The Heart of the Community:

 

Jeff Walter (03:14.521) 

Hi, it’s Jeff Walter and welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a very special guest, Susan Demers. Susan is interesting in that she runs a training program for Academy4, which is a nonprofit and trains volunteers. And, know, often when we think about extended enterprise learning, you know, we’re thinking of resellers and service providers and training customers. But there are a lot of different use cases when it comes to training people that are outside of your four walls. 

 

And in the nonprofit sector, training volunteers and training beneficiaries, to that matter, is an important component of what a lot of nonprofit charities do or need to do in order to be successful in their mission. So I thought it’d be really interesting today if we looked at that use case. Susan and Academy for is recently come. We’ve launched a led to launch a charity partner program. 

 

Academy4 has become one of our partners, so welcome, Susan, to be becoming one of our partners to try and address that need and thought it would be really interesting to everybody out there to just learn about this different extended enterprise use case. So welcome, Susan. Well, back again to Susan. Susan Demers is the manager of learning and development at Academy4. It’s a nonprofit mentoring organization headquartered in Texas. 

 

Her career began as newspaper reporting, where she honed her knack for storytelling and communication. Eventually she pivoted to the corporate side, diving into training and development, a passion that led her to become a freelance instructional designer for many years, specializing in e-learning and development. In her full-time role at Academy Four, Susan blends creativity and expertise to design 

 

impactful training programs for both staff and the organization’s ever-growing team of 6,000 plus volunteers. 6,000, that’s a lot. And so welcome to the program, Susan. Great to have you. 

 

Susan Demers (05:12.14) 

Mm-hmm. Yes. 

 

Well, thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here. Yeah, so we are 6,000 plus volunteers in the upcoming school year. We’re actually expecting 6,500 volunteers to be serving with our organization. And yeah, so I’m charged with making sure that these volunteers are trained and ready to do the mentoring role that they’re doing. 

 

Jeff Walter (05:31.801) 

Holy cow, so. 

 

Jeff Walter (05:42.767) 

Well, so why don’t you tell me a little bit about Academy for like, is it you guys are doing and, uh, going from six to six, well, 6,500, a ton of folks, but what, what is it you’re doing? What’s, what’s the mission of Academy for? 

 

Susan Demers (05:48.429) 

I will. 

 

Susan Demers (05:56.271) 

Simply, our mission is changing lives through relationships. And the way that we do that, the main part of our program is a mentoring program for fourth graders in the schools that we serve. And it’s a very unique program in that we have one mentor for every fourth grader in the school, and they meet altogether at the same time once a month for an hour and a half. What’s fascinating about that is 

 

Some elementary schools may have 40 fourth graders total. Some may have 150 fourth graders. But no matter how many fourth graders, everyone gets their own mentor and they all show up at the same time. One child, it’s a one-on-one relationship building. Yes, they meet nine times in the school year. 

 

Jeff Walter (06:39.587) 

And every mentor is only mentoring one child. Holy smokes. That’s very personal. Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (06:50.942) 

And it’s very fun to see the relationship building that goes on with these fourth graders and these mentors. Our program started in 2012 in Fort Worth, Texas, when St. Paul Lutheran Church, a group of their congregation and their ministers, wanted to do this leadership mentoring program that they designed in one particular Fort Worth school, Daggett Elementary. 

 

which is a kind of an inner city school in Fort Worth. And just as an aside, we only do our program in Title I elementary schools, which means that at least 50 % of the students are on free or reduced lunch program. Typically in the schools that we serve, it’s more like 80 plus percent of students are on free or reduced lunch. So that kind of tells you the population that we’re working with. 

 

Jeff Walter (07:31.267) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (07:37.4) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (07:49.455) 

But anyway, the St. Paul Lutheran Church wanted to do a mentoring program that they came up with. They went to Daggett Elementary and said, hey, we want to do this. This is sound great. Which we want to target fourth graders. There’s a particular reason fourth graders are just able in the developmentally to take on these concepts of leadership. And the school was like, so the St. Paul was which students should we work with in your fourth grade? 

 

Jeff Walter (08:17.9) 

Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (08:18.158) 

and Daggett said, we want you to work with every single fourth grader. And so all of them, we’re not gonna pick and choose. We want them all to have a mentor. And that’s really how the program started. It started with one school and has grown now in this coming school year. We’ll have 60 schools that we serve. But you can see how you need a lot of mentors. It’s one-on-one and we have to have one for every fourth grader. 

 

Jeff Walter (08:22.765) 

And they said all of them. 

 

Jeff Walter (08:38.351) 

Holy smokes! So, wow! 

 

Susan Demers (08:48.066) 

We are primarily based in the Fort Worth Dallas area. It’s where we started and we’ve expanded. We also have several schools in the Austin area, Austin, Texas. 

 

Jeff Walter (08:52.249) 

Uh-huh. 

 

Jeff Walter (09:00.591) 

So, so ha I mean, that’s a lot of volunteers in one locale. So how do you like, where do you, where do you guys get the, all these volunteers from? Cause I mean, like, I, when he first mentioned, you know, when we’ve talked about it, I just assumed it was like, a mentor has like, you know, 20 kids that they’re mentoring, right. Or, or a dozen or something, you know, some multiples, but one-on-one that’s wow. You can get a really, yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (09:12.258) 

Where- 

 

Susan Demers (09:27.064) 

Yes, it’s always a challenge. Our model is that we find a partner church that’s near the elementary school who wants to take on this project. And we find a lot of churches are very willing to do this. It’s a wonderful way to get their congregation involved in the community in a way that they may not have been involved before. So we find a partner church, we find a partner school, we put them together. 

