This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Rebecca Zanatta on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

KEY WORDS

people, work, board members, donors, philanthropy, nonprofits, events, fundraising

Erica Mills Barnhart  00:00

 Welcome to the Marketing for Good podcast. I am really excited because today we have Rebecca Zanatta with us. Rebecca is a fundraising leader and that’s putting it mildly. She has more than 20 years of experience. Building and stewarding strategic donor partnerships. Currently she unleashes her superpowers as President of the Ostara Group, a fundraising firm that values relationships, partnerships, and I’ve come to learn a good beer. She is a Washington State University graduate and holds a certificate in fundraising management from the Lilly School Philanthropy. She is faculty at Seattle University in the Master in Nonprofit Leadership Program and is a Washington State University Foundation trustee. A little known fact Rebecca is one of the few people who can walk around Green Lake which is a lake right in the middle of Seattle faster than I can. I’m pretty fast walker. She’s a faster walker, and she has walked your way around more than 25 countries on five continents. Welcome to the Marketing for Good podcast. Rebecca, I’m so excited to have you here.

Rebecca Zanatta  01:48

Thank you so much, Erica. I’m excited to be here with you today, it was something to look forward to, thank you.

Erica Mills Barnhart  01:55

You in the fall actually walked and probably did other things around one of my favorite places which is Normandy, France.

Rebecca Zanatta  02:02

Oh, amazing, yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart  02:04

Where did you go?

Rebecca Zanatta  02:06

So, Paris is one of my favorite cities in the whole world. So we, of course, couldn’t leave out Paris on this trip. So we flew into Paris, and then rented a car and drove out and stayed in Bayeux. So kind of in that area close to the beaches, and had an amazing tour, full day tour, we actually followed the band of brothers tour, if anybody have watched that show before. Then my significant other is a huge World War Two history fan, so we spent days on the beaches, and really enjoyed that. And then we went down to the Loire Valley and spent some time drinking some wine, and then came back to Paris and then came home. So I’m really glad we had about two weeks.

Erica Mills Barnhart  02:54

That sounds amazing. And we’re recording this while quarantined, sheltered in place, whatever I’ve become unclear on what the difference is for day 3079, so travel just feels so delicious. Just the idea of it.

Rebecca Zanatta  03:14

You know, so I travel around the world for a year in 2006 so, sold, sold my house, quit my job, did the whole thing. That’s when we visited 25 countries on five different continents. My total track today is about 46 country. So, I am looking forward to whatever that 47th will be, dreaming a bit of Sri Lanka, maybe Bali, but just now not sure when. But still, as you said, dreaming of you know, when it’s possible to go and learn and support and be part of another community.

Erica Mills Barnhart  03:55

Mm hmm. Sounds lovely. But here we are. Here we are, we can dream but not go yet. I will so the reason I love Normandy is the first time I went to France so I’ve been there quite a few times and very very blessed plus obsessed with the French language. I went to and stayed with a family for a month in Rouen, which is the capital of Normandy, right up, there and then we went to- Yeah, well, you know, I, since I spent my early early days in Canada, actually, I learned how to speak English first, but I learned how to read and write French first. Well, that’s a little, little glitch I have. So I’ve always been in love with France and it was super cool and the beaches were amazing, and the, just all of it stuck with me for sure. Alright, so let’s, let’s see, we’re going to talk about fun fundraising and marketing and people, all sorts of things. And one of the things I often say is that nonprofits aren’t like toothpaste. And what I mean by that is you don’t like have to give to a nonprofit, like when you run out of toothpaste you like have to go buy more toothpaste but you don’t have to give to a nonprofit. So over the years you in your roles have seen thousands of people give to dozens of nonprofits. And I’m just wondering, in your opinion, why do people give money to nonprofits, like, what accounts for this quite irrational behavior? I think people, so the word philanthropy means love of mankind. So if you believe that people are good, and people want good in the world, and want to be part of their community, then I believe that philanthropy is one of the ways in which you can do it. Now that is a very lofty word and that’s why I say when it comes down to it, it means love of mankind. Because I think people give because they care. And I think they give because they want to see better in the world, and there are so many places where people can make their gifts and I think that’s the beauty of working in this nonprofit sector is seeing the various people who support different organizations and knowing that they’re making a really big difference with no matter what size of gift, by the way, it’s really about participation. And I think there’s a value in that, but people feel to their community, it’s the people that there are the people that the organization is serving.  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all the evidence would suggests that you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t donate to nonprofits anymore, and yet there is something so core to, you know, folks who do and what it means about them and their identity and their sense of self and a whole bunch of other things. So we’ve already mentioned we’re recording this while sheltered in place, and COVID-19 I mean, it’s changed our world’s in so many ways and that includes marketing and includes fundraising, of course. What would you say to those who are listening who are struggling to raise money? I mean, it’s hard right now. It’s I just want to pause and acknowledge, these are not easy times, and they’re really not easy for, you know, frontline workers. Thank you so much for what you’re doing. You know, people in the medical profession, health care professionals and folks working for nonprofits, it’s just tough. Um, I want to come at this, I’m generally an optimist and a positive frame person, but I want to hear you just talk about because you have this vantage point where you see a whole bunch of organizations doing and trying different things. What mistakes are you seeing organizations make and what would you, what would you recommend they do differently to be more successful? I think the mistakes are coming from fear and unknown. And so one of the mistakes is sterilization and not not not engaging your donors and making decisions for your donors and not communicating with your donors because you don’t know what to say. I think it’s really it could be really easy right now to just crawl in a hole and just not come out for a while. I mean, and that’s the hardest part, right? We don’t know when we’re going to be able to sort of crawl up out of this. And even when people say it’s going to be go back to normal, there will, the normal will be completely new. And I think in fundraising, especially it will be new. But the mistakes that I’m seeing are when people are basing some of their decisions or lack of decisions on fear. Do you think it’s solely fear? I guess part of what I’m seeing and wondering about is folks feeling not folks, people working for nonprofits feeling like they shouldn’t like bother their donors.

Rebecca Zanatta  08:54

Yeah.Yeah. That’s a great you know, what’s interesting about it is we are all in this together, right? And so as much as angst as you feel as a nonprofit professional, whether you sit in the Executive Director role, you sit as a Board role, you sit as a Director of Development, or the Program Team, I mean, whoever’s part of that ecosystem of philanthropy right now. Their angst is just very similar to what our donors are feeling. And I mean that by our individual donors, our foundation donors, our corporate donors, everybody would love to keep giving, everybody would love to keep participating. And what’s interesting is I’m seeing and I’m talking about it a little bit when you think about, you know, something, the three T’s right time, talent and treasure, and you think about it in the aspect that there might not be a lot of treasure right now. But heck, some people have a lot of time. And so what is that, that you could ask your donors or engage with your donors that’s more around their time or their talent than their treasure because ultimately treasure will come back and some people are still giving. I mean, there’s certainly in some of the clients that I work with, especially in the food banks and in the social service sector, those that are frontline are seeing a complete increase in donations, and an overwhelming support and acknowledgement of the work that they do. And that, that that’s heartwarming, right? Because that’s something that I hope carries forward in terms of the realization that our nonprofits and that the third sector, the nonprofit sector plays in our community.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:32

So listeners of this podcast work for nonprofits and foundations and and then other tax statuses, right? Because it’s fundamentally just a tax status and actually was my dad who recently we were talking about charity, philanthropy and giving and all these things. And he said, you know, I think about my charitable donations is like my way of paying for, he didn’t say it quite, he said it more eloquently, but basically buying the better world that I want to see. And you know I teach right now, I’m teaching so it’s like on my mind, I literally just taught earlier, a couple minutes before this, my undergrad class at the University of Washington, which is on nonprofit philanthropy, social innovation. And, uh, you know, we’re talking a lot about how blurry the lines are between things. And you know, those students grew up in a time where they put every decision and every purchasing decision and donating decision through with this values filter. Not every, but a lot, right? So it’s a it’s a very different mindset. And I wonder if you see that playing out, you know, sort of this generational difference in terms of how younger generations and then older than us and us think about just makes decisions. It feels quite different to me. I love, that’s a really interesting point because so I have a senior in high school, Lucy, who is my stepdaughter, and my heart breaks for her. And she is handling it amazingly. So what’s really interesting is I’ve been thinking about it and having different conversations with people, because generational giving is something that I’m passionate about and have been for probably the last 20 years. And it’s the first time all five generations from Generation Z, Generation Y, Millennials, Generation X, baby boomers, and the matures, are all working together. They’re all giving to different causes together. We’re all in this world, this thick of it together. And yes, certainly, generations have different characteristics in terms of their giving. Speaking specifically to the younger generation, specifically Millennials, Generation Y and Generation Z, and I think about it I’ll speak more specifically towards Lucy so Lucy was born right after 9/11 right? So that’s part of her core. She knew about that, there was lore behind that she knew about it. Then she went through the depression or the recession in 2008 2009. And so how and what her, you know, again, becoming a young adult in that time, and now they’re experiencing this and coping, and they’re going to vote, by the way, in November. So what’s super interesting to me is to watch Lucy and look and listen and hear some of the conversations her and her friends are having about volunteer engagement about, you know, the money that they don’t have right now, but where they would give it and by the way, they do, do still give, even if they don’t make a lot of money. Again, the misnomer that just rich people give money is actually sort of the opposite. A lot of people who don’t have tons of money are actually the ones who carry philanthropy a lot in our country. So I think certainly, what’s interesting is people probably by generation are reverting back to kind of their giving characteristics. But Generation Z for me is the one that’s the most fascinating to watch and to see how they will sort of transcend from this as as philanthropists involved in organizations as volunteers, as donors. So that kind of answers your question.  Yeah, no, that’s great. I wonder if we’re fascinated. I mean, there’s so much like focus on millennials and now the, the Zoomers, which, I think both both my kids are 12 and 15 are technically Zoomers, the 15 year olds, maybe be a little on the cusp. Anyway, I wonder, you know, there’s so much sort of attention and like, how do you market to them? And how do you engage them and and I wonder if we’re intrigued because of, because we don’t know the end to the story? Right, like our minds always kind of want to like know what the ending is to the story. I don’t know that they’re inherently more inherently more fascinating than the other generations. We’re fascinating. Not really, but you know, comparing is fascinating, but I do really like it intrigues me deeply. Why, why there’s just so much focus on it, but yeah, I love I love hearing about Lucy and what her friends are talking about. It’s a great-  Well and they care. And they are, you know, their, their, they they give me hope. Right? Like their generation gives me hope. And where they’re going, how they’re getting us there, what they’re teaching us, you know, I’m the one falling in the corner because she’s not going to have a graduation and she’s like, oh I’m good you know, and we’re going to do this, this and this, and I don’t know if that’s just her and maybe some of her friends but you know, they are certainly, she is certainly handling it really, really well. That’s great to hear. I do always say that, what, if people are bummed out or pessimist or are feeling down, I come, well, you can’t always come in and sit in a class because it would be awkward but like they give me hope every single day that I teach and get to be around my students is a gift, because they remind me that like, good things are still coming. You know, it’s part of the reason I want to do this podcast is, I feel like you know, we have a negative negativity skew is also human nature. And there’s a lot of goodness happening in the world. So part of this podcast was my way of being like, no, no, I’m not crazy, like there’s a lot of good happening in the world.

Rebecca Zanatta  16:32

We’re going to talk about it.

Erica Mills Barnhart  16:33

We’re going to talk about it. Let’s talk about it. I mean, okay. So speaking of silver linings, because I am always looking for the silver lining. So much will be, is different now. So much will be different. And then we know that we will go back to status quo because that’s what we know in a lot of ways. Well, you know, probably we will if history is any indication of the future. What are some things that you’re hoping won’t go back to the status quo? As it relates to philanthropy. So one is the fact that the third sector, the nonprofit sector, was even included in the stimulus package. Right, like actually in, in, at table. So I think there’s a way for advocacy to lead more front and center than it ever has before. And for nonprofits to understand how they can participate, because they can. There’s such this sort of misnomer that you can’t participate in advocacy. You can’t really lobby but there’s a really different, there are really different rules between advocacy and lobbying. And so that advocacy seat at the table voice being heard, I hope continues. I also hope we are reverting back some tried and true fundraising practices. Picking up the phone and calling donor x and checking in and saying hello. And you know what, I have always been an advocate for that. But I think now more than ever, people realize that phone calls and checking in or maybe a Zoom conversation or a FaceTime conversation, whatever that might be. That personal engagement is all is, is, in my opinion, and always will be the number one way to engage people in giving period is by the face to face ask. And I think that can happen now, we’re realizing in different ways, whether it be over the phone, over zoom, etc. The other thing and I think we’re in the thick of it right now, Erica, is event season. And it’s, you know, I think about the people who were doing events and like early March, at least in Seattle, because I know listeners are probably all over but for Seattle, we were sort of on that front end. Of course, we were the epicenter before, you know, there was an epicenter that that started traveling around the country, and those nonprofits who were doing events during that time, there were some that did some really good work in pivoting really quickly to like online events to virtual events. And now, you know, a month and a half later, we’re still having the conversation, because we don’t know what it’s gonna look like in the summer. And we don’t know what it’s gonna look like in the fall. But my hope is, there’s also an opportunity to engage more thoughtfully with the events that we do, and still do events, because they’re still really important. They are opportunities to acquire new donors, they are opportunities to educate people about the work that we do. But they are also I think, became some of a crutch for us in terms of how much money we raised from them, how much time we spent on them, and the energy that it takes to put on an event. And how can we take some of the lessons we’re learning right now in having to pivot, there’s that word we’re using a lot. How are you, how are you changing your event strategy? And so for me, sort of that seat at the table, tried and true best practices, and maybe looking at our event strategy and learning from some of the things we’re having to sort of be forced to do. You know, I’ve been thinking about this way. So you mentioned I did go to the Lily School Philanthropy, and it was before there was the Lily School, and I sat on a podcast, or listening actually, it was a Zoom webinar. And they were talking about a blank piece of paper, right? And there’s an element right now, and I think on the other side of this, where we can have a blank piece of paper, and we can kind of say, what do we really want to do? Why do we really want to do it? And let’s go out and do it and sort of throw away all the other things that you never really like to do any way that we can’t do right now. So that sort of blank piece of paper thing also gives me some kind of excitement towards what could be on the other side of this.  I mean, that would, actually do that to take a blank piece of paper, and by the way, turn it horizontally rather than vertically because our brains process differently on the horizontal-

Rebecca Zanatta  21:01

I like that. Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart  21:03

And like, you know, there’s that, the author of The Little Prince who said, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, his name is very hard to say, a perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away. And I’ve really I’ve been kind of meditating on this idea because it was adapted into something that I heard, which is this question of what’s essential, and therefore, what can fall away?

