were going to think about the we're for good, like Time Magazine human of the year, our guests today would totally be in one of those top tens of who we've met after 500 episodes. Who inspires us, who is changing everything about the way people look, view and activate. Activate, Julie, can you?

Speaker 1:

get that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, say it again and how people can activate around this entire conversation around how do we help our youth who are in the child welfare system. This is a very personal cause to the we Are For Good community to us, and we have Sixto Cancel back on the podcast. He is the founder of Think of Us. We had this conversation with Sixto. It was almost two years ago. If you haven't heard that episode with his background and the founding of Think of Us, please queue up to episode 262. We will link to it in the show notes. But today we've brought him back because we want to talk not only about building a modern movement, how media, story, advocacy and partnership can all lock in for this bigger picture, but something really incredible has happened to Think of Us and they have been the recipient of this incredible audacious project grant, which we're going to get into that too, and it is an astounding number and what they're going to do to absolutely help us reimagine I can't talk right now. What it's going to do to help us reimagine, what we are going to do to help serve children and families and keep them with their families is so hopeful.

Speaker 2:

So let me give you a little bit of background on Sixto. He is this nationally recognized leader driving systems of change in child welfare, working across tech, service delivery, research, data and state and federal policy to improve outcomes for youth and families. He has this proven track record of mobilizing cross-sector partnerships and lived experience to really drive that innovation at both the local, state, federal levels. And it's all coming together to solve and enrich these emergent challenges that are coming up in that sector. And he knows because he's been there. He is someone who really lived in this system and said it's got to be better.

Speaker 2:

So just a little bit of background on Think of Us. It's this research and design lab for the social sector. You'll notice, I didn't say non-profit. Sixto and the team have been evolving this movement and they are led and guided by people who have been directly impacted by the child welfare system and they're publishing groundbreaking research. They're working across sectors to co-design and implement solutions that have longstanding challenges that have been longstanding challenges in our world and they've been advising federal and state policymakers on all these bipartisan solutions.

Speaker 2:

Do you remember, john, the first time we met and he was casually I was at the White House last week and the two weeks before that. I mean, it's just Sixto is changing the game on the way that we look at social impact, the way we look at humanity, the way we look at data, and so we are so delighted that you are here. We cannot wait to talk to you about the Think of Us app, to talk about this audacious project Sixto. Get back in our house. We are so excited that you're here and can't wait to catch up on the last two years.

Speaker 3:

Oh my God, it feels so good to be here, and I have to tell you, Becky John, if there was ever a moment of free therapy and motivational videos, you just gave it. So thank you for such an introduction.

Speaker 1:

I mean Sixo, we've alluded to your amazing story from the first time you're on the show, but I know we've got a lot of new listeners, so I would wonder if you would just kind of give us a little context to your life, growing up and the work and some of the impact that y'all have seen as you've poured into this work through Think of Us.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. You know I am very passionate about how do we have a child welfare system, a foster care system that actually keeps families together, either by making sure that we give people services before they have to be in a very sticky situation, or, if you do have to come into foster care, that we ensure that you're being placed with someone that you love, know, an extended family member right, a lifelong family friend. So I come to that work and that epiphany because of my own journey in foster care. I entered as an 11-month baby. By the time I was nine, I was adopted.

Speaker 3:

It was a very racist and abusive adoption. So I found myself back in the system at 15, but it was only after I had spent two years couch surfing and that I had to get the evidence of the abuse that I was going through by taping a recorder to my chest. And so when I got back into the system, that is where I knew I wanted to work on actually reforming the system. I joined the youth board, where we would meet with the commissioner, where we would come up with ideas and recommendations to improve the system, and that's how my journey started.

Speaker 2:

Wow, I mean, it's just one that has stayed with us.

Speaker 2:

And I still remember your New York Times op-ed article, which we're going to link in the show notes, and the title just grips me and I'm probably going to mess it up, but it's something like I'll never forget that I could have been living and growing up with people who loved me, who were in my family, and it's just a real clarion call, I think, to humanity about what are we doing and how do we humanize, modernize the system. And I just think that you have built and baked innovation and mindsets into your work and we talk a lot about it on this podcast and about asking bigger questions. So you have really parlayed Think of Us and incorporated it as a tech nonprofit, and it was initially designed to use this virtual storytelling and shed light on these experiences of youth. And you're innovating right now and we want to talk about the mindset that you and your team have and how you're approaching your work, because we want our listeners to implement similar mindsets and bold strategies. Where would you start with that?