 

Jeff Walter (09:45.926) 

okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (09:51.599) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (09:53.185) 

The partner church provides many of the mentors, but usually not all. It does take a lot of mentors, like I said, a school with 100 plus fourth graders, most churches, you know, aren’t gonna be able to find 100 plus people who are able to volunteer. So beyond that, we reach out into the community, banks, businesses, organizations, retired teachers associations. I mean, we look around the community. 

 

Jeff Walter (09:57.539) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (10:18.486) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (10:20.746) 

and find people who want to volunteer in neighborhood associations. But the end result is that the school is so enriched by having people from outside the school coming into the school and seeing what’s going on and becoming involved and becoming invested in that school. So beyond the mentoring program, we see just so many other things that these community members and church members take on related to the school. 

 

Jeff Walter (10:25.615) 

So. 

 

Susan Demers (10:49.73) 

They start volunteering in other ways. They start doing mission projects, know, as clothing drives, food drives, all kinds of things develop when we start helping people come into the school for our program. 

 

Jeff Walter (10:52.004) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (11:03.983) 

You know, the cool thing, I just listening to it, it’s like what I find really fascinating about the approach you guys are taking is it’s not people from outside the community coming in. It’s people within the community. Like when you say you go to a church in the community, that’s down the street from the elementary school, it’s like, well, the congregation are all people that live in the community. it’s almost like becoming a 

 

It sounds like it’s a Academy for is like a connector connecting people within the community that want to help their community be a better community and, with, with the kids that are the future of the community. Right. I mean, it’s like, that’s, that’s really cool. That’s very cool. Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (11:49.56) 

Yes. Yes. 

 

Yeah, we build a bridge. We build a bridge for these organizations and churches to go into the school in a way that they have never before. Some of them have never set foot in the school before, or some have tried maybe to do some kind of program that didn’t really catch on, but we provide a way to get them in there. So our challenge is finding the mentors. What we do is we have a designated part-time employee called a site coordinator. 

 

This person comes from the church and is a paid employee of Academy 4 part-time and they coordinate recruiting the volunteers, getting the program set up for the upcoming school year, getting the materials. Once school starts, they’ll match a student with a mentor with the teacher’s help, trying to find, you know, as much as possible like-minded interests. 

 

Jeff Walter (12:25.743) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (12:47.673) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (12:48.716) 

between the student and the mentor, sometimes not. We do have a policy, a child safety policy that male mentors can only mentor male students, female mentors can mentor male or female students. So it’s just a safety thing. But it works out well. And then another aspect of a program I haven’t told you about. 

 

Jeff Walter (12:59.587) 

Right, right. 

 

Jeff Walter (13:05.047) 

Okay, that makes sense. 

 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (13:14.798) 

is we often, to get enough mentors for these schools that have 100 plus fourth graders, we will often partner with a local high school, which will allow some of their juniors and seniors, you have to be a junior or a senior to mentor, and we’ll have maybe 10 to 20 of them participate in the program. And it’s really amazing to see how the high school students flourish being a mentor to a younger kid. 

 

Jeff Walter (13:23.727) 

Jeff Walter (13:29.625) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (13:41.262) 

Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (13:42.466) 

They really grow just as much as I think the fourth grader does. 

 

Jeff Walter (13:46.201) 

Well, that kind of goes back to what you said earlier, which is just, I just think it’s really cool. It’s using the people, it’s connecting the people within the community to the younger people in the community that might not have those types of older folks to give them guidance, right? And that’s really, that is so cool. That’s really. 

 

Susan Demers (14:04.706) 

Exactly. 

 

Susan Demers (14:09.208) 

Yeah. The really fun thing about fourth graders is they love whatever mentor they get. They don’t care if it’s a high school student. They don’t care if it’s a young adult. They don’t care if we have 80 year old plus mentors. They are so excited to have someone spend one on one time with them. And the way the program works, it’s an hour and half meeting once a month. 

 

Jeff Walter (14:23.799) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (14:33.346) 

We start out with a leadership development curriculum, very much designed for fourth graders. It involves a lot of interaction between the mentor and the student, a lot of discussion. And then the last part of it is just playing board games and just hanging out together, playing, you know, Battleship or Connect Four or whatever kind of board game that they love. But it’s just, again, continuing that relationship, just chatting and talking. We have so many, so much, our teachers, our fourth grade teachers, 

 

just, I mean, some of them are in tears when they’re seeing the beautiful smiles on their kids’ faces. I’ve heard stories from fourth grade teachers saying things like, this particular kid doesn’t even smile in the classroom, doesn’t talk, doesn’t interact with anyone, and then here he is chatting, talking, and having a great time. It’s just, it’s fun to see. 

 

Jeff Walter (15:24.175) 

So you say you guys have been doing this since 2010, I think you said? 2012, 2012. So it’s been a while. I would imagine, and you talked about how the church or the volunteers will see other needs within the school and do other things that are outside the purview of Academy for per se. But I would also imagine that over the course of the year, some pretty strong relationships. 

 

Susan Demers (15:28.814) 

2012.  

 

Jeff Walter (15:52.003) 

developed between the mentor and mentee. And have you seen over the 12, 13 years you guys been doing this? Like, is there a long, you know, may not be part of the academy. Is like, there ongoing relationships as the kids go to fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade? And is that within the Academy of four? Is that just an organic thing that happens with you? Like, 

 

Susan Demers (16:13.688) 

Well, we’ve designed Academy for to be a one year program and we have a formal ending to the mentoring relationship on the last session in May. And we really for child safety reasons do not encourage any outside contact with the children beyond it. The value is just in that one year of building relationship and seeing people. Now we do have a fifth grade program. 

 

Jeff Walter (16:17.987) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (16:24.664) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (16:30.508) 

Okay. Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (16:42.007) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (16:42.348) 

Our fifth graders, it’s a much smaller program and it requires way fewer volunteers to put on. But in fifth grade, the kids who’ve been through Academy IV the previous year, they in turn get to mentor a first grader in their organization. So the fifth graders and the first graders do some simple reading together, do a little leadership talk together. And so the fourth graders have learned this great skill from their mentor. 