Rebecca Zanatta  21:30

Yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart  21:31

And my invitation to listeners is really, and with this edition of like, take a blank piece of paper, and really ask the question about what’s essential, I feel like and I know from talking to colleagues around the country and the world, that we’re pretty event heavy in Seattle, and I don’t know why we like it so much, but we love us an event. And so, but I mean, it’s fairly common for nonprofits. And you know, I talk to organizations and be like, why are you doing the event and it almost became like, well, we have to do an event. It’s like, no, you actually don’t.

Rebecca Zanatta  22:00

Because we’ve always done it that way.

Erica Mills Barnhart  22:01

Right? You know, either we’ve always done the way or and the thing that like kind of got me going a little bit more is like, well everybody’s doing events, so if we don’t have event, well, maybe you zig while they zag. But this idea of just a blank piece of paper, I love that. I think it was Susan Hallett who I heard this from and she said, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. She was paraphrasing somebody, I don’t know, she was paraphrasing. I have loved seeing, you know, nonprofit step up and stand tall into that, like, we deserve to be in that stimulus package. Guess what? No, we can’t just keep doing this without help. We’re so on the front line. So that definitely gives me-

Rebecca Zanatta  22:46

 There is an opportunity to be bold and to be big and again, there is an opportunity right now to think beyond and to think big and bold and what is it that you want to let go you know, take that blank piece of paper, but also think about what could be, right? Because donors love to be involved in something that’s big. And that is really impactful. And it doesn’t have to steer away from your mission. But like, what is that next big idea that you want to go out that you’ve actually learned during this time that could have really benefited you? Right? And so thinking about it from that aspect of yes, there are aspects right now, where we have to be reactive, because there is just there is just money that we need to raise to support our people, that our programs and everything that we do, but like when you get a chance to sort of sit, take a breath, get out that piece of paper, put it horizontal, and then dream. And, to your point, get rid of the non-essential, and that’s the other thing, I think the word essential has become so loaded right now in our communities, because who wants to be told they’re non-essential, right? But the reality is, there are certainly things that are work in philanthropy that are essential and there are certainly things that we could probably do without or do differently next time.

Erica Mills Barnhart  24:09

Yeah, I mean it bums me out because the, I love the word essence. I’ve always been because I talk a lot about from a messaging perspective how you want to communicate your essence, not your everything.

Rebecca Zanatta  24:21

Ooh, I like that too. Yep.

Erica Mills Barnhart  24:22

And then this word then essential comes along and it kind of like sullies essence a little bit. I feel like in this day and age, but I really, listeners I want you to hear this point that Rebecca’s making because I feel like it’s really important, which is, you know, this dreaming isn’t luxury and maybe you can’t do it right now, but just like opening up a place in your brain where you might do it would be great. Have you ever heard of any organizations, actually, this will be a lot of insight to like where my brain goes when I hear things. Has it, have you ever heard of organizing like mailing, doing a mail or mailing out a blank piece of paper to donors with a little note saying like explaining, like having to be an invitation to dream the future with them?  No but love it. Because again, another one of those quotes that I don’t know who the origin is, but like long term leadership involvement for me is people, people tend to support what they create. And so if you could, how cool that would be a direct mail piece. Love it.  It’s cheap, how cheap is that? Like, it’s a blank piece of paper.

Rebecca Zanatta  25:29

Super cheap and it could be written in a way where you could literally see the frame, and there could be some prompts. And there could be a way to go with a self, you know, a response on below. And you could do a whole campaign around it. I love that.

Erica Mills Barnhart  25:46

And then they and then and then and then, of course, self enclosed, you know, self addressed stamped envelope so they actually get back to you. You have like endless social media fodder.

Rebecca Zanatta  25:58

Exactly.

Erica Mills Barnhart  25:59

Click, Click. Okay, I hope that when some listener takes this and runs with it-

Rebecca Zanatta  26:04

If they can reach out Eric and I will help you.

Erica Mills Barnhart  26:08

Well, I just like generating the ideas these days. But you know, we’re here and there if they want it. But I do I was gonna ask you anyway. Ostara Group, where you are currently President, I just feel like in the past three to five years, you’ve just like taken off. And you were like this kind of like it was oh Ostara who is Ostara, you know, and now all of a sudden everybody knows who you are. Will you share with us like was that intentional? How did that happen? And how are you feeling about it? Where, where are you, where are you going? Yeah. Thank you. That’s good to hear. Because you never know. Right? Like, it’s interesting because so we celebrated our 10th anniversary last year. And our CEO and founder Kyle Halmrast and I met 11 years ago through Leadership Tomorrow, which is a program through the City of Seattle, many cities have them. And Ostara was born out of that experience for wanting to create consulting for the small and the mid sized organization. And we really think about things in the three C’s culture, capacity and capability. And so I would say, you know, loosely, we were a bunch of independent contractors up until about 2016. So kind of in your timeline of sort of when things sort of got noticed, I would say we we all became employees then in 2016. And we are now a team of 17, and we are we’ve worked with over 350 some clients in the region as well as sort of statewide. And I think we have really good people, I do, and I think we all have worked on the frontlines of fundraising, and so when we say we get it, we actually really do get it. And so there’s an element of the people that we hire who work for Ostara who have really live experience that they can bring into consulting situations. And so we do grant work, right? So we do research, writing and strategies where we actually are part of a team. We do campaign work, so readiness planning, council, we do strategy and facilitation, so traditional Board retreats and workshops and facilitations. And then have a whole line of development services where there’s major gifts, individual giving, development assessments. And so we’ve sort of focused in those four areas, and hire people who have sort of breadth of experience in each of those. And so what I continue to hear is that we work, one of the things we say, we work shoulder to shoulder with you, everything’s custom built, there’s no notebook, and of course, there’s things that we’ve learned from all the clients that we’ve worked with, but you have to go in and really listen and and where are you and what do you need and what are you trying to become and then let’s do that together. So I think that essence, I’ll use that word, of what we do is has caught on. And I think people appreciate that. You mentioned that you do work with Boards.

Rebecca Zanatta  29:11

Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart  29:13

What are your thoughts on or your observations about how Board members are thinking about themselves? You know, in this moment. Yeah. So a couple I’ve been, you know, probably like you, as an academic, been doing a lot of reading and looking at articles and all these different things. And Joan Garry, who’s one of my favorite fundraising professionals, had a great blog post about probably three weeks ago and I have just continued to use it, because it’s how Boards can show up right now. And for me, it is a couple and then I’ll caveat by saying I also sat on a webinar by The Chronicle of Philanthropy last week, that was was talking about Boards, I think it was last week, I don’t know, every day kind of feels like a week. Um, but they were talking about Boards right now we have to think about them differently. We have to think about them collectively as the Board, and then we have to think about them as individuals on a Board. And so they have different functions right now because the Board and that governance is being tested, right? In terms of how you show up, how you govern, and then there’s this element of, you know, you mentioned first responders or people that are working in this that are also Board members. Well, they’ve got to do what’s first priority right now. So to me, what I’ve seen work really well is when Executive Directors and staff can be really clear with what they need from the Board, and then ask them for that, versus a call out that we need your help, because then someone might come back to you with help that you might not need right now. But the idea being really clear and prioritize what you need. And then also getting Board members on the phone, talking with donors. I mean that human to human. That idea of just picking up the phone and calling someone to say, how are you? How is your family? How are you doing? How is life? And just listening. And you know, that was the beginning of Joan’s blog was a Development Officer or Executive Director had done that to check in. And guess what? The next day they called and said they wanted to make a very sizable gift. And they did not call to ask, they called to check in. So a great role for Board members to play right now is in that stewardship. Hello? Always a great role. So here’s what I’m going to put into this list. I feel like we’re creating of like things we hope stay and don’t go back to status quo, which is this dynamic of, you know, Executive Directors and staff, kind of not wanting to like bug or be too directive of the Board and there’s some legitimate reasons for that. And there’s power dynamics and a lot of other things. But with really high functioning organizations, at least in my experience, part of why they’re so high functioning is because the Board like has clear vision, they’re aligned on the vision, and they’re asked to do very specific things.

Rebecca Zanatta  32:15

Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart  32:16

Like, here’s your list, work the list. And I love this idea, I mean, I think we all get it like I would love I would love a phone call from any of the organizations I support right? Just saying, how are you doing? And that’s it. That you can feel that that would make you more loyal. And it’s a nice way to ease  the Board members who don’t like those phone call things into it, like, literally all you’re doing is saying, hey, how are you?

Rebecca Zanatta  32:37

Yeah, you know, don’t give someone 20 there’s no too much going on for 20 give me three or maybe five and I guarantee your Board member will come back asking for more. I guarantee it. Because I sat on a Board meeting last night, Zoom again, sort of my my new norm Zoom Board meeting and the couple Board members were talking about thank you calls they had been making. And it was just great to hear their stories, because you know, one of them was like, well, the person was a little bit hesitant. And then they knew that I was just calling to say thank you and hello and then they just talked to me for 20 minutes, you know? So, again, other thing I think happens a lot, Erica, and I’m, again, back to sort of what am I seeing right now is the angst that we feel, oftentimes, we put on to other people. So in fundraising, if I don’t want to be asked, if I don’t want to be called, that I don’t want to ask, I don’t want to call. And so again, taking taking that opportunity to A) not make decisions for donors and let them decide, and putting it out there as the opportunity to just check in and so yeah, you’re right. I think it’s, I have seen if it’s reasonable to give a little script with a few bullets, and then they can tell their personal story again, the why, start with the why it matters, it’s the most important thing about the work that we do, you cannot go out and ask anybody for money unless you have a reason why. And story is connected to that. And everybody, all of our Board members have a story. You know, and then the other side of that, too, is not everybody is cut out to be a Board member, and that’s okay. But there’s a place to be in the world, again, as a volunteer or somewhere else in the structure. But, you know, I think there’s an opportunity to sort of see right now, and focus on the Board members, I guess, that are showing up is what I’m saying. Right? Is that the 80% who are and the 20% that aren’t kind of that rule that we think about Pareto’s Principle. That matters right now, because I’m sensing frustration from some of my clients about their Board. But then when I sort of, like dig into it, they’re telling me about three or four people of a Board of 10 who are showing up and I’m like, that’s who I want you to focus on right now. Let the others go right now, and let’s just dig in with those three or four that want to show up and want to help.

Erica Mills Barnhart  35:06

Yep, that’s great. Yes, this, this projecting of my angst becomes your angst. Yeah. So but let me just dip into the weeds with a super practical question. What do you say to listeners who have Board members who want to help but don’t want to do the things you need them to do right now? Because you want Board members feel wonderful, you want them to feel like they’re contributing. Yeah. So I’ll pull a little bit from something I heard last week from that Chronicle webinar was our Boards are showing up right now in in the habits that we created for them in the past. So, if we were not clear about a Boards rule or the expectation of a Board member before, it’s very difficult now in a pandemic, to try to try and create a clear expectation. So I think you got to start there. Right? So if you are an organization who has had really clear roles and responsibilities and expectations from your Board, I think you treat your Board just like you would another donor, as you think through what are the priorities that you need? And you know, again, I’d like to think of three. So one of those three things that you need right now, get on the phone with that Board member, and just say, hey, I know you want to help. And be honest, I mean, I’m all about the, I call the BDC, the big difficult conversations, right? And sometimes they can be with Board members, where you’re feeling in that power dynamic. Like, I don’t want you to do that, I want you to do this and just say, hey, you know what, Erica? I love that you want to volunteer and do this right now, I actually would like to share with you there’s a couple other things that are just rising on a priority list. How would you feel about doing this or that and again, giving choice not open ended right now, because I think open ended is a bit overwhelming for people. And I think the idea of sort of this or that in terms of choice and connecting it to priorities of the organization, which, by the way, go back to serving our mission. Because the reality is I don’t raise money for Rebecca Zanatta, I don’t raise money for the organizations that I even work for. I raise money for the people that benefit from those organizations. And so if you can get Board members to think in that way, in terms of thats who they’re supporting, I think there’s ways to sort of steer or whatever word you want to use, them into a different way to help right now versus maybe the way that they want to help. Yeah, yeah. So if you’re listening to this, I really I want to underscore this one point, which is this idea of choice. Like here’s two options, not like this isn’t a time to be saying like I did, let’s let’s freeform. You know, I don’t like the term spitball. I don’t, I don’t I don’t get it. Why would I want to be involved in that? Ew.

Rebecca Zanatta  37:57

There’s a lot of tissues that you’re going to need and toilet paper-

Erica Mills Barnhart  38:00

And then you got to clean it up. So, whatever. There’s not like a spit ball cleanup crew that comes along first like it’s oh, why did I say that?

Rebecca Zanatta  38:08

They’re getting on the wall that one to like, throw the spaghetti on the wall.

Erica Mills Barnhart  38:11

Okay, ew. Anyway, we could we could, we could hop far far down that bunny trail, lets not. But I do want listeners to hear this because, I think that we do again, back to power dynamics, there’s a tendency to sort of defer and sometimes that’s super appropriate. But I love this language you’re giving folks which is like, this is what we need. Remember, you start with why we’re in service to the mission. We’re a service to the people we’re serving. That’s why we’re all here. We’re all doing this. So here are organizational priorities right now in the immediate and here’s two things. It’s actually funny because I realized the other night that, so, dinner for us can be a little bit fraught, because my family like there’s a Venn diagram of the things we like. It’s like just not that much overlap, so it’s always a little and I love food, and I love cooking. I love little things. So it’s a little bit of attention for us. I realized recently but rather than saying like, what should we had for dinner tonight? If I was like, there’s tacos or spaghetti, which one you want, or whatever the thing is? Yeah. Well, it’s just like a much less stressful approach. Yeah. And you’re right. There is some power dynamic in there. And there is some, like I’m telling someone what to do, but it’s right to do it in service of the mission. And that is the other thing, right? As our organizations right out cannot do everything. And if I’m talking with organizations about, I want you to throw away your strategic plan, not really, but like put it on a shelf. Set it aside or beat.

