PANO’s 40th Anniversary: An Interview with Tish Mogan

2024 marked 40 years since PANO’s founding as the Delaware Valley Council of Agencies in 1984. Throughout the year, PANO staff interviewed key individuals from PANO’s history, including this conversation between PANO’s current Standards for Excellence Director, Ashley Suhler Tobin, and PANO’s first Standards for Excellence Director, Tish Mogan, all about PANO’s third decade (2004-2014).

Check out a clip from the interview here and read on for the full transcript.

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Interview Transcript – December 13, 2024

Ashley: Thank you for taking the time today to talk to me about your time at PANO, Tish. Really pleased to get this opportunity to do this with you, after all the years we worked together, and you get to finally retire, which is fantastic! So tell me, what brought you to PANO in the first place?

Tish: So I fell by accident into being an executive director after 21 years of teaching junior high and high school, and I knew nothing about nonprofit management. But I learned. Through setting things up and I also took the opportunity to get an MBA in nonprofit management at Eastern University. It was one of the first schools that [offered that kind of program] and I never wanted to be an executive director.

So we grew to a staff of 19 and about $1M budget and it was in located in Norristown, PA in Montgomery County. I left after 12 years and I was looking for an opportunity where I could teach again and this position opened up at PANO and I interviewed for it. Because of my extensive experience with nonprofit management and knowledge, I got hired to start the Standards for Excellence program.

I wasn’t too sure about the accreditation process, but I immediately won over to it because of the impact that it had.

Ashley: Nice. And what type of organization were you at before you came to PANO?

Tish: So it was an all-volunteer organization, and it was set up to teach computer skills to people with multiple disabilities.

And it was founded for Meghan Barbara Flanagan, who had cerebral palsy. But after three years, we knew that teaching computer skills was not going to do it, in terms of leading to employment. They needed a lot of other support – case management, employment opportunities, and all that kind of stuff.

It was successful in that we had an 80% employment rate and a 90% retention rate.

Ashley: It’s fantastic. So how did the Standards for Excellence program change how participants – or accredited organizations or members – perceived PANO?

Tish: Yeah. So within four years of introducing the Standards for Excellence program which is an ethics and accountability program, our membership grew from 325 to 725. And I think PANO is now around 1000 members.

Ashley: More or less.

Tish: So because overall, the educational resource packets that came with Standards for Excellence and people found that very valuable and they were free to PANO members.

Ashley: Nice. From your experience, what impact did PANO have on those that participated in the Standards program?

Tish: It had a lot of impact from just the mere act of the education and I did a lot of training in all areas of nonprofit management. And initially I was the one that was doing the training. We have since expanded, many trainers. And as you know yourself, you were a Standards for Excellence Licensed consultant before taking this job.

Ashley: And that knowledge helps tremendously every day.

Tish: Yeah. And so through the accreditation process people improved a lot.

There’s Standards Basics, which is not as intense as accreditation, but we found things that were illegal that nonprofits were doing and just overall improvement to meet the Standards.

It had a tremendous effect. That’s why I was won over to accreditation – because of how much impact it had on organizations.

Ashley: Just their ability to be structured better? To weather a storm and not have difficulties in other areas? Is that sort of what you’re thinking?

Tish: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Ashley: Yeah, I think about that a lot. About how many nonprofits are not structured to be able to go through tough times and the Standards for Excellence, I feel like that really gets people on the right track so they understand all of their ins and outs.

Tish: Yeah.

Ashley: Great. Anything else on the impact that the Standards have had on accredited organizations, or recognized organizations?

Tish: You know, they can use the Seal of Excellence and we want that to be dinner table conversation, just like the Better Business Bureau is. And of course, this program is national in scope. There are 13 licensed replication partners and PANO is one of them. We were the first batch of licensed replication partners and so it has a tremendous impact. And again all the knowledge that comes with educational resource packets is tremendous – and people join just for that!

Ashley: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So what impact did PANO have on those who use the helpdesk that PANO offers?

Tish: We had a bunch of attorneys, CPAs, HR professionals, that helped us with the helpdesk questions. And people really appreciate it. We got thanks out the kazoo for, you know, us finding some of the things we could answer on our own. But many of the things we needed attorneys, CPAs, and HR professionals, and other consultants to lend their expertise in on the helpdesk questions. And as I said, we thanks out the kazoo.