 

Jeff Walter (16:59.432) 

wow. 

 

Susan Demers (17:12.524) 

of building a relationship and then they get to practice it the next year as a fifth grader. 

 

Jeff Walter (17:17.839) 

that’s really cool. And then. 

 

Susan Demers (17:19.352) 

Yeah, and that program is, our main program is called Academy IV, like our organization is called, and then our fifth grade program is called Leaders V. 

 

Jeff Walter (17:23.053) 

Right, fourth grader, yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (17:28.879) 

And, and, uh, and when you say it takes fewer volunteers, is that adult volunteers to oversee that? Because now they, you get that, you know, you could have more than one fifth grader. You’re, kind of. 

 

Susan Demers (17:36.877) 

Yes. 

 

Susan Demers (17:41.281) 

Yes, it just takes a few adult volunteers to put on the Leaders Five program. They’re just overseeing it, making sure the interactions are going well, know, handing out the paperwork. It’s just three or four people as opposed to Academy Four where it’s a one on, we need one volunteer for every fourth grader in the school. 

 

Jeff Walter (17:58.765) 

Right. That’s, that’s amazing. Cause you get a school with like four or five classes and you got like a hundred, 150 kids right there. That’s amazing. It’s amazing. So, so that’s, that’s really fascinating. Thank you for taking me through that. What a, what a just brilliant program. just, I, as I, as I think about it, to get the community connected to the kids, the at-risk kids in the community, it’s just great. So let’s talk about you for a little bit though. So, you know, in your bio, you said, 

 

Susan Demers (18:07.842) 

Yeah, yeah, it is. 

 

Jeff Walter (18:28.015) 

Newspaper storyteller, corporate L and D. How did, take us a little bit through that and how did, how did you end up at Academy for like, what was, fill in some of those details from, you know, newspaper reporter to a corporate L and D professional to now running this program for Academy for, how’d you, how’d you it to, you know, cause what I always found interesting in, especially in extended learning, extended enterprise learning is. 

 

It’s usually not a straight path to running these programs. People come in from all different walks of life and venues and backgrounds. So I’m always curious. So if you could walk us through that, I’d appreciate that. 

 

Susan Demers (19:02.008) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (19:11.346) 

Yeah, sure. Well, like you said, I started my career in journalism. I have a journalism degree from University of Texas. I worked as a newspaper reporter at a small newspaper for a few years and really decided that was not my calling, what I wanted to do. But I’m in the world of written communication and editing and finding information and putting it together. 

 

I just transitioned into corporate communication, worked at some big corporations doing their newsletters. This was back in the day before even online things were happening. But a lot of written communication and then going into online communication as well. And then I had the opportunity to work for a consulting company in Fort Worth that had, it’s no longer around, but it was corporate training and corporate technical writing. 

 

Jeff Walter (20:06.521) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (20:07.5) 

And I joined them and really jumped into the world of training and development, as well as technical writing, which those often go together. And really got some great experience there. And about that same time, I had a couple of children and I decided to go freelance in the world of training. And it worked out really well. I did that for like 15 years, specialized in becoming an e-learning developer, which I love. I’m just all about e-learning. Love it. It’s my thing. 

 

Jeff Walter (20:15.597) 

Right. 

 

Susan Demers (20:37.422) 

And so I still get to do that in my current role. I worked for our current executive director at Academy for his name is John Shearer. I worked for him as a freelancer. He was in the world of learning and development as well. He had a small business. So he would hire me on. So we’ve worked together for many, many years. Later, he became the executive director of Academy for this is about. 

 

Jeff Walter (20:46.754) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (20:53.687) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (21:05.774) 

six years ago now and I was doing other things. I was working full-time somewhere else and I just reached out to him. I was looking for maybe another opportunity and I really wanted to see if he had ideas of where I should apply or look for and he said, well, we’d love to bring you on here. How would you love that? So yeah, he had an idea. 

 

Jeff Walter (21:23.887) 

He had an idea. 

 

Susan Demers (21:28.642) 

So it’s, know, as a lot of jobs are, it’s just about networking and who you know. He knew I was something, someone he could trust and he knew what my work was like. And so it’s, it’s worked out really well. Started out doing all kinds of things. It was a much smaller organization six years ago. We were probably in, this is probably seven years ago. We were in six schools at the time. So you can see the tremendous growth we’ve had just in seven years from six schools to 60. 

 

Jeff Walter (21:56.175) 

That’s, that’s, that’s, that, that is amazing growth. That is like really amazing. And what, but still what blows me away about that is it’s all in one Metro area. You know, it’s like, it’s not like, like you said, it’s all pretty much all in Dallas, Fort Worth area and primarily Fort Worth. And like, that’s, that’s a lot of people volunteering in the schools, which is just beautiful. It’s just beautiful. 

 

Susan Demers (21:59.021) 

It’s been a lot. Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (22:06.626) 

Yeah, essentially. 

 

Susan Demers (22:20.694) 

One of our selling points to be a volunteer with Academy Four is it’s where it’s easy in roads to do it. We don’t require a lot of outside preparation. You can show up on Academy Four Friday. It’s always on Fridays. And we give you a 10 minute overview of what your day with your student is going to be like before the students arrive. And then you get on with your hour and half mentoring. The one thing we do require 

 

Jeff Walter (22:34.671) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (22:50.134) 

is before the school year starts, you need to complete our one online course. It’s called Academy for Basics, and that’s where you come in. That’s where Latitude comes in. 

 

Jeff Walter (22:55.361) 

Okay. Uh-huh. 

 

So let’s talk about the training program then. Good transition, by the way. So with Academy for Basics, what is the goal of that course? What are they trying to learn or trying to teach? 

