EP 97 John Lux | Executive Director, Film Florida

08/31/22 • 34 min

John LuxIn Episode 97 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to John Lux, Executive Director of Film Florida, a not-for-profit entertainment production association for Florida's film, TV, production & digital media industry.

Stephen and John Lux talk about John's unique career path, Film Florida's mission to support the film industry in Florida, and the challenges in showing value to individual members in a large membership based organization.

John has been the Executive Director for Film Florida since June 2016 and manages the day-to-day operations of the organization after spending 20 years working in the industry.

John is responsible for Film Florida operations, marketing, membership recruitment and finance. In addition to his other responsibilities for Film Florida, John is a social media enthusiast and has been handling the Film Florida social media strategy and day to day management of the website since 2014.

In previous roles John has been responsible for operations, finance and marketing positions including day-to-day operations (including all project proposals and budgets), finance (POs, APs, ARs, cash flow planning, etc.), and marketing strategies (social media, award submissions, press releases, communication with media, etc.).

John started in operations for the Walt Disney Company and helped Orlando-based IDEAS transition from Disney to an independent corporation and was instrumental in the transformation and growth of the company for 18 years.

After graduating from Purdue University, John worked in the live entertainment industry managing a staff of 300+ for an outdoor music and entertainment venue in the Chicago area before moving to Florida to join Disney where he received Disney’s rare and highly respected Partners In Excellence award.

His strong Chicago roots are reflected in his undying passion for college football, especially his alma mater, the Purdue Boilermakers and his home town teams, Blackhawks, Bears, Bulls, White Sox, Cubs and Northwestern University.

John has been the Executive Director for Film Florida since June 2016 and manages the day-to-day operations of the organization after spending 20 years working in the industry.

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EP 96 Jeff Mazur | Executive Director, LaunchCode

In Episode 96 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Jeff Mazur, Executive Director of LaunchCode, whose mission is offering free tech education and job placement opportunities to bring new people from all backgrounds into the tech field and reshape the way employers think about hiring. Stephen and Jeff Mazur talk about LaunchCode's impact on providing people with the skills to enter a career in tech, creating a sustainable revenue stream to facilitate growth within a nonprofit, and the importance of embracing a learning mindset.

Jeff Mazur is an experienced executive with a proven record of leading nonprofit organizations through growth and strategic change. Presently heading LaunchCode, a high-impact workforce and economic development organization with an acute focus on helping regions flourish via technology education, civic partnership and corporate engagement.

Jeff Mazur on embracing a learning mindset:

What I've learned is that the longer I do this work, the less and less I know, and that that's actually a good thing that I should want to be true. I want to be comfortable with not knowing as a leader, because as we do more, and as we grow, there are new things that I ultimately am responsible for making decisions about that are entirely unexplored in the prior history of the organization and my tenure with it. So I don't know the answers to those new things but that's okay. Learning the answers and coming up with what we think as a team would be the best solutions is the highest order work that I can do in the organization. That was honestly somewhat surprising to discover, because the assumption might be "Well, in the first year, you're going to find some things that you never did before. In the second year, you're going to kind of get it down. Then the third or fourth or fifth year it's all old hat" And But I've found that not to be true. If it were true, it would be a signal to me that I, and we as leaders, weren't pushing the organization to do enough new things or to change itself and evolve or figure out how to test the edges of the space that we work in.

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EP 98 Nancy Long | Executive Director, 501 Commons

In Episode 98 of the Charity Charge Show, Stephen talks to Nancy Long, Executive Director of 501 Commons, whose mission is to serve nonprofits as experts, innovators, and partners.

Their passion is to amplify the strengths of nonprofits—so ALL people and communities flourish. Stephen and Nancy Long talk about the resilience of nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic, 501 Commons recent reports regarding nonprofit employee compensation, and common mistake nonprofits make with grants.

Nancy Long is the Executive Director of 501 Commons. 501 Commons addresses the national problem of nonprofits having limited access to the expertise they need to optimize their organization. The organization provides consulting, contracted services, and other forms of support.

This allows organizations to have the technology, data, management, fundraising, finance, and human resources expertise they need.

Before becoming executive director of 501 Commons, Nancy worked in health care as the Vice President of Strategy and Organizational Development at Group Health Cooperative. Nancy was on the health care reform policy staff for the Washington Health Services Commission.

She served as the Director of Marketing for the Basic Health Plan. She developed groundbreaking research to promote health insurance to diverse communities and implemented community-based outreach that resulted in unprecedented participation and diverse enrollment.

As the Director of Quality for the Washington State Hospital Association, she represented hospitals on regulatory matters and led a quality of care research project with rural hospitals.

As the Director of Marketing & Community Services at Pacific Medical, she led the effort to create the Cross-Cultural Health Care Program, which has done breakthrough work on culturally and linguistically accessible health care.

Nancy has a BA in social psychology (University of Texas), and a master’s from the Evans School (University of Washington), where she was also a lecturer, teaching nonprofit leadership and management.