Speaker 3:

You know, I think where I would start is truly understanding the nuance of the problem. Right, when you understand the nuance of what is the situation that people are going through, we will ask people what they need all the time, and that is an extremely important question and we have not done enough as a sector to be able to lean into that. But as our recent work is revealing to us that we need to ask people what are they going through, Because when I think about this young woman and as she shared her story she talked about when she was 10 years old and her mom was in a domestic violence relationship, Mom leaves that domestic violence relationship with her. They go to a shelter right and now they're stable in an apartment. And when you ask mom, what did she need, she said I needed housing. So now they got the housing.

Speaker 3:

But fast forward, eight years later they're having trouble. Mom is saying that she doesn't know if she can stay living with her and we would look at that problem and say, oh, the child's having behavioral issues. But in reality the child is still living in the situation that she was living in when she was 10 years old. Because, as they try to mediate, that is where the conversation was at, so understanding. Where is it that you understand the nuance of a problem so that then you can start to create solutions with those who are experts? And that expert is people with lived experience, the fiscal person, the frontline program person, the operational person who can tell you how things flow.

Speaker 1:

That is what we need in order to solve problems. I mean, sixto, it does go back to like the questions we ask and I think you just get such a different trajectory when you go about it this way. So I want to like kind of tilt our conversation, because we've positioned this year talking about some different trends we're seeing in the sector, and one reason we definitely wanted to have you back is because y'all do this so well is this idea that media scales impact and just this idea of like, how do we get our stories, the story of the one, to get to the masses of the many to talk about the bigger, greater problems and systemic issues? Y'all are doing that. You're using the power of media and storytelling to grow. Think of us. I think of the audacious project. Would you kind of set the stage for us? I mean, how do you think about this and how has that informed how you walk into amazing partnerships like this?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I think Bryan Stevenson says it the best we cannot solve problems from far away, that we have to get up close and personal to the suffering that people go through. Because when you have that level of proximity, that is what shifts people's thinking. And people's thinking, their belief, their mindsets, their attitude, their mental models, is what drives behavior. Their attitudes, their mental models, it's what drives behavior. And so when you have institutions, whether it be a nonprofit, a government and so forth, you know there is a mindset and a culture that is driving that institution to set up a certain conditions in which they're doing their work, and that can be in a way that sees you know the pain, or that could be in a way that sees the pain, or that could be in a way that is very mechanical.

Speaker 2:

I mean, clearly, your way is not that transactional part. I mean, I feel like the storytelling, the data points. They're so human. When you first visited with us, I just remember this database that you were building and I think that people just think of data as in like science and points and not as human beings, and you flipped that entirely on its head and you made the data about human beings. You gave someone agency and a voice in a space where they never had a voice, which is wild. That's the United States. The fact that children cannot have a voice in their care is really a wild premonition.

Speaker 2:

And so I want to talk about this Audacious Project because, okay, I got to give our listeners some background. I mean, this initiative was launched back in 2018, and it's this collaborative funding initiative that's catalyzing social impact on this grand scale. And it's housed over in TED Remember TED, we love our TED Talks. And then you've got other people that come into this, you know, as social impact advisors with the Bridgespan Group or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, mckenzie, scott but the audacious project is convening everybody with this goal of supporting bold solutions to the world's most urgent challenges, and y'all think of us literally raised $47.5 million through the Audacious Project. So talk about this investment and talk about what this investment is going to unlock for you guys.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I mean, I think there comes a point in life when you really get to step into the opportunity to do what you envision, and for us, I feel like that is where we're at. We put together a $97 million plan. We were able to secure $47.5 million, and what that means is that we can start running towards an outcome that we want, which is how do we build new parts of the system, how do we modernize some of the system, and then how do we ensure that people have the capability long-term to center lived experience and when I say new parts, right now we have 7 million children every single year that end up being part of a child abuse report a.

Speaker 3:

CPS report, and that is about almost 10% of all the children in the country. Every single year, 33% of all families before their child's 18th birthday will be investigated, and for Black families it's 53%.

Speaker 2:

Oh, sixto Dang. Those are shocking stats, shocking.