 

Susan Demers (23:07.886) 

Thank 

 

Susan Demers (23:16.238) 

It has three goals. Like I said, it’s an online course. It’s first to introduce you to the organization and how we operate and who we are. Secondly, it’s to let you know how the mentoring part works. It’s once a month. You’re going to get an email telling you where to go and when to show up and et cetera. Just introducing them to how it works for them as a mentor. 

 

Jeff Walter (23:20.847) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (23:29.284) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (23:44.227) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (23:45.591) 

And the third part is we go through pretty extensive child safety rules that we have in place. And as part of the going through the rules, here’s an example. You’re an adult on a school, elementary school campus. You absolutely can only use a designated adult restroom. You you can’t go into a child’s restroom. That’s a no-no. You have to do have to pass a background check to 

 

Jeff Walter (23:50.829) 

Right. Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (24:06.285) 

Okay, right. 

 

Jeff Walter (24:13.583) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (24:15.138) 

to volunteer. Here’s another big, big rule, no cell phone usage around the kids. You can’t have your cell phone out. You can’t text, you can’t look at it, you can’t show them a picture on your cell phone. The cell phones are not in place during mentoring. exactly, or don’t even bring it in if you can help it. Yeah. So we go through those rules and then in the online course, 

 

Jeff Walter (24:24.448) 

interesting. 

 

Jeff Walter (24:30.895) 

So shut it off and put it in your back pocket. Or don’t even bring it out. 

 

Susan Demers (24:42.07) 

After they’ve reviewed the rules, they click a button saying, I agree to follow these rules. Compliance thing, click that button. We know that if they’ve completed the course, they have clicked that button. You can’t complete the course without clicking the button to move ahead. So that’s just a once a year. This course is taken in August before the school year starts. every volunteer, we have a lot of returning volunteers. 

 

Jeff Walter (25:07.692) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (25:08.824) 

They take it again every year. It’s just a refresher. Let’s go through these rules again. Let’s agree to follow the rules. But because this is so important for our, like I said, compliance, we want to make sure that we have a record of completion of this course. If there were ever to be any concern about a volunteer, which we really didn’t ever have, we want to be able to go back and say, yes, this volunteer completed the safety training. This is what they learned. They agreed to follow these rules. 

 

Jeff Walter (25:11.98) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (25:23.684) 

Right. 

 

Susan Demers (25:38.35) 

That’s where an LMS comes in. And we found latitude in 2019. I honestly, yeah, now I don’t. 

 

Jeff Walter (25:46.721) 

It’s been a while. You’re much smaller. The program was much smaller then. 

 

Susan Demers (25:51.827) 

The was much smaller then. Yes. And I don’t remember how we found you. think our executive director, John Shearer, started doing some research and we found Latitude and we’ve been really happy with the LMS. We use it in a very basic way. The great majority of our users are these volunteers who take one course a year. 

 

We don’t need them to have a year long relationship with the LMS. They’re in and out, they finish it, they’re done. We have three main programs, I’ve told you about two of them, Academy IV and Leaders V. We have another family program that’s led by church members and they take an online course. The Leaders V volunteers take an online course and then our Academy IV. So we have a variety of courses but 

 

Jeff Walter (26:37.486) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (26:47.37) 

Essentially our volunteers take one of the courses to volunteer with us and one for each program. It’s called Four Families. It’s newer. We’ve only had it for a few years and it’s an evening program that we help our churches put on and it’s for parents. And it’s parenting classes and getting to know, helping 

 

Jeff Walter (26:53.056) 

For one for each program, you know, they might right what’s that third program you said was? 

 

Jeff Walter (27:03.289) 

Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (27:10.479) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (27:15.928) 

them to get to know each other. It’s been a really good thing too. then allowing the church members to get to know the families in a deeper way and helping them, you know, when they need it. And some of these families have started attending the churches that are putting on this program. So it’s just another way for the church to get more involved in the community. 

 

Jeff Walter (27:24.505) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (27:36.495) 

So they’re reaching out to not necessarily church members, any, anybody that, you know, could, right. Yeah. That’s wow. That’s fascinating. That’s really cool. So, so, so, okay. So you’ve got these three programs, the biggest one is Academy for, which is what the organization is named after. And as you’ve grown, obviously you’re finding other needs. and thank you for those kind of words about attitude. Appreciate that. 

 

Susan Demers (27:42.542) 

Parents of the kids in the school are the target audience. Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (28:06.339) 

But and so they take it every year from, and it’s kind of a, is the course updated regularly or? 

 

Susan Demers (28:16.64) 

It’s essentially the same. We do update it now in the end just to kind of make it little more interesting. But yeah, it’s essentially the same type of content. In fact, I am planning a more major upgrade for this coming school year. 

 

Jeff Walter (28:27.905) 

Okay, and to, you what tools do you use to create the e-learning course? Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (28:36.002) 

I use Articulate Rise primarily. I do have a background on using Articulate Storyline, which is the more in-depth tool, e-learning development tool. But I find for our use and our needs, Rise does a really great job. 

 

Jeff Walter (28:45.337) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (28:50.383) 

How would you compare and contrast, you know, kind of, what makes them different from a practitioner perspective? 

 

Susan Demers (28:58.754) 

Susan Demers (29:02.53) 

I would say Rise is much more template based. You can just drag in these, what they’re called blocks and add in your content, add in your videos, add in your images, words, et cetera. It’s just easier to use. Storyline is much more robust and can do more complicated interactions. So if you were trying to train someone to 

 

Jeff Walter (29:25.689) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (29:31.151) 

I don’t know, work on a jet engine and you needed intricate diagrams and then them to be able to click on something and really explore deeply. That would be the better tool. But for Rise is just presenting information. It’s almost, it almost comes across as a website that you scroll down to get additional information. You just scroll, scroll, scroll. You come to a video, you watch it, keep going, do a little interaction, a little drag and drop, click here to learn some more things. 