Ashley: Well, I’m sure it was useful for the hundreds of members to go to one place and for that small number of experts to be receiving those questions from one source instead of from hundreds of nonprofits. So there was a little bit of a filter and maybe a collection of information, so we didn’t have to ask the same question multiple times.

Tish: Yes.

Ashley: Yeah, besides the thank-yous, which I see all the time, do you think that that those helpdesk askers, I get the feeling that a lot of them are at their wits end, that they don’t know where to turn.

Tish: They find us this through a search for nonprofits in Pennsylvania and the helpdesk is open to members and non-members. So we have a lot of people becoming members because of the helpdesk and access to the educational resources that are provided by the Standards for Excellence.

Ashley: Yeah, that’s excellent. So what do you want nonprofits and others to know about PANO?

Tish: That we do – I still say we! – a ton of advocacy. We’re connected to the National Council of Nonprofits. There are about 40 state associations, and most of us are members of the National Council of Nonprofits. And we do a ton of legislative advocacy and lobbying in connection with the National Council.

I haven’t tuned in to the National Council recently, but I’m sure that House Bill 9495, which would give the President, you know, an authority to strip tax-exempt organizations by calling them a terrorist organization, which would be devastating because it would be totally biased in terms of which nonprofits – immigrant centers and all this kind of stuff – would lose their tax-exempt status.

And so we’re sure we’re doing a lot of lobbying about that right now.

Ashley: What about at the state level? Is there an advocacy portion that PANO does at the state level, too?

Tish: Yes, yes, tremendous. We’re constantly at the Capitol, meeting with legislators and promoting legislation that favors or supports nonprofits. And hindering legislation that would damage nonprofits. And so it’s both the federal and state level and local level as well. Sometimes we’ve been effective to, you know, already-passed laws that are unfavorable to nonprofits, and we’ve been instrumental in turning that around as well.

Ashley: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. Anything else you want to add, Tish?

Tish: So when I first got to PANO, we weren’t very well known and the staff at the time didn’t do a lot of travel beyond Harrisburg. That changed with the Standards for Excellence. I was in many areas, all across the state, and since that time the staff is much more present. They don’t want to see PANO viewed as a Harrisburg organization. They want to see it viewed as the statewide organization, so that that’s a significant change in the 20 years that I was with the Standards for Excellence.

Ashley: Yeah. Is there anything you want to add about how beneficial it is for nonprofits that PANO is a statewide organization?

Tish: Yeah, yeah. And we want all nonprofits to join PANO and I think there’s 50 or 60,000 in Pennsylvania alone. We have 1000 members and we have tremendous area to grow and if more people joined, more people would be connected to the advocacy and lobbying. It’s a myth that 501c3s can’t lobby – we CAN lobby as long as we don’t do a substantial amount of lobbying and so we want all nonprofits to join in, in lobbying and advocacy.

Ashley: Yeah, I think that’s a great point that if more people join, there would be more advocacy on behalf of nonprofits. Yeah, that’s great. Anything else you want to add?

Tish: Just that it was an honor. I love what the Standards for Excellence did for organizations and continues to do through you.

Ashley: Thank you. Yeah, it’s a great program and having that ability to demonstrate accountable and ethical practices in the nonprofit space is so important. And getting funders to see that as an important demonstration and that it’s peer-reviewed is incredibly strong and makes it a very fair and worthwhile pursuit.

Tish: Yeah. And so that’s one thing we didn’t mention. There’s a three-phase review in the accreditation process. A staff review, which cleans up a lot of things. And there’s a peer review. We have, I don’t know how many peer reviewers now we have now, but at one point it was 50 or so volunteers that agreed to do a peer review, which was reviewing the entire application – all the information, policies, practices, etc. – in all areas of nonprofit management. And then there’s a Standards Committee review.

Ashley: Yeah, it’s a thorough process that I think benefits everybody involved, those volunteer peer reviewers are fantastic.

Great. OK, Tish, anything else you want to add? I have a good amount of information from you. So grateful for your excellent organization of the Standards for Excellence program here at PANO. And for really launching it because it is the gold standard for nonprofits. So thank you.

Tish: You’re welcome!