Speaker 3:

And so what do we do about things? What do we do in that situation? Well, we know that children are either going to be screened in to the foster care system and say the abuse is validated or some type of intervention is validated. But for most of those children they actually are not cases that end up coming into the system and then they're screened out. But what we've started to learn through research is that two, three years down the line, you see those same families who needed help actually now having their children removed because they don't have a stable place to live, because their child's going to school without proper nutrition and food and their clothes may not have been washed. There's a lot of poverty. One study in California showed that 55% of the families that were being re-reported were making less than $10,000 a year.

Speaker 3:

And so, through the Doris Duke Prevention Initiative, us and four other organizations, we get to be on the ground and say, right now, there is no system, there is no department that says, hey, you've been reported, we're not going to take your kids away. But you know what? Here is an option for a voluntary service that is nice, that is modern, that is for you, that meets your needs. And so through them we are working with four different demonstration sites in four different states to figure out like how do you build that new part of the system lock is, how do we build new parts of the system?

Speaker 3:

The second thing is modernizing. Children can live with family. When they're placed in foster care their aunt, their uncle, their cousins, their grandparents they will step up with the right supports. But for too long family members have had to go through a really long process and by the you have been able to get your relative out of the foster care system. They may have been gone to two or three foster homes and so, with the new regulations that we helped contribute to and push momentum around, we were able to go ahead and, partnership with others, unlock over $3 billion that will go to states over the next 10 years, and that is so that states can actually put a modern system, a modern what they call kinship care system, in place.

Speaker 2:

It's your dream, sixto, I remember you like two years ago, coming and talking about this kinship dream. Like you have literally changed the future for so many kids. Wow.

Speaker 1:

And I mean I just got to ask you because we one of the things I've been listing is like a takeaway from this month that I've been thinking about is that you want to invite people into this vision, not just like be the complaining of what's wrong, but paint a picture of, like what you want to create. And now you've had these unlocks happen in just such a short span of time. Like what does that feel like? And that responsibility you've got to feel of, just like gathering the team and the people around this to follow through on that. What are you thinking through?

Speaker 3:

You know, I think there's such beauty and there's also pain, right, because there's the beauty of like, wow, we are able to run. But when you've been a smaller nonprofit, you know and your hands have been on everything and you can see all of the things that are happening. There is a level of safety that that provides. But now, when you're 40 or 50 employees, it's about building containers to unlock other people's geniuses, right, and to be able to bring that into the space.

Speaker 3:

And that transition is not easy. I'll just be very, you know, transparent the transition of your infrastructure where you have to get new accounting systems, new auditors, new HR software, I mean, you name it. And so there's this piece of you that you know, or a piece of me that feels, you know, anxiety just to start the work, um, but without the mature operations, you know you, you we've already gotten the hints that, hey, you know you won't be as effective as you can be, and so, um, it's been this tension for me around, like I want to run so fast and just jump in, and jumping in without the actual infrastructure and planning, you know, it feels like you're in quicksand, but it's actually the right thing to do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean you sound like pure startup hustle. You know which? I think a lot of small nonprofits. I'm sure the majority of the sector is made up of tiny nonprofits and I and there's gotta be some kind of um just learning that's happening within there. But you know, I I just think of what you're doing with Think of Us.

Speaker 2:

I think about how each of you you're not thinking in the way that I think traditional nonprofits do and I say that as a complete compliment to you, by the way and I think, even just setting this up as a tech nonprofit, it's almost becoming like a lifestyle brand, it's a movement.

Speaker 2:

And I want to say that one of the things that we've observed that feels like it's different, that looks absolutely incredible, is the way that you've made all these different parts of your business sort of come together and intersect. You didn't just have this storytelling piece, you didn't just focus on the data piece, you didn't just talk about bringing awareness and movement building or advocacy on the side. You had them all running concurrentlyly and they all intersected together and I think that that was a very brilliant move on your part. And I want to double click on how you're leveraging not only just the media and the story, but the advocacy and how you're bringing partners in and together, everybody's creating this deeper impact? Because I think there's going to be, whether it's a nonprofit or a B Corp or whatever it is out there anybody trying to do good. They're asking how do you approach creating change at a systemic level and how can listeners replicate what you all did here?

Speaker 3:

For me, it wasn't about creating a perfect strategy, right. The way we ended up here was that we realized is that there had to be multiple different competencies at the organizational level in order to say how do we solve problems that are systemic? And so that's where you know the data came from. What constitutes the data to act, the data to show data of progress, and then data that you should you know the evidence that you should codify something at such a, you know, jurisdictional level a county, a state, national.

Speaker 3:

When do you say we should change something?