 

Jeff Walter (29:59.417) 

So for. 

 

Susan Demers (30:00.205) 

It’s just simpler. It’s rapid e-learning development for sure. 

 

Jeff Walter (30:03.183) 

Okay. So, so, you know, one of the things we had talked about, you know, in the charity side, we training the volunteers, you know, a lot of the times it’s similar to what, what you’re doing. You got these volunteers, you need to, they need to understand the organization and what it stands for. it’s, and it’s, and it’s what they’re trying to accomplish. There’s some procedural thing, which is the whole volunteering thing. Like this is how, this is how the volunteer, you know, this is what you need to be able to do. this, and no, in order to do. 

 

whatever that is in this case, it’s Smith, the mentoring and the scheduling and that, and then usually, you know, you’re in a situation where, there are some rules you got to follow. You know, you can’t just go off on your own, you know, let’s call it compliance, whether it’s legal or organizational, but you know, there’s a, there’s a set of rules here. So do you find rise a good tool? It’s, it sounds like, you know, that’s a, it’s a pretty kind of straightforward training, e-learning training. 

 

And so would you recommend that to like other charities that are doing these kinds of, Hey, as a volunteer, you got to kind of understand what we’re about, understand how to do the volunteer work. You know, it’s, and these volunteers, it’s not their full-time job, right? And, and you want to get them out, you know, you want to get them trained and then out the door and doing the volunteer work. w as a, as the practitioner, is it a tool you would recommend for others? 

 

Susan Demers (31:24.813) 

Yes. 

 

Susan Demers (31:30.426) 

I would 100 % recommend it. And the other reason is that the courses that are created on it are responsive. You can take it on a cell phone. You can take it on laptop. You can take it on a tablet. It looks great anyway. So that’s really helpful for our volunteers as well. They may not have a laptop to take the course on, but they have a phone or they have a tablet. 

 

Jeff Walter (31:38.287) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (31:49.773) 

Yeah. Have they started to incorporate, you’re seeing this a lot, have they started to incorporate some AI stuff into the content creation or? 

 

Susan Demers (31:58.787) 

They have a higher level subscription or whatever to the thing. I don’t actually have that, so I haven’t used it. But they do have some AI creation tools that they’ve added. I just haven’t seen them in play yet because I don’t have access to them. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:02.99) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:13.471) 

Okay. Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting starting to see that just permeate everything, especially from content generation standpoint. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s. 

 

Susan Demers (32:23.384) 

Yes, yes, it really is. And one way that I’ve seen that you, the option is if you want to add an image into your course. Normally I have to go add an image that I’ve already created or have on my laptop, or they have a content library of generic stock images. So those have always been good choices, but now they have an AI image creation tool, but I haven’t used it because I don’t have access to it. You have to pay more for it. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:31.353) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:35.971) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:39.95) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:45.995) 

Okay. Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (32:50.446) 

I don’t really need that. mean, most of our images, we have a marketing department that has a great array of images and they also create videos for me that I integrate into the training. So yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (32:51.598) 

Yeah. 

 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (33:00.825) 

So yeah, it’s interesting to see how quickly that technology is permeable. I kind of feel like it’s like internet 2.0. And I don’t mean internet, but I remember in the late 90s when the internet became a thing. Actually, I remember talking to a friend of mine saying, what is a domain name? And he owned cigars.com. 

 

Susan Demers (33:07.658) 

It’s very interesting, yes. 

 

Jeff Walter (33:29.807) 

I’m like, what do you do with that? And he tried to explain it to me. was like, yeah, why would anybody want that? But, and, and here we are. you’re like, I wish I had cigars.com. Yeah, I know. I know. But 

 

Susan Demers (33:37.814) 

I know, right? I know. 

 

Yeah, right, exactly. What we didn’t know back then if we had understood so much. No, you’re right. We’ve lived through one huge change in our world with the internet and all of this. And when I started doing e-learning development, it wasn’t even called that. It was called CBT, computer-based training. It was delivered on a CD that went into the desktop computer. 

 

Jeff Walter (33:56.217) 

Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (34:03.785) 

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Yep. Yep. 

 

Susan Demers (34:12.568) 

So yeah, there’s been such a lot of evolution. It’s been fun to see it all. 

 

Jeff Walter (34:12.652) 

yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (34:17.305) 

Well, you know, on the CBT, the, you know, the LMS has been around a while. You know, we built it back in the nineties and actually that was a course type that we deprecated where it was the CBT and then you would, you know, enroll in the CBT and then that would trigger a workflow to send the CD to, know, and, I know, I know it’s crazy. It’s crazy. 

 

Susan Demers (34:39.734) 

Yes. It’s amazing we got any of that done back then. How do we even manage with that? 

 

Jeff Walter (34:47.244) 

Okay, yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (34:48.088) 

Well, I remember when the bandwidth expanded so much we could actually include videos in our training. That was a big, big deal. Because early on you couldn’t even have a video. There just wasn’t enough bandwidth or whatever. 

 

Jeff Walter (34:57.939) 

yeah. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. I remember, we had one, I have one client at automotive client. were building the internet platform for them to deal with their dealers and the requirement was every page had a load within 10 seconds over a 56 K dial up line or something like that. Yeah. It is just, yeah. Yeah. So like images gone, right? Just as funny, but I’m dating myself now. So, 

 

Susan Demers (35:18.215) 

1.  

 

Susan Demers (35:22.572) 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. no, no. 

 

Hahaha. 

 

Jeff Walter (35:27.267) 

But so, okay, so one other thing people like to understand is, okay, so you’ve got the focus, you’ve got your course, you’ve got a platform that people can get onto it and take it and you can track and do the annual things, the annual retaking of the course. What would have been some of the bigger challenges you faced in… 

 

delivering the training program or getting everybody on it or what’s been the biggest challenge for you. 