Rebecca Zanatta  39:31

What do you say?

Erica Mills Barnhart  39:32

Just set it aside for right now.

Rebecca Zanatta  39:34

Totally, exactly. And do the same thing with your development plan, right? If you had one. And if you didn’t, that’s okay, too. But the reality right now is I want you to think in terms of quarters, right, like three months, like what is our goal, and what are our priorities for the organization and for us in fundraising for the next three months? Right? And then let’s check in in June. And then let’s think about it from July to October, September, September. And what is it the same and do we just carry that forward? Or have things changed a little bit? But this idea that we can just be like we were before, I think adds a layer of stress and pressure that, again, back to the blank page, right? Again, use the strategic plan, use the development plan, everything that you have in there is really helpful. But like making sure that you’re thinking about, hey, guess what GiveBig is coming up, Giving Tuesday and GiveBig March, May fifth and six. So those are what we’re going to focus on now. And then we’re going to do something in June. And those are gonna be our two priorities. And then yes, you might need to start thinking about that event or whatnot that you were going to do in the fall. But again, kind of limit how much you put on yourself right now in terms of what you have to really figure out. And then that drives then how you can involve Board members, and how you can involve people to support the work that you’re doing.

Erica Mills Barnhart  40:54

Yeah, I love that. I even wonder about three months out feeling far. But but one thing so again, on my, on my optimistic wishful thinking list. I feel like there’s so much wisdom inherent in mission minded purpose driven people. And that sometimes every once in a while when we get into strategy which I love, this weird thing happens where we sort of stopped listening to that wisdom, like that intuition about how to do things. And I just, I hope, I hope, I hope you know, if you’re listening to this and you like you will listen to that wisdom and get that blank piece of paper with others, of course, you’re not going to go off with your piece of paper and be like, no, it’s just my piece of paper, we’re all gonna do it how I say it. That’s not what I’m recommending at all. You know, but I think there could be great power and, you know, doing this as a team activity and going away and then coming back and seeing like, there’s overlap, but this piece around just making, making peace with like, we can do one thing or two things well. I’m just I’m looking over here because I have this little fortune cookie, its a fortune I got recently, and it said, you can’t ride in all directions at one time.

Rebecca Zanatta  42:08

Oh my gosh, totally.

Erica Mills Barnhart  42:10

Which actually is the Newton’s third law of motion. Okay, it’s just a riff on Newton’s third law of motion, which is for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. And so if you’re like, a whole bunch of things are going out to the, you know, world, you just don’t get that much traction. So it’s always true. You know, and of course, the Claxon method, which is what I’m always going on about is, it simplifies it right? What does success look like? Who do you need to get involved? And then how are you going to do it?

Rebecca Zanatta  42:39

Amen.

Erica Mills Barnhart  42:39

Just work the methods sequentially, I would, I mean, I would, I’m really encouraging folks to think one channel, one thing and not not even three’s, which is generally where we go. Because it’s just, I mean, we’re human, it’s too much.  And maybe that’ll stick because I mean, sequencing, you know, single tasking, there’s so much evidence to support that’s so much more effective than multitasking, right? But like, if you could multitask.

Rebecca Zanatta  43:02

Don’t tell Ben that downstairs. I mean, I’m a great multitasker.

Erica Mills Barnhart  43:07

Right. Right. Right. Okay. Um, I close all of the- Yeah?

Rebecca Zanatta  43:13

I have one thing, one thing, one thing you’ve said that just sparked in my mind is thinking about it from that aspect of the Claxon method and thinking about the development plan, and people are like, what are the what are the components? And I’m like, well, all you need is the why, right? Like the what do you raising money for?  And then it’s the who, right? And then even then it’s just like, pick five people. Who are the five people who are your most trusted last year that you can call on right now? And then what’s your how? And is your how going to be GiveBig? Is your how going to be an intimate event on Zoom? Where you’re going to have a toast? Or is your how going to be an email campaign? And that’s what I’m talking about the same sort of thing in terms of like, organizing yourself in terms of how you’re going to get through this in terms of fundraising is really simple. Why, who and how?

Erica Mills Barnhart  43:57

And I would I would insert, of course, the what in between the why and the who. Just because otherwise, it’s fascinating to me, like truly fascinating. How often folks assume that they have a shared sense of like what success looks like. And then and I’m like, okay, let’s just make sure let’s just put words to it. You name it, you can tame it. And they’re like, oh, well, shizzle we’re really, I that we’re on acquisition and you’re over there on retention. So, we’re, we’re in alignment on this. Okay. I asked every guest this question in closing, which is so in order to do this work, we need both inspiration and motivation, motivations for the mind inspirations for the heart. I don’t know if I shared this with you the rationale behind this right got here, which is the root where the word inspiration came from actually means to breathe in and motivation is about action. So we need that breath in order to keep doing things. So, what inspires you and what keeps you motivated to do this work?

Rebecca Zanatta  44:59

So in terms of the inspiration, it’s the people that I get to work with, the clients that I get to work with, and when they have success. And what’s even better is when you actually get to experience your success, meaning someone shares with you is that, hey, that piece we worked on, I sent it at one o’clock and by four o’clock, I had 10 new monthly donors, right? And then it was the I was kind of hesitant to do it, but you, you know, we talked through it and you kind of pushed me and we did it like the inspiration of sort of knowing that that in that specific case that that many more people will be helped.The motivation is I just I I also am an idealist. I’m an optimist. And the motivation is that we just aren’t done yet. I don’t think you’re ever done. I think it’s an element of what’s the word? Ego. If you think you’re done, like, that’s why I love to continue to learn. I learned from students, I learned from the people that I work with, I learned from my family, and I learned from our clients and the people that we serve. And so motivation for me is to continue to challenge myself to help in that way. And I’ve you know, I’ve spent 25 years this has been my career. My first job was calling alumni at Washington State University. Go Cougs. And that’s what, what did you say?

Erica Mills Barnhart  46:44

I said go Dawgs.

Rebecca Zanatta  46:44

You said go Dawgs? Of course you did. Of course you did.

Erica Mills Barnhart  46:47

Okay, that’s a little insider joke. We’re in Washington State. There’s Washington State University, which is the cougars, and then there’s University of Washington where I’m faculty and alum and that’s the dawgs the Huskies actually, but we say go dawgs, okay, what were you saying Rebecca? Is that is that I have found, I have found a place in this in this work, right, to and I think I have found a place with the people that I work with. And inspiration that breathing in is seeing when that work comes to life. And then that motivation is to just know that there’s more to do. That’s beautiful. Thank you for that and thanks for being here. Thanks for being amazing. If you like to connect with Rebecca you can find her on LinkedIn and Twitter where you where you will find her at @RebeccaZanatta, R E B E C C A Z A N A T T A, so many A’s, to learn about the Ostara Group you can go to ostaragroup.com, O S T A R A group.com, all of that will be in the show notes. You know, we’ll always what is always going to be true regardless of pandemics and COVID and Coronavirus, and all the rest of that crap. A pitch perfect elevator pitch is never going to go out of style. It’s just not. And so if your pitch is a few notes off key, which many, many are, I want to remind you or encourage you to go to ClaxonMarketing.com/pitchfalls, because you there you can download your very own free copy of the book I wrote: Pitchfalls: Why bad pitches happen to good people. You’re good people. So go get your free copy ClaxonMarketing.com/pitchfalls. Thank you for being here with me and Rebecca today and thank you, thank you, thank you for making our world a better place.

The post Ep 6: Rebecca Zanatta: COVID-19 Angst and Fundraising Joy appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Peter Drury on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

KEY WORDS

people, donors, organizations, inspire, fundraising, trust, impact, feel, marketing, blank sheet, thought, hearing

Erica Mills Barnhart  00:41

Welcome to the Marketing for Good Podcast. I am joined today by Peter Drury, who is a much respected thought leader as well as a truly thoughtful leader. And he brings wisdom, smarts, and inspiration to the impact sector, what we often call nonprofit but we know to be so much more. He currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer for Wellspring Family Services he is on the faculty for Seattle University’s Master of Nonprofit Leadership program, serves as a trustee for the Bainbridge Community Foundation and is a mentor and friend to many developing leaders. In past iterations or chapters of his career, here are a few of the titles that he has held Vice President of mission advancement at Make a Wish, director of major gifts corporate and foundation at Seattle Children’s, Director of strategy at Splash, Director of Development at Sightline Institute and Pastor at All Pilgrims Christian Church, yes, you heard that right, a Pastor. Peter has three, count them, three master’s degrees. I like to tease him that he has way too many letters after his name. He has a Master of Divinity, a Master of Social Work and an MBA. It is my very great pleasure to welcome you Peter to the Marketing for Good podcast. Thanks for being here.

Peter Drury  03:43

Thank you, Eric. It’s an honor to be here, delighted.

Erica Mills Barnhart  03:46

So your, as we just heard, your career has had many iterations, chapters, whatever you want to call them. To me, there seems to be a clear theme which would be impact and I will wonder if you could just go back in time a little bit and connect the dots for us from Pastor to MBA to nonprofit strategist and fundraiser and leader and all points in between?

Peter Drury  04:11

Absolutely. I’ll try to be concise. I love that you’re asking me, I think you’re probably the first person to ever ask me this question publicly, Erica. I certainly fall into this question from time to time. Oh, for example, in the course of my career in a job interview, like what you were a Pastor, we don’t need one of those. So, you know, or like, why did you change your career so many times?

Erica Mills Barnhart  04:31

Yeah. Well, I think I am asking you one because it’s, you know, if when you listen to podcast, it’s nice to kind of get to know the guest. But also, I really feel like your journey is such an inspiring one. And, you know, partially I carry in my heart all my students at the at the University of Washington, and we’re, you know, we’re getting to May when we’re recording this, and they’re super angsty about like, what’s next and I love sharing stories of like, it can look a lot of different ways. So that’s part of why I’m asking.

Peter Drury  05:06

Thank you. Okay, that helps me good. And I’m delighted to answer. And it’s interesting because I’ve actually always felt like there’s a very consistent through line for me and it’ll be, I enjoy that you asked me this now for me to kind of share because certainly when I was to your point, like when I graduated from my undergrad, I couldn’t have spelled out exactly how it would come together. But I kept just kind of following both, I suppose my heart and my mind for what I thought I wanted to learn and where I thought I wanted to be. And it actually my whole career feels like one consistent career. It doesn’t feel like a jumped all over the place. So let me just back into that a little bit. When I was 10 years old, I told my parents that I wanted to be a minister when I grew up. And that’s pretty much because I was inspired by Dr. King and by Mother Teresa, and by a few kind of more local folks who I saw kind of doing good things in the world and they seem to be connected to the religious community. And since I grew up in a Presbyterian Church, I thought, okay, my way to that is to be a Presbyterian Minister. So like that when I was 10, that kind of felt like the way I was headed. And I still remember in junior high reading The Diary of Anne Frank, and it had an absolutely incredible impact on my life, still does today. And as I just kind of kept growing and learning about things ranging from religion, to social justice, to community to hope to healing, I knew I wanted to be in that world somewhere, but I didn’t know exactly what it looked like. So I kept kind of pursuing this path toward being a Pastor. But I have to say that in my, you know, when you talk about the 70s and 80s, that’s a different era of the faith community that we’re in now. And I will describe the church of my childhood is, you know, pretty moderate and inclusive by today’s standards. It was not conservative or fundamentalist, or evangelical or exclusive or a lot of other words that you hear used these days. So really, I saw myself following a sense of calling in to service and to your word impact, you know, to just make an impact in the world for the greater kind of social good. And so that’s really the path I was on. And my interests were really around spirituality and ethics, about nonprofit and kind of counseling and social work and nonprofit organizations. And then just being good in business smart about it, making good decisions along the way. And I had grown up in a family business. And I felt familiar with and comfortable with kind of issues of business kind of over the dining room table, over dinner, whether that was an HR issue or a financial issue, whatever else, and I want to bring those together. So to really connect those dots for you. It’s like, I first studied theology and ethics of the Master of Divinity. I did that in a joint program. I did my MD and my Master’s in Social Work and MD of MSW joint degree program together. So when I, when I went to grad school the first time, I really viewed myself more as working more in the community more like a social worker, human services person, then as a clergy person, but I was ordained and did serve, you know, in that way, but I always saw those things connected and frankly in the course of my life, I entered Seminary in 1990. And I graduated in 93. So in those years, I was beginning to perceive a shift in the role of kind of the faith community and the beginning of a lot of the polarization we all are aware of today. So I really felt like you know, I might never serve inside the walls of a church, I might always be on the outside, but boy do I believe in helping unify Jews and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindu, you know, Agnostic, people, Atheist people, I just, I really felt like the kind of interfaith dialogue and you know, when people say spiritual, not religious, I just felt like, you know, I’m gonna be a part of that community for social change. And so, but what do you do you know, what kind of degree do you get for that? Because that’s what I wanted to do, but there’s no degree. So an M Div and an MSW got me started. And then about 10 years into my career, I decided to go back and get my MBA Master of Business Administration. At a point when many of my friends who’d watched me grow up kind of thought I was selling out like, oh, but I thought you were social worker, why are you going to business school? But I had this sense that if I could talk to accountants, if I could understand marketing strategy, if I could do strategic planning, if I knew things about governance and law relative to like HR and boards and all that stuff, then I really thought I could be a greater use and greater impact in my own life. So my own personal question in my career was always what’s the greatest possible impact I can have for good and I wound up getting an MBA to kind of round those things out for me. And today, I just look back and call it all my own independent PhD program in, you know, kind of ethical leadership for effective organizations for impact somehow, I mean, I don’t know. But that’s my long way of connecting the dots. But I very, very happily serve in the impact sector. And at Wellspring where I am today, we’re a blend of a business and a kind of classic nonprofit and I love that, I love business modeling and planning and organizational leadership for the greater good. And so that’s what we do and I’ll maybe stop short of telling you about the mission of Wellspring, but that’s how my career piece gets me here.

Erica Mills Barnhart  09:59

Well thank you for being willing to share your path. I think that’s so interesting that people haven’t asked you about being a Pastor, it seems so central to who you clearly are. But that’s just me, with my own view of, of the interestingness of things.