Speaker 3:

Not because one person said so, but because we actually see a collective experience of something that's broken.

Speaker 3:

Right, said so, but because we actually see a collective experience of something that's broken right. In order to do that, there's so many things you have to be able to engage in, and so, for us, we landed there and we took all of our initiatives and we said what if they were all demonstration projects? And when we reflect that way, we realized, oh, if that was a demonstration project and that was a test, then that strategy now can be part of a longer term strategy, which we have the ability to do now, which is how do you set that three to five year plan with the ability to know that we, for the first three years, that we have solid funding to run while we build up additional funding, but not so worried that you know within six months I'm once again having to make sure I can predict either more cashflow or do we have to actually make some adjustments around how many people may work here, or what can we take on and what can't we?

Speaker 2:

You are such an entrepreneur. And you're doing the work and figuring it out as you go.

Speaker 1:

I mean Sixto. What's next for y'all? What's on the horizon for Think of Us as this kind of starts to play out.

Speaker 3:

It's to be in coalition with other partners in a very different way. You know, we have had the luxury of being able to be in the small pond of foster care and some of these issues are not foster care right. Some of these issues when parents knock on the door and they're going to domestic violence. You know we may not be the ones to be able that are best suited to figure out how do you fix that part of the system, but to be able to invite people into the work and say, if this is your passion, here are the type of things we've learned. We're not keeping anything under wraps, right? We're making sure that people understand how we do our work. When do we, do you know certain strategies so that they too can actually turn around and say how do we? What happened to the housing system? If father has mental health right and it's preventing the parenting of that child? What happened to the mental and behavioral health system? So we can say that narrative over and over.

Speaker 2:

And that's to me what the exciting thing is about what you're doing. I think you're not working in a silo at all, because you understand that the vacuum is just going to create more of a vortex, and when you go across all of these systems, you start to find what's beneath the iceberg that is really creating the systemic challenge. It's so very much Darren Walker's moving away from generosity. We're talking about justice here and we're talking about doing the right thing.

Speaker 2:

So I'm really, really proud of you and I want to talk about the advocacy piece, because this those systems that are keeping us in poverty, that are keeping our kids from jumping across. Whatever your issue is, have you asked yourself how are we lifting the bigger conversation of how to eradicate this thing, how to change this thing, how to evolve this thing? And I would love for you to give some advice to everyone out there about why your voice matters, about why advocacy matters. Maybe you could give us a couple of tips of where to start, because I feel like this has been baked in from the beginning and now it's paying dividends for you all.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. When I think of advocacy, there are many different types of advocacy. Right, there's the advocacy that needs to put pressure because there is something wrong. Not enough people see it, and so you have to point to it. And then there's the advocacy that people know something's wrong but they do not understand the nuance because it is a complex problem and they're not living it every day, right as in terms of the public, and so the advocacy there is like let me talk to you about the nuance. And then there's the advocacy that I feel like we fall into, which is how do you advocate by co-doing, so it's easy to point to a problem. It's not as easy to become an expert at something, but there's a pathway. But to work with folks' systems and really work on the hard things around, how do you do something together in such a way that it improves the system? It's a form of advocacy that I feel like more of us need to be engaging in, because people who have not experienced will always have to look from a different lens.

Speaker 1:

And we need each other. I mean, you know we've we talk a lot about storytelling on the podcast and I think it's easy to want to put the hero over here and the beneficiary over here, and it's just a mess to do that. This is the collective, and I think everything you're saying is like we're in this together. These are all our problems to solve and we each have a lens to bring to and we each have our own unique abilities. So I just love where you're going from this. I love your spirit and that you just have still got such a um energy about this work that just comes through, and so I just really appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

So I want to give you a chance. You know we can't have conversation without asking you to talk about a moment of philanthropy that has stuck with you, and I know you get to have a lot of these kind of moments with Think of Us. Is there a moment you'd take us back to that's really stuck with you recently?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. One of the moments that happened that I want to talk about here is during Audacious, and so for context, there were a group of families that came together and in that one weekend they invested $1.033 billion in 10 of us right and some of the issues were as big billion would it be?