 

Susan Demers (36:01.55) 

I would say that a lot of our volunteers tend to be older because retired people have the time to do this. We do have younger ones too. And the technology, simply logging in and taking a course, sometimes we have to hold their hand a bit. But we’ve always overcome it. It’s often just a simple phone call. Here’s what logging in, here’s your username, here’s your password. Of course, we give it to them. 

 

Jeff Walter (36:08.909) 

Right. 

 

Susan Demers (36:31.126) 

in an email, but sometimes logging in is a challenge. It feels like in the last couple of years, it’s gotten easier and easier. And I don’t know if that just the population has gotten where they’re just more used to logging in, even the older people. But we used to have the struggle with that, I would say earlier on getting people on the system and through the course, all the way through completion. So their completion is tracked. 

 

Jeff Walter (36:40.771) 

Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (36:53.763) 

Yeah. So just from the technological usage. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite stories there is my, my father-in-law was in his eighties. we tried to get him online for years, you know, we, you know, on the Facebook to see the kids and, he’s, know, he’s, he’s a pretty smart guy, but just like, no, right. And, it would have difficulty. And then when, but he loves to play poker and then. 

 

Susan Demers (37:19.192) 

Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (37:23.439) 

And then I got him onto a, you know, online poker site for where you play with play money. And then he, didn’t like that one. And he found one that you had to have a Facebook account on. And he was like, I want to, I to play this one. This is a better one. yeah. And he’s like, okay, well you got to get to the Facebook. And then it’s like, and all of a sudden next thing you he’s like, oh my God, there’s pictures of all my grandkids here. Like, yes, we’ve been saying it. so, it’s so cute. Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (37:36.206) 

Susan Demers (37:41.442) 

Ha ha ha ha 

 

Susan Demers (37:49.614) 

Aww. You’ve been trying to, yeah. That’s funny. 

 

Jeff Walter (37:52.111) 

So, but yeah, it’s, but I think you’re right. think as time goes on, you know, that, that the technology it’s, it’s, more prevalent, especially in the older generation. So, and, okay. And so what’s, what’s, what’s ahead for, the training program or for Academy for sounds like you’re, expanding into new, programs. what’s, what’s the future look like for you guys? 

 

Susan Demers (38:19.608) 

Well, one thing I’m circling back and doing a bigger focus on is our staff training. We have about 30 full-time employees and then like our site coordinators that I mentioned that actually put on the program at each school. There are 60 plus of that because actually some schools have two site coordinators because they’re so big and they need two people to administer it. So all in all, we have about 100 employees and we’re really doing some more focus on 

 

Jeff Walter (38:23.928) 

Okay. 

 

Jeff Walter (38:38.797) 

Yeah, makes sense. 

 

Susan Demers (38:47.436) 

leadership development for our full time staff. We put out a compliance course on workplace harassment prevention just needed needed to be out there. So I created a course on that that everyone has taken that’s hosted on latitude. 

 

Jeff Walter (38:49.463) 

Uh-huh. 

 

Jeff Walter (38:57.742) 

Right. 

 

Susan Demers (39:09.496) 

Just exploring, just like I said, the leadership development, we had a professor from Texas Christian University who volunteered her time recently and put on a workshop. It was over six weeks, six different sessions, and it was on conversation skills, improving your conversation. She’s a business professor, and she actually gives this course, this training to her graduate students. 

 

Jeff Walter (39:34.701) 

Okay. 

 

Susan Demers (39:36.439) 

And so she was she’s a friend of Academy for and she she gave it to our our our team. And one fun thing that she gave us after the workshop was over was a trained chat bot that we can practice our conversation or our difficult conversation skills with. I’m about to release that to our full time staff and explain how to use it. And so I’ve played around with that and talking about 

 

Jeff Walter (39:50.927) 

I 

 

Jeff Walter (40:00.022) 

wow. 

 

Susan Demers (40:06.124) 

the changes in technology, the AI can talk to you and coach you through how to present a difficult conversation in the workplace. And I think that’s going to be just a game changer, those kinds of AI innovations as they come on board and we start adopting them. 

 

Jeff Walter (40:12.675) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (40:29.071) 

Yeah. So, so it’s, so it’s an avatar chat box to, for this, you know, that’s like, uh, it’s things I’ve been seeing, seeing, uh, really excited about because one thing, you know, been in learning development for a couple of decades now. And I think we’ve done a really good job over the years in terms of, uh, creating, being able to do knowledge acquisition, right? Like creating training programs that were really good at, Hey, 

 

I have this program, you’re one of my learners. need you to know X and between e-learning and web-based learning and you know, all these different modalities, I think we do a pretty good job as an industry at creating, the environment and the ability for me to teach a large population X. they know X, but skill development has always been hard because it’s been, because skill development is all about practice and coaching. 

 

Right. And, you know, and the analogy I always use is driving a car, right? Like when you get your driver’s license, you got to pass the written test, which is the knowledge. You got to know what that red sign means at the corner and what the yellow line in the middle means. then, then once you pass your written test, now you know that you have to do the skill development of driving, right? Like how to, how to actually drive, how to pull onto a freeway, how to parallel park. And that is all practice and coaching. 

 

You know, usually an older, you know, a parent or older sibling or a friend, uh, taking you into a parking lot, setting up cones, parallel parking and doing all that stuff. So, you you don’t, know, um, and it’s always been, you know, it’s been hard for us as learning development professionals, because that’s, that’s a very expensive time consuming thing to do. And here’s stories like what you were just saying. It’s like, oh, you know, she gave me this chat bot that we can just practice with. 

 

I think we’re going to see a huge improvement from an L and D side on using those simulators, those avatars to develop soft skills. Like you said, have difficult conversations and how do you approach them? And then using virtual reality simulation to practice some of the hard skills, the technical things. 