Peter Drury  10:15

Yeah, I do, I mean I might just say quickly, sorry that I think a part of that’s been I think we’re just in such a polarized time now that more scared to ask the question, you know, and it’s even awkward sometimes for me to answer it, because it’s, it would be easy to assume things about me. I mean, you would not know that I worked in an interfaith context, or AIDS crisis in the 80s. You know, like, you wouldn’t know that and from that description it would be easier to imagine something different. And so, anyway, the kind of social justice and inclusion of the church is what I fought for forever. And now I do it kind of outside the walls of the church.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:49

That makes me think, I mean, a lot about a lot of marketing is shaping perception. And one of the things that is breaking my heart right now is how perception is, is being influenced and shaped and in many, many, many different ways and I’m not only talking about a political context or religious context, you know, I look at how our kids are being socialized and, and in some ways, they are being socialized differently, but in others in really fundamental ways, it’s still the same. And I lay that to a great extent at the feet of, you know, marketers, it’s part of the reason I started doing the podcast because I just, I’m so fed up with, you know, marketing, I truly believe it can be a force for good. I mean, that’s not just like puffery that I put on the on the podcast page. But that’s also because that’s how my, you know, career has gone and that’s how I’ve used it. So I don’t know, I guess I got thinking about that. When you were saying that people could, you know, have a have an impression of you, that wouldn’t be an accurate perception and how often that happens.

Peter Drury  11:56

Yeah, I actually I’ve come to believe that perception is nearly everything. I mean, even if I talk about in terms of economics and not marketing specifically, you know, people buy things based on what they believe they’re going to get out of them, right? Or we believe what it’ll do for their life or whatever. The perception drives us all the time, whether you call that intuition or whether you’re adding up the facts or checking Consumer Reports, but your perception of quality and value drives your decisions. And so I think, I think you’re really right. Perception is powerful.

Erica Mills Barnhart  12:25

It’s so powerful. And even when we’re looking at facts, we’re looking at those facts in a frame, our own personal belief system, and our brains will not accept facts that don’t align with that frame. It’s that powerful. I mean, frame you know, there’s that Michael Porter who said, culture eats strategy for lunch or something, I think.

Peter Drury  12:47

Yes, but yeah, well, yeah, but you’re right.

Erica Mills Barnhart  12:50

I that’s I mean, I think of that it’s like frame you know, the frame is gonna beat out the facts every time and we’re so mystified by misinformation and how we can fall pray to it. It’s like how our brains are wired. It’s neuroscience. So what are the other so they’re sort of the containers in which you have worked. And that’s ebbed and flowed. In addition to impact, I would say another theme of your work seems to be that you find yourself at the intersection of things often, you know, both in terms of sectors, but also strategy, fundraising, branding, marketing, management leadership, like, was that intentional? Or do you just like that’s just where you find yourself?

Peter Drury  13:34

No, I love intersections. I really love intersections. You’re exactly right. Like, to me there’s a fine line between having some economics and financial knowledge, but also the heart for service and compassion. And I think that those things don’t have to be separate. And I in a prior role, once upon a time, I talked to a medical director of well, I mean, I guess I can say, think there’s no confidentiality on this, to Dr. Ben Danielson, who I admire greatly, for the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in Seattle, an incredible clinic for kids that grew out of the civil rights movement. And I remember speaking with him some years ago, when I was getting involved in the campaign for that, and being able to help design that, and I said, you know, my, what I’ve learned is that even though I don’t think I need to make a business case, for hope, and justice, there are other people who do need the business case for hope and justice. And I said, if I can help you make the business case, in addition to the compassion case, then we can reach a far broader group of people And we can really build this campaign to be highly effective. And so I found that like, again, there’s there are times when we’re I am at at Wellspring now, we’re really focused on the upstream prevention of homelessness itself in our state capitol and Olympia, advocating in the legislature for why it’s less expensive to prevent, you know, eviction and homelessness than it is to respond when someone’s already homeless. I personally am more persuaded by the compassion case, which is I just think homelessness is a bummer. You know, I think it’s a terrible situation to be in. And it’s traumatic. It’s horrible, and it ruins lives. And, and so that’s compelling to me. But I can also make the case that you know that the average cost in a night of shelter for a family here in Washington State all across the states $95 a night, but the average cost of keeping someone housed, keeping a family housed is $35 a night. And so it’s a third, the cost to keep someone housed as it is to help them once they’re in shelter. And so I make that business case and many other I mean, that’s one simple fact there’s many others, but I make the business case. And I find people on the right side of the aisle nodding and agreeing of me like, oh, wow, it’s less expensive to intervene earlier. And of course, I lead more on the compassion side, and I feel like yes, and it’s the right thing to avoid trauma.

Erica Mills Barnhart  15:50

And if I might just offer that the way in which you’re talking about goes right back to we’re talking about facts and frames. And so what you have so stutely done is realized that there are two overarching frames in which we think about homelessness. There’s more obviously, but pretty fundamentally, there’s, you know, there’s the business one, and there’s the compassion one. And so you have found facts to support different frames rather than trying to use, you know, use facts that aren’t aren’t going to be compelling to somebody who has a different frame. So that is from communications perspective. So, so smart.

Peter Drury  16:25

Mm hmm. Thank you.

Erica Mills Barnhart  16:27

Do you use your own, I am going to talk about your Beyond Cash Fundraising Dashboard. Because I, I’m not going to get this quote. Right. So correct me on it, but when you were working on that, so I’d love for you to share with listeners what it is and what inspired you to create it. Because you have the the saying about money, not all money is created equal.

Peter Drury  16:48

Mm hmm. Yeah. Something like that. Believe it or not, Erica, I think I created that thing in 2010 or something. So it’s 10 years old, so I might not be on top of my talking points. I’ll start by saying, I’ve always provided that for 10 years free to anybody. And I’ll provide it free to anybody in your audience. So we can come back to that, just because I think it’s a tool for the sector.

Erica Mills Barnhart  17:11

It’s a fantastic tool.

Peter Drury  17:13

But not all, you’re exactly right, I have to think about how I used to phrase that. But let me give you the example. I’ll probably back into it. So I’ve often liked to say that if you had a gift of $10,000 from one donor, because somebody, let’s say they went to an auction, and they and they said oh, wow, you mean I can go stay in someone’s condo in Vail and I can meet celebrities and their fancy dinners and get massages, I’ll pay $10,000 for that. Okay, so there’s a $10,000 gift because someone did that, versus somebody else who gave $10,000 in a gift that was unrestricted. Let’s say it’s because the organization changed their life and obviously changed their life and they gave it back out of gratitude. That just because two gifts were $10,000 they don’t have equal value in the kinda long term sustainability of an organization, it’s very clear that the transactional gift of the auction was kind of a one and done. Whereas the $10,000 gift that was because someone was like thanking you basically elevating the organization of the status of family and saying, like, look, this is so important to me, you changed my life, I’m grateful to you, I want to give back that the value just because the cash value looks the same its value in you know, in true economic terms is not all equal. So I think I probably said something like two gifts of the same size are not necessarily equal or something like that. Or, you know.

Erica Mills Barnhart  18:35

Something along those lines, yes, yeah.

Peter Drury  18:36

Yeah. And I guess you’re asking about the dashboard. I’ll just I’ll try to just summarize it, and we can, we can certainly post this however is helpful on the podcast, but this is a dashboard of seven indicators, their lead indicators for fundraising effectiveness, that measure not the dollars in the door, but other kind of qualitative and quantitative factors that impact and indicate, you know, your fundraising effectiveness. So I don’t think I’ll describe them all here right now, because it could get pretty geeky, pretty fast. But I’ve tested this with many people over 10 years I have, I’ve always put out the offer for someone to add an eighth indicator or to take one away. And frankly, now, some of the finest fundraising consultants in the country and the world actually have looked at this, and nobody’s changed them. And so I feel like it’s a really time tested tool to say, what are you going to measure in fundraising effectiveness, to know that you’re doing the right things? Because frankly, if you only measure the cash, if you only say did we reach this year’s financial goal, and you met this year’s financial goal, you’re not necessarily being successful. I mean, I I like to share the story because it’s so true, but the year I remember the year that a board congratulated me on a really effective fundraising year, because it was 2008. Everybody was terrified when the year ended, but I was horrified because I thought it was not the most successful year and I knew that 2008 was tough and 2009 was gonna be tougher. But because somebody had died and left the organization in their will, and it left a huge gift, it looked like fundraising success, you know, we were stable in 2008, and received a huge gift. And that was lovely. But I knew the picture was bleak for 2009. And I knew that that person was not going to die a second time in the next fiscal year and leave that gift all over again. So in any event, by the same token, I’ve had years when we didn’t meet the financial goal, maybe it was close, but not quite, and the board was upset. But if you looked at the underlying data, you might say, wow, this is a really successful fundraising year because you were doing the right activities to either get more donors bring more people in, you know, there’s a variety things you could have been showing success, and that will set you up for even greater success the next year. And most boards and most Executive Directors and even those fundraisers don’t really know how to tell the difference between what’s the data for fundraising telling you kind of underneath the surface. So that dashboard was like an attempt to help people kind of measure the right things.

Erica Mills Barnhart  20:58

Yeah, it is a fantastic tool. I’ll put it in the show notes so people can get to it easily. And it’s it’s a tool that is simple but not easy. It takes a little, I mean, I’ve watched it because I recommend it pretty frequently I watch people sort of go through it and first they are like, oh, yeah, we can wiz through this. And then they’re like, oh, hey, wait a minute. So it does take, you know, take some thought. And I think that that thought is reflective of kind of a shift in mindset around money. Which is something I wanted to talk to you about. Because one of the most interesting things is, I mean, people are weird about money. In general, we sit in North America, we tend to be pretty weird about it. And I feel like right now with COVID things are just weird all around everything so weird all the time. And I mean, you’re somebody who has tracked people’s relationship with money for a long time. Are you seeing any shifts in that? I mean, what I worry greatly about how much we operate in the impact sector from a scarcity mindset and there’s some very valid structural reasons for that. And we’re seeing that resources really were scarce. So I mean, nonprofits are having to close their doors as are small businesses because there just isn’t enough but I guess I’m curious what what shifts are you seen if any at all related to help people are thinking about their money? I’m also simultaneously thinking about I think it was you quoting Kay Sprinkle. Grace, who said, people give through you, not to you?

Peter Drury  22:27

Oh, great question. Yeah. And actually that one that people give through you, not to you, I love that you just said that. I’ve always felt like I should coin that somewhere that actually was me. But I-

Erica Mills Barnhart  22:37

Oh it was you? Were you riffing on Kay Sprinkel Grace?

Peter Drury  22:38

I was riffing on Kay Sprinkel Grace because people love to say people give to people and I like to say people give through people and it’s through people who they trust to make a difference in the world you know, with them in partnership. So in but I think other people have said it too. So I’ve never tried to like make it like my quote but but you’re right. I love, Kay Sprinkel Grace is one of the most genius people in this field, so if people don’t know her on your podcast, I would give you great lengths on Kay as well. So let’s see. So your question. That’s so funny was so excellent when you were sharing it. And now because of the riff-

Erica Mills Barnhart  23:06

Let me rephrase, if people give through you and not to you, and simultaneously if we’re living in a weird time, if people are weird about money, is that shifting how they’re giving through organizations or to organizations?

Peter Drury  23:26

Thank you. Yes. And nice rephrase you, you had my back. Thank you. That’s perfect. So here’s what I would say two things. First thing is we don’t know until this plays out, right? I mean, like any data, in the we’re all watching trends, right now we’re hearing things like that, you know, one in five people who were giving philanthropic before are not now able to give, I think it’s gonna be a larger percentage than that. But I think you’re asking me more about kind of the psyche of generosity in this time and, you know, nothing like a pandemic or an incredible recession, much less both to freak you out about your own sustenance, and I think when we’re scared about our own survival, it gets harder and harder and harder to be generous. And so I don’t think that’s a complicated economic idea, but it’s it’s very real. And then you add to it now that nonprofits, I think a lot of folks are gonna go out of business just like a lot of independent like restaurants and small businesses are gonna go to business too, I’m really scared about all this. And so what’s happening is, what I’m finding is donors are doing a couple things. One, they’re asking themselves, you know, can I give or not like, I want to make a difference. How should I do that? And it probably, they probably ask themselves, well, can I volunteer? Or can I make a mask? You know, can I do something generous? Can I cheer on my friends on Facebook? Like that’s, you know, like, that’s a set of questions. But then if they say, well, I’m in a position you know they have more of an abundance mentality, like, look, I have some resources, I could be helpful, what am I going to do? So now they start to ask themselves, well, where is the greatest need and they might say, well, gosh, it’s about medical professionals in the hospitals, or they say, oh, it’s about the homeless and how homeless people are being impacted by COVID. Or oh, it’s about children or whatever, you know. So they’re asking that kind of a question. But then they’re asking, well, who’s going to be around for the long haul, because let’s say you choose, you want to help, you know, organizations helping homeless people being impacted by COVID-19. But you’re scared they’re gonna go out of business, because you’re not sure if they can sustain. Well, now you’re going to air toward maybe bigger organizations. But then you say to yourself, well, they’re big, maybe they don’t need me. And so I think people wind up in this very-

Erica Mills Barnhart  25:33

It is very existential.

Peter Drury  25:34

It becomes very existential. And so what I like to say, I mean, again, pre pandemic, but I’ll sure say it now is that when people have a moment where they want to be generous, you know, if you are like, let’s say that your aunt died and left you a lot of money, and told you like you should give some of this charity. People do not look in the yellow ages, which I date myself, but they don’t look in the yellow pages to find a charity. They also don’t just google like who’s doing this They go with someone they already trust. And so and how would they already trust you as an organization? They would if they had a volunteer experience or donor experience, it was so good that they kept wanting to give or kept wanting to volunteer. So to this whole point of what are we seeing, and what are we expecting? And what should we be looking at? I think our behavior as organizations right now, around kindness, around inclusion, around rapidly thanking donors and thanking them very, very well. All these behaviors really matter because people are going to build perception for years to come you know, about what was their donor experience or the volunteer experience with your organization? And I think people I think the scarcity thing is gonna live on I think people are gonna be very you know, there’s, there’s a thing about anxiety where like, like, maybe I’m really between a rock and a hard place, and I need to not be generous because things are so bad, and that’s fair. But there’s also just, I’m close enough to it. I can fear I’m going to be in a rock and a hard place and I might perceive, back to your word, perception, I might perceive that I’m in a really precarious place. And maybe I’m not, maybe I’m actually okay. But this pandemic has me freaked out. Right. So then I think I’m using me metaphorically now. But, you know, a donor is thinking, well, can I give, can I not, and there’s just gonna be a downward pressure to give less and less and less or give nothing, because people are scared, and they want to make sure to take care of their families. So I think that’s all going on right now. And so I think I am trying with our organization, and we just had our fundraising campaign last week, it was going to be our luncheon one week ago today. And last week, we just had it we set a $355,000 goal and I got the email right before this podcast now that we surpassed our goal and we raise more money this year than we did one year ago at our luncheon and we turned it into a virtual campaign. We shared about the need the way people could make a difference. We were not only did we raise more money, but we spent less money trying to raise it because we weren’t holding a big expensive event at a nice downtown place.