Speaker 3:

We weren't in the room when decisions were being made, but there was this moment where we got to talk to folks and in that conversation, you know, what was revealed is that someone was having the conversation about whether our impact was an attribution or was it contribution. And there was a debate about it and we felt so seen and heard when they said, based on contribution alone and how they show up in the sector, we would fund them. And that is powerful, because not everyone needs to be the hero, and when philanthropy can show up and say we will invest in the people who want to do some of the behind the scenes, do some grunt work, and support folks who are already doing great work with their capacity to do tech, to do engagement of people with lived experience and so forth. I mean, I think that felt to me like a very catalytic moment.

Speaker 2:

It's everything. And I just think that at 30, in your young 30s, and I think about what you are just beginning to do and I think the beauty of what you've done, and I keep saying you and I want to make sure that everybody understands that I'm talking about Think of Us and not just Sixto. You are the face, but there are so many incredible people at this organization, but you are replicating the people who believe in you. Your believers are coming in droves and they're bringing other believers and this is how movements get built and the story is cascading and the facts are cascading and I think the louder and the bigger that it becomes the movement's potential.

Speaker 2:

I mean we're sitting here today celebrating 47.5 million. I will, every single time I celebrate your $475, you know tiny nonprofit who got it. Today we celebrate anything, but to me, what's possible in the next 10 years, the next 15, 20, and how that will change the arc of the way we have these conversations, the way we care for people, the way that we move them through, not through a system, but move them toward vibrancy, just gives so much hope. Thank you for all of this and you've been on the show enough to know we end with a one good thing, and I would love to know what is the one good thing? Piece of advice, life hack, something that you would leave with our community today?

Speaker 3:

The one good thing I would leave with the community today is that we are in a moment of such inflection in our society when we look at the laws, when we look at the inertia, when we look at how people are having this cultural moment of asking themselves should things be this way? Intelligence and technology there is a perfect storm here of saying there's a cultural shift, there is an ability to do things differently with technology. How should we be thinking about applying all this inertia and all these tools to solving some of society's craziest problems?

Speaker 1:

Okay, every time we're around you, my heart grows. I'm so grateful for the way that y'all pour into this work. Sixo, how can people connect with you? Follow your grows? I'm so grateful for the way that y'all pour into this work. Sixo, how can people connect with you? Follow your work? We got to kind of tease a big event that's coming up too. Sixo is literally keynoting the responsive nonprofit summit in Phoenix just in a couple of weeks. Down the road.

Speaker 2:

We're so excited to hang with you Arsenio Hall style fist pumping yes.

Speaker 1:

But I mean let's link up, so we'll link to register. That's a free event. We want to see thousands of nonprofit leaders pour in and just come for Sixto and stay for the community and conversations that I'll follow. But where else do you hang out online? How can people follow your work and get involved with? Think of Us?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. I post a lot of stuff on Instagram. So, at Sixto Cancel, that is where we're getting the sneak peek, the behind the scenes of the things that we're doing. And then we have a newsletter and let me tell you it's not like a regular newsletter. We believe, and we will only email when there is something to email, so we don't have a weekly or monthly cadence. It is when stuff is actually happening and we report out, and so you can visit our website, thinkofusorg. That again is thinkofusorg, sign up for our newsletter, see our annual report and that is a way that we can engage. And we also have reports on our website under our portfolio, where we list out how did we do some of these things, so that you can take those insights, and my hope and my goal is that you run with those tools also.

Speaker 2:

This is the point we typically end the episode, but I cannot end the episode without activating our community and asking you what is one thing that people could do today to not just help think of us, but maybe even locally or help the child welfare system wherever they are in the world? Can you give us what would be most helpful to you or to the movement?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, when I think about this movement, one of the most helpful things is going to be as you talk to people. Talk to people about the power of keeping children with their family members. It is the biggest barrier that we are facing is the idea that if grandma didn't do well with her daughter, then why would we give her her granddaughter? And that type of thinking is actually what's preventing people from feeling safe enough to go ahead and place a child with a family member. But all the research shows that it is less trauma, the young person has better outcomes in school and lifelong health and work. So we got to lean into the evidence, we got to lean into the science, but it all starts with what is the narrative that's happening in people's head right now.

Speaker 2:

That's it, Of course. Sixto would pick mindsets and let's start doing it and let's start clarifying and telling the truth. So just really grateful for this conversation. Thank you for coming back and inspiring us. Congratulations on this incredible grant. We can't wait to see the next one. And keep doing great things, and we will see you at the Responsive Nonprofit Summit. We will be there with our notebooks and our popcorn and soaking it all in, truly.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Thank you 610.

Speaker 2:

Take care, my friend.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for being here. Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

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