 

Susan Demers (42:40.935) 

Mm-hmm 

 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (42:56.025) 

turn this, do this, switch that. So it’s really exciting. So we’re very, very excited. I think it’s a very exciting time for that. I think we’ll see a huge increase in skill development. So. 

 

Susan Demers (42:59.415) 

Right. 

 

Susan Demers (43:08.76) 

I think so too. Yeah, I’m just trying to stay on top of it and find out what’s out there and figure out how to integrate it into our needs. 

 

Jeff Walter (43:15.149) 

Yeah. One the things we’re looking at is trying to, building a chat bot, not the, not an avatar, but the actual like chat bot build it into the LMS so that clients like you could point the chat bot at some resources or courses. And it would use that as the knowledge base, to, then, and then your learners, your students or anybody could. Yes. Just ask questions, right? Like, like, like, like, you know, take your rules, like 

 

Hey, is it okay if I smoke in the parking lot? Right. If I, if I take a smoke break in a parking lot and it would, you know, assuming that that was in your resources or in your knowledge base, um, the chap I would come say, Oh no, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not okay. Or we don’t have a policy on that or whatever, you know, whatever the response would be, I would assume the answer on that one is probably no, you can’t. And, or you shouldn’t. Um, 

 

Susan Demers (44:10.704) 

Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (44:13.155) 

But then it would also reference the resource and or the course that that information was so that if you want to go into more detail. So we’re looking at that, but it’s just fascinating how this is going. I’m just seeing, especially on some of the, so the funny story, you were talking about the avatar. I don’t know if I told you this story about the interviewer avatar. Did I tell you that? Did we talk about that? So this is last year, I’m at a conference. 

 

Susan Demers (44:25.976) 

It is. 

 

Susan Demers (44:40.622) 

Mm-mm. 

 

Jeff Walter (44:43.279) 

And a gentleman’s talking about, you know, soft skill development using these avatars. And he was a recruiter or head of recruiting for a large fortune 500 company. And they were playing with that technology and he took it home and it was trying to train the interviewer to interview candidates. And so he took the, you know, so he took the two home and he’s, he’s interviewing the avatar and doing all the things right. And he said, okay, you know, kind of, you know, okay, it seems to be working the way we want it. 

 

Susan Demers (45:03.234) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (45:13.433) 

And then, he’s in his home office. He’s like, I’m going to see if I can get the avatar to cry. And, and so he starts, you know, belittling it and yelling at it and you know, all this type of stuff. And, and his wife is in the next room listening and he comes out after, know, 50, he couldn’t get it to cry. but he, why it comes out next year and she goes, what was that all about? I’ve never seen you get that mad. 

 

Susan Demers (45:21.536) 

Susan Demers (45:28.107) 

1.  

 

Susan Demers (45:37.215) 

Hehehehehe 

 

Jeff Walter (45:43.311) 

And it’s like, oh no, no, no, no, no. And then she’s like, that poor person, you were just so mean to them. She was like, no, no, no, no, no. I was testing this avatar. 

 

Susan Demers (45:57.603) 

That’s so funny. my goodness. And couldn’t get it to cry. They don’t have feelings, I guess. 

 

Jeff Walter (46:01.703) 

I guess it was not programmed to be right, but it’s really, I think it’s really fascinating, cool stuff. uh, so shifting gears a little, um, when you’re not doing this type of stuff, one of the things, uh, I find interesting is, what do you, what do you like to learn about? Uh, yeah, we’re, we’re always talking about what we’re doing professionally and what we’re trying to teach people and skills we’re trying to develop. But what’s your favorite topic of things to learn about? Yeah. What do you, what do you like to learn about in your spare time when you’re not building this? 

 

Susan Demers (46:07.82) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (46:27.534) 

That’s a great question. I love history, especially Texas history. I’m a fifth generation Texan, so I have a lot of roots in the state. So anything about historical Texas I love. I’m on a lot of Facebook groups devoted to Texas history and they show different images and those are fun to scroll through and look at. 

 

My mom passed away a few years ago and she left me some notebooks of family genealogy. That was her thing back in the 80s. So I’ve been looking through all that and kind of learning about family history and that’s been interesting as well. 

 

Jeff Walter (46:58.127) 

wow. Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (47:05.177) 

So have you gone online with the genealogy and traced back the five generations or? 

 

Susan Demers (47:13.196) 

Yes, I’ve used a couple of online portals, Ancestry and FamilySearch, and they’re really fascinating to look at. And of course, you don’t know how accurate they are, but it is fun to look at and see how far back other people have traced your ancestors. 

 

Jeff Walter (47:16.589) 

Yeah, and just yeah, come yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (47:31.222) 

Yeah, that’s neat. You years ago when my father retired pre-internet, um, he, got into genealogy and I have all this, I have all his compilations, uh, you know, and, he printed out this big family tree that goes back, you know, whatever many generations. And, um, and I’m like, I’ve been wanting to like take all that and go to ancestry.com and, and, you know, it’s cause it’s fascinating. I too. 

 

Susan Demers (47:44.034) 

Yes. 

 

Jeff Walter (47:58.913) 

One of my favorite things is learning about history. Not Texas history, although I found it fascinating when I lived there in the 1980s that they were celebrating their 150 year anniversary of independence from Mexico instead of statehood. no, that’s neither here nor there. Because it is its own, know, Texas just happens to be part of the United States for now. 

 

Susan Demers (47:59.972) 

Yes. 

 

Susan Demers (48:18.894) 

Yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (48:25.932) 

You 

 

Jeff Walter (48:25.935) 

No, but, uh, but yeah, I find it. What I find fascinating about history is it helps explain why the world is the way it is today to me. And some of it can, you can go back a couple thousand years and you can see the echoes of what happened thousands of years ago. And some of it is decades, you know, what happened a decade or two ago and see the, you know, just, and that’s, that’s what I love about history is how it reverberates. 