Erica Mills Barnhart  28:01

Congratulations.

Peter Drury  28:03

Thank you.

Erica Mills Barnhart  28:04

Let’s just have a moment for the Wellspring team for pulling that off.

Peter Drury  28:09

Thank you. I’m thrilled about it. Oh, and I’m watching several organizations right now hopefully get really good with our messaging and our marketing, we actually are raising more money for less. We’re spending less and raising more in this moment in time. And so that’s to your point about marketing for good all along. I just feel like that does come back to perception, it comes back to words it comes back to frames. And it comes back to an invitation for a person to make a difference in the world through you, not to you but through you. And yeah, I think that’s the work.

Erica Mills Barnhart  28:40

Yeah, yeah. I really hope listeners are hearing that the through you not to you because I think what I’ve perceived when I’ve had the pleasure of hearing you say that in front of groups and seeing the room and the shift that happens for people when they’re like, oh, like if I move myself out of the way this feels much more natural and what it does from a messaging perspective is it shifts the fundraiser or the marketer onto kind of the same side of the as the donor and your, your gaze is in the same direction.

Peter Drury  29:12

Yes, beautifully said.

Erica Mills Barnhart  29:13

And that’s just so much more comfortable and empowering. And yeah, I mean, the other thing I’m really hearing in what you’re saying is like, back to basics. And that’s, you know, when I when I’m getting asked about it right now, for marketing, that’s my advice is like, be unapologetically authentic to who you are as a person and as an organization let that shine so brightly for folks because nobody wants to think harder than they need to right now or ever, really, but especially now. And just back to the basics. You know, the amount of time I’m spending just back to the basic basic Claxon Method, what does success look like? Who you know, who do you need to engage? How are you going to engage them? We’re just all pivoting all the time and what I’m hearing from folks like you and Wellspring who’ve been successful, is back to basics.

Peter Drury  30:03

It’s absolutely true. In fact, when you say back to basics, I know what you’re invoking. But I’m going to even go back and, I mean, even go more basically. I think my best kind of coaching and guidance relative to fundraising and marketing was shared by two people who never knew that’s what they were coaching me on. And that was my two grandmother’s. And well, my grandmother’s were really good at handwritten thank you notes. And they were really good at checking in with people who they cared about. And when they, when my dad’s mom would tell me, Peter, there’s nothing more important than telling the truth. I actually think that truthfulness and kindness and handwritten note and a genuine phone call or in person visit whatever it is. I think we’re all starving for that.

Erica Mills Barnhart  30:47

Yeah, I I agree with that, you know, Lulay and his always wonderful way, wrote a post in the past couple weeks, basically making the case that maybe we’re going overboard with gratitude and his point is, is one that is well taken, at least by me. And it kind of want to circle back quickly to your comments about people’s decision analysis in particular to to make donations to nonprofits right now, I really do worry that more money will be funneled into bigger sort of, I’ll referred to them as name brand organizations, not that there’s anything wrong with those organizations, but it means that the organizations serving communities of color and marginalized communities already we’re seeing that they’re being left further and further behind. This that troubles me so so deeply. And yeah, so his point is there, you know, to use economic terms since you are fond of those. Is it for every handwritten note, there is an opportunity cost. And so what’s that balance?

Peter Drury  31:52

Totally. It’s absolutely correct. I’m going to answer you in a different way than fundraising and more more to my kind of strategic planning side and our approach. So a decision we made it Wellspring that we felt was both excellent relative to kind of leverage and impact, but also excellent relative to our diversity, equity inclusion goals was that if we literally found another organization and we seek them out, I mean, we’re trying to find them, that’s part of my job, who’s doing what we believe in doing, then our job is not to duplicate or compete, our job is to lift them up and partner with them. Yes, and since we’re in the ending the cycle of homelessness for children and families arena, you can actually imagine that that disproportionately affects children and families of color by a longshot, and in particular, Black or African American families and Latinx families. And so we just said, look, a part of our job is not to become bigger and bigger and bigger. But a part of our job is to partner better and better and better with smaller organizations who know their communities are supporting them, you know, and so I probably won’t take up your time on this in the podcast now. But it transformed how we as an organization conducted our strategic planning and how we define success moving forward. It’s literally my job now at Wellspring to help connect about 2000 like literally like developed 2000 micro partnerships around the Puget Sound, a three County area, to make sure that if someone is looking for help, and they’re scared of becoming homeless, that we can get them as easily and fast as possible to the right place. And we just viewed that was a part of our job. And so one way that we want to have integrity around that was by in some cases, we offer office space to these partner organizations, not because we want to merge with them, but we want to help, you know, defray some of their costs, or there might be technology that we have, we do have that we want to make available to them as if they were in our organization. And so there are some very ethical choices we’re making in our strategic kind of planning and trajectory now that I feel very proud of in the very way you’re describing right now and I’ve several times a week have conversations with another nonprofit leader wanting to make sure they understand we’re not trying to take them over or acquire them or anything else, but we want to genuinely support them and have a win win kind of symbiosis, because we’re concerned about exactly this. So, yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart  34:12

I love that. I love that approach. Right? I am hoping that that’s one of the things that is going to come out of this what I want I think that we can’t get around the fact that really fundamentally we’re just all human. We’re just we’re all human, you know, we’re all sharing the earth and to these professional personal distinctions that we used to have are pretty hard to keep up when like your, you know, kid is popping in behind you on your zoom call, or whatever the things gonna be. We’re just, we’re all human. And I just I love hearing the dedication to partnership. I was, I actually can’t remember where I heard this recently, and I wish I could. I’ve always been a little bit, not irked, but it’s tough when working with organizations to, you know, when you ask them questions around, what are you? What are your strengths? And somebody rephrase that recently and said, What are you uniquely great at? And I cannot wait to try this. I haven’t had a chance yet. I think that’s a much easier question. What do you great at as an organization? And then that’s what you do.

Peter Drury  35:24

That’s great personal advice too.

Erica Mills Barnhart  35:27

Yeah, it turns out that a lot of the advice around marketing and on this podcast if you just apply it to life, you know, that’s that’s the way it goes. It’s not tightly in the organizational container.

Peter Drury  35:39

That’s a nice one. I’m busy interviewing, we’re hiring a PR manager right now at Wellspring and I’m sorry, if this lives on the podcast. But we are right now. And I would love to actually ask exactly that question. You know, what are you uniquely great? And that’s a fact. You know, and some people like to ask that, like, what’s your superpower, but I feel like that can be a little too grand. I mean, that’s a fun question. But I think it’s different than what are you uniquely great at. I love that.

Erica Mills Barnhart  36:05

And actually, I added the uniquely great at part the they were saying what are you great at, but part of my thing is I truly, truly, truly believe that we are all put on this planet. And we have some unique purpose. Like, you know, things get in our way. And sometimes it can be really hard to figure that out. I believe in the deep wisdom that all of us have. And that we have sort of a universal and it can get pretty noisy and tough to connect with that. But really being invited into that and certainly, you know, my classes at University of Washington, much to my students dismay at times I want to say that they’re like, Oh my god, we’re gonna get existential again, Erica? Like yeah what are you uniquely great at there’s only one you, how incredible is that? I don’t know. We had a little back and forth recently about a term that I want to, I want to come back to which is the word investment.

Peter Drury  36:58

Oh, yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart  36:59

Right and I was sort of wondering, like is that because I, you know, I started using it, it felt more I don’t know why businessy or something and then we get into return on investment and I can’t remember what got me thinking about and sort of wonder worrying whether or not that that gives the wrong impression and could in fact, exacerbate existing power dynamics that aren’t serving us where by donors and institutional funders sort of feel like they’ve made an investment and therefore they are entitled to some sort of return, that they’re not entitled to.

Peter Drury  37:31

Yeah, you’re talking about, yeah, like to refer to donors as investors, for example, as opposed to donors.

Erica Mills Barnhart  37:36

Yeah, like does it give the wrong impression? Is it authentic, actually, now that we’re talking through I think that’s what’s been bugging me is, is if we’re meant to be radically authentic, is is that authentic?

Peter Drury  37:48

It’s a fabulous question. I think every organization probably has to ask it for themselves. I would say the investment language relative to philanthropy, I do like but I have some guardrails around it that I think are different than other people. So there are some people who will literally refer to all of their donors as investors. And I think if they build that, I mean, I think you can make a case for that if you do it appropriately in certain ways. That’s not exactly what I would do. But I will say that we’ve seen, you know, back to your questions earlier about how are donors, you know, behaving and such. I think we’ve moved from the kind of make a donation to make a difference over the last generation, like, it used to be that like, something you just do is give back because it’s the right thing to do. And I think we’ve really watched, you know, people connect their activism and their philanthropy, their donating behavior, you know, over the last generation increasingly, and so this word investor kind of came up as a profile. There’s a great book called Seven Faces of Philanthropy. I now think there’s like eight of them, but that’s for a different day. In fact, Rebecca Zanatta, who you interviewed in this, recently, she and I talked together about trying to redo a book on phases of philanthropy in some way shape or form, but but in the profiles of the different faces of philanthropists, you have kind of the altruist and you have the person who is kind of giving back. And there has been emerging this kind of investor donor profile folks who act a little bit more like venture capitalist with their donations. And so I think because there really is a group that donates with an interest in social return on investment, or what’s the thing I’m changing in the world where can I see the return, I think the investment language can be okay, but we have to be super careful about it. And here’s, here’s my guidance. I don’t personally refer to donors as investors, I might refer to a gift as being like an investment. So like, let’s say, let’s say you wanted to build a building that in the future was going to be a shelter or you want to buy some land that was going to be a food bank or something. I think you can say that let’s say a donor gave me a really large gift like $100,000 gift or they gave a piece of land, you know, or a building with a few couple hundred thousand dollars or something. I think you could say as a donor, you’re truly an investor. You’re investing, you’re giving seed capital to help us build on this foundation so that in future people don’t have to be hungry in this very neighborhood. You know, like, I think there’s a way there’s a storyline around that where you can say your gift is like an investment. It’s going to have a return not for you, but for the community or for families facing homelessness or whatever. And to include investment language and a story, as opposed to saying, because you’re an investor in Wellspring, you know, you’re our most important person to me, that gives the wrong impression. You trusted this mission so much you believe mission so much that you were willing to make a gift as you would make an investment. I approach it in that way, because of a lot of the reasons because I do find that downstream, you know, it’s not about the one message, it’s about years of the same message. And so now you have a board member, 10 years from now, who thought they were an investor all along, and now they think they can call the shots. They’re on the board. They think they’re like a stockholder rather than a stakeholder and then and they want to do something and I think you can get into complicated dynamics and governance and kind of appropriate decision making and all that. And there’s a reason why we have laws around self dealing and philanthropy and I don’t think it should happen in a micro environment in a small organizations. So, but I do think it’s powerful to think of your gift, like you would invest as opposed to investing in the market, you’re investing in the community, you’re investing in children or families or the arts. I think that’s a pretty powerful idea. If we frame it up in the right way.

Erica Mills Barnhart  41:24

Well, it makes me go back to that idea of being on you know, standing side by side with your donors and funders, and that you could be, you know, I could imagine language like together we are invested in a future that looks like XYZ. And then, I think I can, you know, I can get behind it more as a verb maybe. I see your point and I take it around, sort of breaking it down and that a gift is an investment, yeah, definitely.

Peter Drury  41:54

I know what a verb person you are. But let me tell you, you’re standing side by side thing, I just need to say this. There’s an old thing that a lot of people, they don’t understand about fundraising, you’ll hear people, you know, say why, like, if I’m on the staff, why am I being asked to make a gift to an organization? I love the fact like, I work at Wellspring. And I’m also a donor to Wellspring. If I asked, and I don’t mean like, I don’t mean like a small donor, like, I mean, I make a big philanthropy decision for myself, I make it a stretch for the place that I’m working on behalf of, because I want to ask every donor, I do want to stand side by side with them. And I do want to say, look, I prioritize this mission of ending homelessness for kids and families, I participate in this, I’m asking you to join me and join others who want to make this possible, you know, then we can together invest in a future where we don’t have homelessness for kids and family like so I feel like I have a position of integrity to have that conversation. If I you know, make a stretch and make a gift. So it’s really important to me to be a donor before I ever ask. I don’t want to ask people for money for something I’m not willing to support. And I realized that for different people in different levels of, you know on the staff, that means different things. I just say stretch because I think I think we need to challenge ourselves to give more than we think we can. And when we’ve done that, then I think we can ask people to join us.

Erica Mills Barnhart  43:11

Yeah. And also, I love that you acknowledge that not all, I mean, it genuinely it is a thing where pay for nonprofits is not fantastic. And we have some pay equity issues that are real. So whatever and I know that there is a massive debate around this. However, I sort of come down on you know, you want, we’ll go back to this term, like, what does it look like for you to be as invested in the mission as you’re asking donors or others to be? Is a definitely a worthy question. One of the things that we talked about a lot in this podcast is that successful external marketing is predicated on successful internal alignment. And you have led many teams over the years, you lead a team now. How do you get people in alignments toward a shared goal, or shared vision?