 

And you’re like, that’s why we do what we do today. 

 

Susan Demers (48:59.054) 

Yes, I love it because I love to see how much change has happened. We’re always talking about how we live in a time of great change, and it is. But I mean, think about someone who was born in 1890 and lived till 1960s. Think about the change they saw in the world. I mean, wow. They went from horse and buggy to airplanes and missions to the moon. Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (49:02.596) 

Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (49:15.004) 

yeah, yeah, that’s change. 

 

Jeff Walter (49:22.145) 

And computers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. Yeah, yeah. 

 

Susan Demers (49:27.128) 

How did they handle that? It’s interesting to think about that. 

 

Jeff Walter (49:29.867) 

Yeah, well, and well, the other thing, too, that I find really fascinating, and especially when I read historical fiction, like really good historical fiction, is I think some because we’re more technologically advanced than our ancestors, we tend to think that we’re like somehow smarter or we’re better than them or like, like, there’s just like this conceit a little. And then when you start, like you were just saying, 

 

Susan Demers (49:55.63) 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

 

Jeff Walter (49:57.017) 

When you, I find when I, when I, when you start reading a biography of somebody from the past or some good historical fiction, it really blows it out or you learn what like was like, you know, in Egyptian times and you get down into the individual. Like what I always find fascinating is like, no, they’re, you know, they’re people just like us and they had the same desires and wants and needs and there’s good and there’s evil and. 

 

All the things that you can talk about us, it’s like, they’re just not as technologically advanced. We just have better tools. That’s all. and, and, and therefore, you know, I got a thermostat. I don’t have to worry about starting the fire when I come in after I’ve been in the fields all day. Right. Like, but it’s the same. You really, I, and I feel like he really connect with them as people and you don’t feel it kind of sits there go, okay. They’re, just people trying to get through their life. 

 

Susan Demers (50:37.399) 

Exactly. 

 

Susan Demers (50:46.712) 

Right. 

 

Jeff Walter (50:56.847) 

And like you said, you think this is change, you know, try having your city sacked. That’s change. Yeah. Right. Or yeah, I did deal with that. Like, you know, yeah. Um, so it’s, it’s really fascinating. 

 

Susan Demers (50:58.53) 

Yes. 

 

Susan Demers (51:04.302) 

There’s some change there, right? Try to adapt to that. 

 

Susan Demers (51:12.482) 

Well, and one thing you remind me of is like when you read about historical people even 100 years ago, 200 years ago, I think we’re losing some skills. mean, these people wrote letters. That’s how they communicated with their relatives and their friends. And they wrote these long involved letters. We don’t do that anymore. They read books. I have a daughter who was a high school teacher recently. And it’s surprising how the kids are not read, a lot of them are not reading. 

 

Jeff Walter (51:22.275) 

Yes. Yeah. 

 

Jeff Walter (51:40.719) 

Right. 

 

Susan Demers (51:42.094) 

right now in a way that maybe even a generation or two people were reading. 

 

Jeff Walter (51:46.083) 

Yeah, it’s it. Yeah. It, I remember, some, where, I was reading something from historical nature and they were talking about how, not about these particular skills, but how quickly skills diminish in society. And they were talking about the, the human migration, in the South Pacific and how, the time people got to, you know, certain islands where there were, you it was like back to the stone age because there was no 

 

because there was no metal there, right? Oh, I was in Hawaii and we’re talking about the early settlers in Hawaii. it was, you know, when they, you know, if you trace back a few generations to Asia as they came across, it’s like they just lost all the, what was amazing was how quickly you lose the skills because nobody’s practicing them, right? And so I think about, I never thought about it in the terms of what you’re saying. It’s like, yes, we’re. 

 

Susan Demers (52:15.628) 

Mmm. 

 

Susan Demers (52:19.852) 

you. 

 

Jeff Walter (52:44.663) 

in this totally interconnected world, or on the one hand, there’s a lot of, I put probably more reading and writing than ever, but it’s all in short text messages, right? And, and, and as opposed to long length letters, because I, I can’t get your feedback instantaneously. So I got to, I got, I got to put that thought to paper. So that’s interesting. That’s really interesting. That’s saying, all right. Well, 

 

Susan Demers (52:53.902) 

short. 

 

Jeff Walter (53:12.801) 

Anything else you want to chat about while we’re together? It’s been a really fun conversation. I’ve really enjoyed it. you know, I 

 

Susan Demers (53:20.268) 

It has been fun. No, I don’t have anything else. I think we covered a lot. 

 

Jeff Walter (53:23.043) 

Okay. Well, one thing I would maybe we can close on is Academy for is growing, growing rapidly, which is a testament to you’re obviously tapped into a need there and making a difference in the world. This is a beautiful thing. If somebody wanted to, was in the Dallas Fort Worth area and wanted to volunteer, what would the best way for them to get out and volunteer be? 

 

Susan Demers (53:52.45) 

They would go to our website, academy4.org, just academy4.org, and there is literally a place to volunteer, to register to volunteer. You answer some questions, who you are, you can specify a particular school, or if you don’t know, it would make more sense for you to volunteer, you can leave that blank and we’ll help you figure out the best school for you to volunteer at. 

 

But yeah, we’re actively recruiting. We’re getting ready for the next school year. It’ll be here before we know it. 

 

Jeff Walter (54:22.179) 

Yeah, it’s at beginning of the summer, right? Yeah. Perfect. Well, thank you, Susan. I learned a lot today. I love these because I get to learn more. I learned more about Academy for and the great work you guys are doing. And I really appreciate your time. It’s been very educational. So thank you for your time and effort. All right. And to everybody out there, thank you for listening. We always appreciate it and have a lovely day. See you later. 

 

Susan Demers (54:26.412) 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

 

Susan Demers (54:42.68) 

Thank you, thank you for having me, it’s been fun.