Peter Drury  44:10

Thank you, you’ve just about standing my job description, frankly. So my job as Chief Strategy Officer, and I think of that as two things, one of them is the future, and the other is alignment. That’s really my job all the time. And each one of those has kind of external and internal implications. So I really think, here’s where the power of story and storytelling, and metaphor and language and words, I think those things are incredible, and for people to have some fairly simple ideas about either what is our story, or what are our values, what are our words, and when we can have alignment between what we say externally and what we say internally, it becomes incredibly powerful and I might give just a small example of that, like, I know that in this era when people have a lot of political opinions about like undocumented workers, I don’t even like the term undocumented. I’m, I mean, I’m not sure what the better terminology is, but people for whom we’re not giving them documents. I don’t know what you would say about that. But, but in crisis, where I want to go with this is in crisis response around people facing homelessness, and in communities of color, who are experiencing homelessness, and then beyond that communities of color, who have their immigration status, or their citizenship status is somehow not gonna be respected by the federal government in a certain way, shape or form. Those folks are in an incredibly difficult place in their lives. It’s just, it’s an, I don’t even know how to begin to describe that. And so if your staff in an organization, and you’re afraid that we’re telling donors oh, no, we only help certain kinds of people. We don’t help the people who you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever. If your staff and you’re scared that your leadership or your external relations, your donors are getting a different message, it really makes you do your work in a different way, it affects your morale, it affects your mood towards the organization, everything. I mean, obviously-

Erica Mills Barnhart  46:06

It erodes trust.

Peter Drury  46:07

It erodes trust.

Erica Mills Barnhart  46:09

 Trust is currency.

Peter Drury  46:10

So I found that when our CEO or our Director of housing or I or others, you know, when when when people on the staff here are saying to donors and funders or electeds we serve absolutely everybody. I mean, we have a very obvious sign in our office when you enter Wellspring that all peoples, all shapes, all sizes, all genders, all, you know, sexual orientation, race, we have a very clear kind of an enjoyable, colorful sign that makes that message really clear coming in. That sign might do more for morale in the organization than anything else and people know when we’re asked publicly, we speak really clearly about our inclusion policies and and, you know, and commitments. Well, so then when we’re in staff meetings, around our diversity equity inclusion goals internally from an HR perspective. Guess what, when there’s alignment and congruence, then all the trust can increase. And people can work more effectively together and they can believe more in the mission. So I, I just think that the congruence, the resonance between what’s external, what’s internal, and the integrity between them, changes everything. And I’ve worked in organizations where that wasn’t the case. So I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it go otherwise and I’ve also seen the impact.

Erica Mills Barnhart  47:23

Yeah, I think it was Seth Godin, who said, you can’t just schmear marketing on it. Because schmear I mean, that’s just a funny word. But like, people know, they know. And then I forget his first name, but the psychologist or psychiatrist, I’m not sure which Adler so there’s adlerian psychology, you’re probably familiar with it. And I think, you know, he speaks you know, a lot to belonging and our need to belong, and that fundamentally, we need to be seen, and to belong. Those are like the four things as humans, and again, this gets back to like, we are just all humans who have been wandering around into these different contexts. And I have always, you know, Wellspring been on my radar for a long, long time, but hearing your commitment to partnership and to inclusion and to true deep belonging is very inspiring and to seeing all sorts of people.

Peter Drury  48:17

Thank you. I believe that.

Erica Mills Barnhart  48:18

Yeah, yeah. It’s an incredible organization. So as people look like, we’re still in the crisis, here we are. If people are looking forward, like it’s a little tough to lift up our heads, because we just don’t know when Coronavirus will not be the first thing that we talk about and think about that uncertain time horizon makes it difficult to look in that direction even. But I’m curious your thoughts about how do you motivate folks to just take moments of looking out and sort of going from crisis response to rebuilding and what they are opportunities are there?

Peter Drury  49:01

I think for me, you know, you really emphasize the word trust earlier in this conversation in relationships. And I think trust is so critical. And it makes me think of this question, you’re now asking me, which is, I remember there was a point in my life when I learned that trustworthy was a very powerful word, like what does it mean to be worthy of trust? You know, I can’t just go out there and expect trust, I can’t go and buy trust, there’s really nothing. I mean, the only thing I can do is behave in a way that is worthy of trust. And so my thinking right now, in terms of your question is, I think, for us to challenge ourselves to be trustworthy, what are the behaviors? What are the practices? What are the, you know, principles of being worthy of people’s trust? And to me that leads to a certain integrity, the answer for me is somewhere in is there a consistency between what we say and what we believe and what we do. It’s kind of a trifecta of those three are like a three fold cord of our my beliefs and my words and actions are those things consistent. And so if we say, for example, at Wellspring, one of our values is we take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others, then it means I’m not the guy who tells people to work overnight and through their weekends and kill themselves to help some family out there. But instead, I say to someone, we really believe what we say when we say we take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. And we want to encourage that practice, even of the clients who are here, we want them to take care of themselves so they can take care of others. And so there’s a, to me there’s a consistency, there’s an integrity of what we’re saying, with our clients to what we’re saying to each other. But I really do think regardless, the organization right now, whether you’re in the arts, you know, and you’re being decimated in that respect, because tragically that’s happening right now, or you’re in hospitality in some way or you’re in homeless services, or you’re in health care, whatever else it is, I think the the fundamental question of how are you showing that you’re worthy of trust? How are you behaving with integrity, your beliefs, your words, your actions align? I think you will find, actually that a lot of things become easier. I really do. That’s another conversation for another time, if we just get rid of like conflicting messages and beliefs and behaviors, but I also think you’ll find that there’s this incredible alignment between the work we do on the ground for impact and the messages and the stories we’re telling kind of externally. And then on the other side of this crisis, when people say, who do I trust, guess who they’re going to point to? They’re going to point the organization that was trustworthy, when things were really, really down, and they’re going to remember that they trusted them, that they had, that the organization and integrity and they’ll come back, they’ll they will come back and they’re going to support the organization.

Erica Mills Barnhart  49:20

Yeah, I love that, that theme of alignment and also that you rearrange trustworthy to be worthy of trust. Because you know, I love verbs, and I also love rearranging words. Like awesome. Of course I love, I am a fan of the word awesome. But the reason I’m a fan of it is because you when you unpackage it, it means something that inspires awe, awesome. I like awe, I think it’s pretty, I like it so worthy. So be worthy of trust and that alignment. Yeah, one of the questions that I that I’ve been reflecting on a lot is , what is the essence, and there for what can fall away?

Peter Drury  52:23

Mm hmm.

Erica Mills Barnhart  52:25

Sort of in again in life, but also as a relates to how are you thinking about your marketing? How are you thinking about showing up as an organization and as a leader feels more important and yet you have to balance that with this taking care of yourself. So how can you take care of yourself so that you can show up authentically in the way that you want to? Rebecca Zanatta was on this podcast previously and she, I don’t know how we landed on this to be quite honest. Maybe, so I started journaling on like blank sheets of paper recently for because my journal ran out, I was too lazy to order a new one. And I realized I loved actually journaling on just blank sheets of paper. And so I think that was the genesis of this conversation, this idea about what we’re now calling blank sheet fundraising, which is the idea that you would, it might be the simplest direct mail piece ever. You would mail your donors, potential donors, volunteers, whoever, something explained to them and just include a blank sheet of paper and that would be an invitation to co create the future. So she was talking about the you know, the importance of bringing people into co creating the future and living into your vision. And I can’t wait for somebody to try it. Or just in like on a smaller scale, you know, what would it be like to sit down with a donor and just have you know, have a blank piece of paper and have them doodle or write or whatever, but I think there’s power right now and that it’s so hard on so many levels. This idea of you know, the clean slate is always so alluring. And so the the blank sheet is sort of a stand in for the, for the blank slate, slate. Any thoughts on that?

Peter Drury  54:12

Well, I don’t know if it’s exactly in where you’re pointed, but just it’s just a random association as you say that. So a lot of my life is in strategic planning and strategic trajectories. I say trajectory, when I’m talking about once we’ve done the plan, it’s like the work we do to get to an impasse, the planning process or in the actualization of the, you know, toward the trajectory. And I think of a blank, kind of a blank sheet, a blank slate in this way. You know, so many folks in management or in a variety of staff roles get so focused on timelines, like we have a strategic plan. They say, well, what’s the timeline? What do we achieve in one year’s two years, or three months or six months, whatever. And I’m more interested in sequence than I am timeline. So for example, some things have to happen before other things. And then other things have to happen before those things and so for me with a blank slate I love when a board, or a leadership team or a group of donors or volunteers with more of a blank slate. I haven’t used that blank sheet literally, like you’re saying, but something like this, to just say, what’s the sequence? I mean, if you know if we really want to get to this huge goal five years from now, what has to happen before we get there? And that leads you back to Oh, well, we would need X you know, like money or resources or marketing or like this, okay, well, what happens before that what needs to be true before that thing, and then keep moving and kind of back your way up to the present. And then think about timelines, I would like to start with a focus on sequence, kind of what has to happen in what order because otherwise when we get rushed, like well, I need this in three months and this and six and this and nine and this in twelve. Then we set some unrealistic goals and we start on the next phase before we’re ready for it. So I think from a quality perspective, I think we want to really understand let’s break down what’s the sequence of moving from here from point A to point B? How many like are there 100 steps in between or three. And let’s really think that through and then create the plan.

Erica Mills Barnhart  56:04

And I’m hearing a little bit in this a, maybe a plug for reverse engineering.

Peter Drury  56:11

That’s exactly what it is. I like to call it back casting rather than forecasting.

Erica Mills Barnhart  56:14

Oh, back casting.

Peter Drury  56:17

I like to go from the point of impact in the future and then cast back.

Erica Mills Barnhart  56:21

Yes. And I know Hildy Gottlieb has, has a lot about you know, she’s a fan of reverse engineering, so shout out to Hildy for sure.

Peter Drury  56:32

Shout out Hildy, yeah, she’s influenced a lot of my thinking on that. But I’m glad you mentioned Hildy because she has played a huge role for me maybe 10 years ago and thinking about this

Erica Mills Barnhart  56:41

Back casting, love it. Okay, I want to be mindful and for your time and not take up too much of it. I asked every guest this last question, which is what inspires you and what keeps you motivated to do this work and I ask it because the root of the word inspiration means to breathe in. And then motivation is about action. So you need breath to take actions. We need both of these things. And so I’m curious for you, Peter, what, what inspires you and what motivates you?

Peter Drury  57:10

Oh, wow, I love that question. I love the word inspire and, indeed, know, it’s all about breath. So I’m going to pause and answer slowly, because I want to give you a really good answer. Give me just a moment. Um-

Erica Mills Barnhart  57:24

It would be appropriate to take a breath before you take action.

Peter Drury  57:30

I literally just close my eyes and took a breath as you asked that, and I would say, you know, here’s what inspires me, Erica. I feel like we’re living in a world in a time where things are so broken, and where there are so many people experiencing either pain, in justice, you know, violence, or fear, whatever, whatever it is, there’s so much just hurt out there. And I actually believe that we can make it better. I truly do. And it would be so easy to be discouraged and feel like there is absolutely nothing I can do. But I just don’t believe in being resigned to that. So what inspires me is asking what can I do? You know, I said earlier about my career was always my question was, where’s my greatest possible impact? Where’s my greatest possible leverage of my life? And so the opportunity to be a part of healing or love or justice at a time when I feel like those things are all kind of out there for the, either for the taking in one way or another. To be a part of the healing work is really what inspires me and so I reflect on it every day, I get excited to come to work. I’m not, you know, I’m not scared to come to work or burnt out or anything else. I love doing my work. And I’m proud to tell my kids about it. Because, and I say that because it’s part of my inspiration is my children and my family, but I’m proud to tell my kids what I do for a living. I’m proud that they’re interested in the work that I do, and I feel like there’s a connection between kind of who I am as a human being and what my career is, and I feel inspired to be able to act upon it in such a way that I can just at the end of the day I actually really can sleep well that I’m doing my part to make a difference in the world rather than somehow being resigned to nothing. So I love it. I’m fired up.

Erica Mills Barnhart  59:22

Good. Good. One of the things that you are uniquely great at Peter is giving me and in this case, listeners of this podcast, different ways of thinking through things, but in a way that feels accessible. So sometimes, you know, new things make our brains hurt, but you have a little magic arounds like back casting and being worthy of trust and just small things that then you come back to them and you’re like, that’s actually huge and massive in my thinking. But it’s absorbable. So, I, so appreciate you taking time to be on the podcast. Thank you for being here today.

Peter Drury  1:00:00

Thrilled to be here and excited about your listeners, I hope your audiences really does take on kind of marketing for good in any way, shape or form. It works, you know, for them to just be inspired to be out there doing amazing things.

Erica Mills Barnhart  1:00:11

Me too. Me too. If I do my job, they are both inspired and motivated and see that they you know, they’re already doing so much good. So, yes, so thank you to you, Peter. Thank you to our listeners for joining the conversation. If you want to continue the conversation, of course, go over to the Marketing for Good Facebook group. I will be there. Obviously Peter has given us so many things to talk about. So let’s continue the conversation over there. And I will end by saying do good, be well and we will see you soon.

The post Ep 8: Peter Drury: Becoming Worthy of Trust appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Michael Brown on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

SUMMARY KEY WORDS

people, community, conversation, civics, questions, funders, organizations, architect, create, commonwealth, grant proposals, homelessness, foundation

Erica Mills Barnhart  08:27

Welcome to the Marketing for Good podcast. I’m Erica Barnhart, your host. With me today is Michael Brown. Michael is the Chief Architect of Civic Commons a new regional civic infrastructure aimed at uniting more community voices in decision making to advance racial and economic equity. Prior to becoming a Civic Architect, and yes, we are going to ask him to talk about what the heck that means. Michael served in a variety of capacities at Seattle Foundation and most recently as Vice President of Community Programs. He began his tenure, the foundation in 2001, so has been there for quite a while and over the years has led efforts to elevate community voice, foster public private partnerships, and, tackle complex challenges in the areas of affordable housing, economic racial equity, and policy and system change. He led the development of Seattle Foundation Center for Community Partnerships, which focuses directly on targeted efforts to achieve greater racial and economic equity. You are I hope seeing a seam in Michael’s work. He is a veteran of funder collaboratives and collective impact efforts, including at Skillup Washington, The Roadmap Project, Communities of Opportunity and the Sustainable Communities Funder Group. Here’s something else I want you to know about Michael, he is a way back when alum of the University of Washington’s Evans School where I also went and I’m now on faculty. He is a number one coffee drinker and Martini sipper, and father to one of the cutest boys on the planet. Welcome Michael to the show. How are you?

Michael Brown  09:58

I’m good. Thanks for having me.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:01

Ah, thanks for being here. How is the adorable one?

Michael Brown  10:07

Haha, the adorable one, I had to pause here for a second. Which one? He’s, no he’s he’s great. We just completed a school day. Now he is out and about just riding his bike but he is, yeah, he’s in a really good place he also got a haircut. You know we don’t need to talk about how tough it is homeschooling but you know home barbery I think is turning into something as well, so.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:39

Oh, yeah. Uh huh. It really is. Okay, so who gave the haircut?

Michael Brown  10:44

Oh, I gave him the haircut. So everything, it’s it’s fine. I mean, it’s surely not professional quality. But nonetheless, you know, there are definitely a few spots where it’s like, well, no one’s really going to see you so you know?

Erica Mills Barnhart  11:00

That thing it’s like what I find is kind of ironic. We will move on to more substantive matters. But I find it really hilarious that all of us are obsessing so much about our hair and stuff because we don’t see anybody up close except our feelings. And we’re also over each other like, oh, look the exact same outfit again, way to go. So I think he’s safe. How old is he? I think he’s little?

Michael Brown  11:23

Seven.

Erica Mills Barnhart  11:24

Seven. See, it’s seven when you have weirdness with your hair, it’s like cute.

Michael Brown  11:29

Well, it also I was gonna say at seven you’re not vain in terms of you know, the, you know the appearance so you can kind of get away with certain things.

Erica Mills Barnhart  11:40

Okay, well, I applaud you for the for the effort, the barbery effort. So when I have guests, I always start by reading their bios more or less and more oftentimes, I will say like for instance, I had Akhtar Badshah on who you know and you know, your author’s bio and like, so you went from an architect architect to like where you are today, you know, it’s like nonlinear. But when I hear your bio, it’s actually it sounds to my ear quite linear and logical. And I, I’m just curious if you would share, like, was that your intention or did it just sort of kind of sort of happened that way? And then because your bio is so buttoned up, are there any fun, weird jobs that you did that aren’t on the the OR the official resume that will, you know, make us all feel better those of us who have nonlinear wacky career path?

Michael Brown  12:37

You know, it’s a great question, Erica. What I think about in particular the past 25 years, no, actually it is pretty linear. So what after I left grad school in ’95 and short tenure at a statewide nonprofit association, where I moved into a Deputy Director role. And then in ’97, I moved over to Seattle City Council as a legislative aide for Seattle City Council Member so I was there in that role for four years moved to Seattle Foundation in 2001 as a Program Officer 2002 was promoted to a Director 2008 moved into the Vice President role of programs so you know, as they think through it, ya no, it’s it’s a pretty linear progression. This new title, or it’s not new anymore, but Civic Architect is actually in some ways, it’s also linear. One of one of the ways I would describe myself, I think my colleagues internally would as well in my VP of Programs role was the essentially to be the Foundation’s Chief Strategist and to identify how the Foundation could best utilize its discretionary resources, its grant making dollars, its impact investing dollars, its convening power, its voice and in some ways, a very, very similar to an architect, you are creating something or designing something, and then working with others to build to implement that vision. So, you know, it’s just a little bit of a different spin on, you know, what could have been just a rather traditional title, but something that still conveyed you know, what I tend to feel are some of the assets that I bring to the professional setting.

Erica Mills Barnhart  14:54

Now, did you come up with the title or did somebody else come up with the title?

Michael Brown  14:59

Well, one of one of the things that Tony Mestres who’s the President CEO at Seattle Foundation, and I will laugh about is that one, you know, Tony and I both operate at a 30,000 foot level. So you can imagine, you know, the conversations that he and I have and you know/ Two but he would also acknowledge, I would acknowledge as well that naming things, name plating things, you know, just not my strong suit. But we just happen to have this brainstorming session as we’ve landed on the name of this initiative. So the comments that we were just kind of bouncing some names around in terms of title and Civic Architect you know, or Architect came into my head just kind of thinking about the role and you know, attaching civic to it. And, and Tony, Tony looked at me, he’s like, I think you might be onto something. So we just played around with it, and it just stuck. So, you know, yes, I will say I came up with it, but you know, definitely inspired by, by many other by many other things.

Erica Mills Barnhart  16:09

Well, it’s interesting because I mean, you sort of put a spin on two words, I, you know, if we go way back when, again, like commons was actually a physical structure in a physical place, which would have required a more traditional architect. So, there’s a, there’s a fidelity to these to both terms that you know, it’s it’s just interesting, but then Civic Architect does make a ton of sense. Plus, let’s just be honest, that’s a cool title, Michael. That’s cool. Yeah.

Michael Brown  16:38

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely, you know, more questions, you know, about what a Civic Architect is than Vice President of Programs. So.

Erica Mills Barnhart  16:51

I mean, in fairness, people might have made erroneous assumptions about you being Vice President of Programs, which sounds you know, but I mean, that’s part of why I love it right when I work with organizations when I’m teaching, I’m like you want your messaging to invite questions, not answer every single question somebody might have. So really, it invites questions and it’s also like quite visual. So I love it on many levels. Now, someday, I won’t have to preface everything with this, but we are recording under the COVID-19 cloud sheltered in place. One of the things about COVID is that it’s like forced us to question everything in so many ways, including, like, what is community? What is society? You know, what does it mean to be a good neighbor? It actually really trips me up, right? Because to be a good neighbor now is to stay away and I’ve always, you know, thought about it in terms of proximity. So I feel like Civic Commons has like a really unique way of thinking through these questions. And I’m just hoping you’ll tell us more about how you think about Civic Commons, how you think through them, you know, where it came from, just all the everything about that.

Michael Brown  17:58

Yeah. So the the general concept behind Civic Commons is actually a pretty simple one, Erica. Back in my old role as Vice President of Programs and leading the transformation of Seattle Foundation from a responsive grant maker to a proactive grant maker focused on policy and system change on upstream approaches on co-designing, co-creating strategies with community in particular communities that that are, are faced or living with the inequities that we’re trying to to partner with them on and solve, but then also having a very laser focus on eliminating or reducing if not eliminating racial and economic inequity. And making that transformation and watching the investments and in the partnership that we entered into over the last five, six years of my tenure. Seeing that and seeing, you know, what was happening was great. I mean, it told me that we were making all the right moves. The reality, though, is that in order to truly get to to the mission, and that’s building a healthy and thriving, greater Seattle region, that Seattle Foundation on its own was not going to get there. But even with that work, and the good work, you know, it wasn’t fundamentally going to shift outcomes. And that’s something I’m sure you know, we’ll get into, you know, I have this, this distinction, of course, between what you know, outputs are what outcomes are. So, as we start to think through then what was needed in order to get to outcomes and sustainable outcomes that you know, really were game changing the realization that philanthropy plays a role but not feeling that the government, public sector, plays a role but not the only role. That the private sector plays a role, but not the only role in that community. And understanding that’s a big nebulous term at times, but once again, those who are dealing with the inequities of housing or economic instability or environmental justice really aren’t at the table on any table in terms of crafting the strategy that is meant to help address or alleviate they’re, they’re an equity. So this concept around Civic Commons is a pretty simple one. How can we bridge the silos and divides that we have in the region, and everyone who’s probably listening to this could, you know will shake their head and or not their head in approval, but we don’t work well with each other. You know, the there’s tension between these various sectors and community and then you know, we also have a power strata where there are a lot of attention given to the individuals who have positional authority or positional resources and not necessarily with those who have knowledge or once again lived experience and those voices not being part of some power structure in terms of how to best allocate those resources in an equitable way to drive change. So the concept of the Commons is how do we bridge in order to bond to create the type of civic muscle, the connective tissue this mutual dependency that we need that we need to, we need to bridge these divides in order to achieve some shared goals. How then do we communicate through data? What is happening in the region as it relates to shared prosperity well being? And then, you know, do those things lead to collective action and I know you know, collective impact has has some positive and negative terms but but you know, the term that we tried to use is network weaving where we are creating some synergy across the things that are that are occurring, so the best example I can give to that is pre-COVID, you know, one of the big issues that the greater Seattle region was was dealing with was around affordable and middle income housing challenges that we had 17 different things that were happening. So 17 different things or 17 different bites of 17 different apples. But the network weaving concept is, you know, 17 different bites, it’s okay, but can they be from the same apple at least?

Erica Mills Barnhart  23:15

Of course, we would never do that now because we’re physical distancing, we’re not sharing apples right now.

Michael Brown  23:21

We’re not sharing apples right now. Yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart  23:26

I get the analogy though.

Michael Brown  23:28

Exactly. So now I have to come up with a better analogy, you know, post COVID in order to get that. So that’s the general concept and, you know, once again, just kind of thinking about like marketing and communications, I mean, one of the things that we you know, we’re because even what I just said, I mean, to some extent, you know, you know, people get in a lot of words who try and break it down to in very simplistic terms. In order to get to the transformational we need to build and strengthen the relational and experience the transactional. What we do right now, we enter into the transactional state, we don’t take the time to build relationship and build trust. And as a result, we end up being satisfied with outputs pat ourselves on the back, versus wait, we’ve actually address root cause or some of the systemic reasons for this particular thing. And as a result, you know, we don’t, you know, how long have we been fighting to end homelessness, you know, 20 plus years? You know, if we were able to bridge, you know, a lot of our divides and build a relationship and trust and then, you know, connect the dots a little better than maybe we would actually have the type of outcomes that we really wanted to reach.

Erica Mills Barnhart  24:46

Why do you think it’s so challenging to build trust?

Michael Brown  24:55

I think, I think there are a lot of reasons for it. I think we’ve become, we’ve grown I mean, and now just this region. I mean this as a country overall, you know, back in the day, you know, people like you and I would not have been, there’s no way we could have gotten into the rooms where decisions were being made, those of small select group and I think what you know, is a lot easier to kind of move things forward. And, as you know, we’ve grown and we’ve evolved and you know, and you know, we see different types of leadership and different folks who are emerging as leaders in a lot of the old ways or the old relationships, withered away and then and, this is my commentary, and you also feel like we’ve become a bit more righteous in our stance. So you know, part of working together or working with, with people who, just working overall is that you have to be open to different points of view. And I think we have become very rigid in our thinking, which means that we don’t necessarily want to build relationship with those who aren’t aligned with us. You know, if we’re trying to tackle something as big as housing or racial inequity or gender inequity or wherever it may be, and we have to create the space for those who may have different perspectives and find some narratives that allow for bridging so then we can get to a place, you know, so the old language of consensus, of bonding. You know, can we agree that in service to the commonwealth, that we let go of certain things in order to find, you know, some some commonality that allows us to then move issues forward.

Erica Mills Barnhart  27:27

What I find so fascinating about this is I would imagine that people listening to this are nodding along. I mean, like, yes, yes, that’s a commonality, common ground. Yes, yes, yes. And then you get into a situation where you like common ground ends up feeling like ceding ground, or ceding your position, and that’s like scary. It actually makes me think of Anand Giridharadas. I just masquerade his name, his last name, who, you know who I’m talking about, though? Who wrote Winners Take All, that I won’t get this exactly right I was last week, we just covered this in my undergrad class, which is why it’s fresh in my mind. But he said, you can aspire I think he said the rich but if we could say you can inspire the powerful to do more good, but never tell them to do less harm, you can inspire them to give back but not take less, inspire them to join the solution, but never accuse them of being part of the problem. I love Anand’s work. But it does come to mind in this conversation. I mean, this I think was one of his most insightful tidbits was this idea of like, oh, oh, well, that gets complicated and it sounds similar just in a slightly different context. But also we’re seeing this play out right if we if we think about philanthropy, and like people sitting on a whole bunch of money and so Seattle Foundation’s Donor Advised Fund and I forget who, so there was this call to action, right, that was like, sort of liquidate the Donor Advised Funds. They didn’t say liquidate. It was like, let’s make sure that at least, oh it was Fidelity who said they were gonna make 200 million, right, like, into the communities, which is great. And I don’t really want to take anything away from it. I think it’s all good. But it’s a bummer when you’re like, okay, but there’s like billions sitting there. So why aren’t we going for the billions? And I think it really gets back to what you’re talking about is this sense of loss and losing control and a lot of other things that happen when we go from theory to action. Theory to reality maybe is-

Michael Brown  29:39

Yeah, no, I think that’s right. And I think there’s also, I mean, it’s, you know, there once again, I mean, this this I think, Erica, that’s where it is, it is so complex. And, in on one hand, you know, you definitely want to support any effort that is, you know, working to address a critical issue within any community yet at the same time, we’re not, you know, to some extent, you know, we’re encouraging you know, kind of fragmentation in doing that so you know, and it you know, it’s not it’s not trying to poke anyone but let’s face it, you know, like in the region, you know, going back to homelessness you know, hear all the efforts that that you know, popped into my head instantaneously. So, a focus on youth homeless, so focus on youth and family homelessness, focus on single adult homelessness, and it you know, it, and veterans and you know, like in, so, and then there’s the chronic, you know, single adult, you know, so like you have an understanding, you know, they’re their, they do have different approaches that you need to take because of the population. But what happens is that, you know, you then end up fragmenting and slicing and dividing things so much that, you know, how can you ever have impact because, you know, funder x is doing this, but funder y doing this. Yet, you know, they both want to hold on to, you know, kind of their own unique approach and value add to it, because of course, they’re investing in it. And yet, you know, when you really kind of start to think, you know, once again, when you start to think through many of these issues, yes, populations are different, but there are definitely, you know, some common threads that cut through i.e., why are people becoming homeless? So I get the, you know, let’s address kind of crisis response and you know, kind of do that, but what are we also do you keep, you know, kind of stop that inflow of people becoming homeless? And that’s when you get into some of the gnarly structural things that, you know, frankly, for a long period of time, philanthropy didn’t want to address, the private sector didn’t want to address, public sector wasn’t quite sure how to address. So, you know, and as a result, you know, you know, everything was like downstream versus well, if we do X, that may start to slow the inflow, and then we’ll and, you know, thankfully, you know, we have access to more data now and more knowledge and now we know about the, the racial inequity and racial disparities that are buried within many of these systems. So, you know, part of, and it’s not it’s not a, you know, it’s not a new thing, but you know, having from heaven forbid, you know, 20 years ago, the approach was, alright, let’s tackle these issues through the lens of disparity that we know. And if we know that people of color are more susceptible to homelessness. Let’s figure out how we keep people of color stably housed and as a result, we might be able to figure out how we keep everyone stably housed. We’re doing that now but you know, you know it’s because of the data piece and other things you know just become savvy or what do. So it’s a little bit of this like, you know, a white knight you know program that sometimes things are the private sector takes for such no actually stepping back and surveying the landscape and then figuring out funder X is doing this, government entities doing Y, we can come in and play C and be a connector of, of these two efforts versus what we just want to have this thing that we get to use. So we get to promote in our own material, whatever it is-

Erica Mills Barnhart  33:58

And the annual report, ah the annual report.  I mean, it’s interesting because when you, when we think about like, at the big picture level, again, everybody can say, yes, we want to make the world a better place and the reality of philanthropy, I would say in particular, but that’s true for nonprofits and social enterprises you get into, it’s quite bespoke. Like, it quickly gets very much like, yeah, but I have this very special snowflake way that I that I want to address it, right?  And I mean, of course, it strikes me and it might strike some listeners is, when I, when I hear the language of making the world a better place and the language of mission, it’s really funny, like at the very high level, most people will agree. Like there’s a lot of nodding. And as soon as you drop down to the next level, you can hear in the words that people choose to use, like kind of their stance, and you could probably have some working hypotheses very quickly. Just language that people use around, around you know, if you’re sticking with, you know, homelessness is it about is about homelessness? Is it about affordable housing? It’s of course about both they’re not mutually exclusive. But with each of these layers it does it gets to be more more gnarly, more wicked problem and I think, you know, that’s almost you can feel it like it’s just talking about it gets very overwhelming. So, you know, I don’t know how you do that day in and day out as the architect and not get a little overwhelmed.

Michael Brown  35:36

Well, yeah, it is easy, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But, or, and the reality is is you know, I’ve had this conversation and not, you know, you know, I think it could be easy for you know, for some of the listeners who are parents you know, to, you know, maybe roll roll their eyes a little bit, but, um, but for me, you know, for me as a parent of a seven year old and a seven year old who has access to privilege. I mean, there are other challenges, you know, raising a child of color. But nonetheless, a kid who will have access to opportunity and privilege, as the parent of that kid, being pre-COVID very concerned about the path that the region was on as it relates to to the inequities. I don’t know if any parent felt confident that their child as they became an adult would have the ability to purchase a house in this region. And, you know, I think that’s says a lot just in terms of like that, if that’s the path we’re on where we feel okay, right now, in terms of pushing low income and people of color further out of the region, we’re now you know, doing a pretty effective job pushing low income people out, and then our kids are going to be faced with some similar challenges. We haven’t been able to solve our homeless problem, we continue to fight against ourselves that, you know, as it relates to improving educational achievement for every kid in the region. You know, we, you know, we, you know, we’re going to be dealing with a lot of environmental justice issues, you know, like, all of these things, we have a lot on our plate.

Erica Mills Barnhart  37:51

We got a lot on our plate, we’re not light on issues.

Michael Brown  37:54

Right, but we also don’t have a lot of time and that we need to create some urgency around that, and using some communication around that, you know, one of the things that I was saying at the end of last year is we’re, you know, really launching, so the Commons was laying that frame of 10 years, look 10 years, you know, it worked well that we’re moving into 2020 and then, you know, you jump ahead to 2030. But we have 10 years to figure out figure out things it is long enough to where we could actually see and track outputs and hopefully get to, you know, tangible outcomes. But just having that, that number, you know, kind of creates a little bit of visual image that, okay, you know, once again, it’s gonna be hard work. But if you build relationship, you build trust, you create this regional sense of belonging, we operate from common data, and agree that you know, this framework of shared prosperity is where we want to be and that we you know, it’s a deviation from collective impact, but that because of the data points that we see that we are going to align our activities in a way where we’re leveraging these individual assets and things that we’re doing for the commonwealth for the collective good, then maybe we actually we get to a place at 2030 where we can look back and go, wow, you know, we really did something here.

Erica Mills Barnhart  39:31

Yeah, I mean, from a so for those folks who are listening who are like, Oh my gosh, that is like, huge and I can’t quite think on those, the 30,000 foot level, you know, organizations are, you know, the individual organizational level facing very parallel things in terms of how they can actually use things like scarcity. You know, Robert Cialdini’s work around that is fantastic. Interestingly, you want to use time scarcity, like you know, think about being on the receiving end of some sort of donor appeal. This is why in the PS it’s like time bound, right? Like, why would I do it today? Like, I have no reason to do it today. And I have no reason to do today and, and sort of this like, I feel like somebody else might take care of that so I’m just gonna let someone else take care of it. So scarcity from a messaging perspective, a marketing perspective is super effective. One of the things that was interesting, I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but I did this like gigantic piece of research that became the Wordifier, the free online tool that we’re, you know, Wordifie your world, wordifier.com. And one of the things we inadvertently found out so so that was came out of this, you know, about the research came out of novelty and how our brains respond to novelty and then I paired it with this idea of language. But the other, the interesting thing, which we found out was that actually the way nonprofits use language maps very unfortunately to the way that companies who are purposely trying to mislead you that there are very specific things they do with their language. So long sentences, a lot of syntax, not very many words, types of words. So long words, long sentences, but very narrow range linguistically, all those things companies were like, like think about the, you know, Exxon scandal or you know, anything like that. They do those things, and inadvertently, nonprofits actually mapped to that. So without intending to nonprofit to use the language in a way that he erodes trust. So when I think about, like, just the importance of trust, I mean, clearly how much currency I mean, it is currency in so many ways. And then there’s these things that are known that are such a bummer and they’re so fixable. You know, when I hear you talk, I always get so inspired by what’s possible because I believe you’re gonna make it all happen. And I get really like worked up about this vision of if we just kind of like cleaned up some of the language with the stuff we know, you know, I just I wonder, I wonder what could be possible.

Michael Brown  42:08

I know, I, you know, one of one of the things and I you know would put put I mean all of the all of the work that that nonprofits but but you know social socially responsible socially driven organizations need need to be thoughtful of is, you know, what, well, one what, what’s the narrative and how do you shift narrative that works in terms of your communication strategy? So what I mean by that is so, one of one of the things that I the Commons team has been very clear about is that we need to shift the regional narrative i.e. right now, and some of this, I think actually sticks with COVID. But pre COVID it was, we live in a region with these incredible assets and wealth yet we have very deep pockets of equity. We’re siloed, we’re fragmented, we don’t work with each other. It is a very transactional state. And as a result, you know, the narrative that we want to shift that we want to re-create is one of, you’ve heard me use this word commonwealth and there and there’s intentionality there in terms of we, we do have mutual dependency with each other, that whether we like it or not, we need each other. And if we really want to maintain a region or foster a region that truly works for everyone, where everyone can live, work, and, play here where everyone can prosper, we need to do something different from what we have been doing. COVID cons, and I think we see a lot of things we see. Well, and it doesn’t come as a surprise to many of us. But I think you know, for many people who may not have been paying attention, the incredible inequities that existed, you know, pre COVID have been, you know, unmasked. And now we’re pushing more people, you know, as a result of COVID, both from a health standpoint, but also now from an economic standpoint, into instability. And, you know, that’s going to create some interesting pressure points for a region that then will start to experience shrinking public sector resources, shrinking philanthropic resources. So all the more reason that you know, this narrative of the collective of the commonwealth has to comply. So, you know, we’re seeing incredible displays of community cohesion and social, you know, solidarity, yet can we keep that going where, you know, it is about your neighbor, but it’s about your neighbors neighbors neighbor, and that we really do want to take care of each other and make sure that we all have what we need in order to be okay.

Erica Mills Barnhart  45:29

Yeah, and I mean, this this narrative shifting just I know that we have listeners to this podcast who are in Mexico and Germany and Israel, all over the place across the United States as well. But I just want to underscore for listeners the importance of what you’re saying around first, just being aware of what the narrative is. I think that even even pausing to articulate that is huge. You may not like what you learn, right as with any narrative, you have to you know, there’s that, you have to name it to tame it, true with so many things. And that’s so that’s true. And I, I mean, I credit in, you know our region, you know, organizations like Civic Commons, but also the community. I mean, I do want to sort of index way back earlier in this conversation to you acknowledging that for whatever reason, and I actually find this really, really kind of fascinating, bringing community, the people who you are, in fact, trying to serve into conversation does not happen all that often. And even you know, when I’m, when I’m talking to organizations, they’re like, you know, how should we craft this or that? I’m like, well, have you asked, you know, have you asked your donors have you have you asked the people you’re serving? And I don’t know what that’s about. I mean, it is fear based, but I can’t quite piece I can’t quite piece it together.

Michael Brown  46:50

Well, yeah, and I, I will acknowledge Erica it’s a really complex thing at times to do and I think what then happens is people become paralyzed, or institutions become paralyzed, and then, you know, use that as a way to excuse you know, their their reason for not doing. It’s like well, you know, we work with these organizations, so they represent community, that’s where you kind of get into it, or, you know, we do there’s a blue ribbon task force, and you know, their, you know, we’ve cherry picked some people to represent a community. And that doesn’t quite, it doesn’t quite capture it. And, and it’s hard. And I, you know, I wish I could say, look, here are the three things that you do in order to do it. But what I would say is, if you know anything, especially now, we all need to lean into bold, innovative approaches that you know, who knows whether or not they’re going to work, but at this point, you know, you have more to gain than you do to lose.

Erica Mills Barnhart  48:00

Which gets into a conversation I hope we will have in a future podcast about structural barriers to to risk and to failure and how that, you know, those dynamics play out between nonprofits in the private sector and the public sector and like, who’s allowed to be risky and who’s allowed to be bold and who is rewarded for those things. And you know, we’re not all encouraged to be risky and bold in the same way and there are consequences and I mean, under COVID I’m certainly seeing a retraction and really going back to the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy, you know, we’re not at the top we are not in the self actualized zone. We’re like, way down. I’m just trying to get enough toilet paper. And, that sounds so goofy, but it’s you know, then a place on the individual level and then organizational and then you know, sector and then you know, and then and then we ladder up eventually to this idea, your beautiful idea of the commonwealth.

Michael Brown  49:00

Yeah, no, it’s it’s it’s it’s been. I mean, once again, I think we all are wondering what our new normal is going to be in our relationship with each other? And what opportunities that that will present.

Erica Mills Barnhart  49:27

There is opportunity there that there is and I, it’s there. I just think on a day by day, hour by hour basis, sometimes it doesn’t always show up as opportunity but I, I hope that we’re going to get to the other side and see it that way. I hope

Michael Brown  49:40

Yeah. I hope so as well. You know, there will come a point where hopefully you know, I will have more to share on this but really briefly, we’ve been in conversation with some national organizations who are banding together to promote from a country standpoint, from United States-

Erica Mills Barnhart  50:07

I was wondering about that actually.

Michael Brown  50:08

-to do some civic design work. And their approach in terms of that is asking Americans, everyday Americans, you know, what questions do you have as it relates to the country in the path that it’s heading? But it’s not as kind of gathering questions but what they then do what they’re doing is then fostering cohorts based on similarity of questions. So you and I have, you know, you live in in Seattle, I live in New Orleans, but our questions are very identical. We then are become part of this virtual community where we get to engage in conversation with each other about what that means.

Erica Mills Barnhart  51:00

Oh, that’s cool.

Michael Brown  51:02

Yeah, and I think, you know, there, there are things like that, which once again starts to break some divides or create some, some community where it’s not, you know, maybe New Orleans was not the best example. But you know, you know, someone from a, you know, progressive part of the country probably does have a lot in common, you know, in some cases with someone who is in a, you know, a rural conservative part of the country. So, part of this is, you know, civic design approaches is like, you know, how do you kind of one surface similarity, you know, sort of, what are some of the key questions, and how do you, you know, elevate that up to policymakers or others, but then two create connection and dialogue amongst Americans, you know, so part of our conversation with them is, you know, can, you know, how do we utilize that framework here, which would do some of the same thing and rather, you know, like, you know, flow up to kind of this actual conversation but we could also, you know, utilize that in terms of the regional conversation, whatever questions, you know, folks in the greater Seattle area have about the future of greater Seattle.

Erica Mills Barnhart  52:11

I love that, that it’s taking the let’s, I mean, the way I’m gonna paraphrase it back is let’s make sure we’re asking the right questions. I feel so frequently like we go right to answers. And, and you got to be asking the right questions to get the right answers, right? Okay, I want to be mindful of your time and our listeners time, I of course, and we have played this out in person, which I’m hoping will happen again one day where we’re like 45 minutes and then four hours later, we’re like, I gotta go back to work. I end every interview by asking guests what keeps them motivated to do this work. So if motivation is about action and inspiration, you know, it’s about your heart, right and making sure that you can keep going. What inspires you and what keeps you motivated to do this gnarly, very important work?

Michael Brown  53:07

Well, I mean, it’s a really easy one for me, Erica, I mean, you know, once again thinking about the past 25 years of my professional career, it’s all been oriented toward community, whatever other word you want to use, community building, community development, community empowerment. But this peace around being a part and then a partner with those who are actually doing the work, those who are on the ground, those who are dealing with the everyday challenges to help them develop their I mean, they already have strategies but to help those strategies come to life, and then fundamentally to to scale those up so that it’s not just about community X, it’s about all of us. So I’ve been really privileged to be in roles that have allowed me to do that. And my volunteer experience, the boards that I serve on, gives me that exposure as well. So every morning I wake up and I am motivated and inspired by that by the work that folks are doing on the ground and you know, the ability to be to be a part of supporting and or, you know, amplifying that work.

Erica Mills Barnhart  54:49

That’s wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for being here. And if you are listening and you are inspired by Michael and you want to connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn or Twitter, where his handle is @MichaelCBrown18. And if you want to learn more about Civic Commons, you can go to www.Civic-Commons.org, we’ll put all that in the show notes. Of course. Michael, I want to thank you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom. And I want to thank all of you for listening and for being here with us today for this conversation. If you haven’t already, be sure to join the Marketing for Good Facebook group to keep the conversation going, and that’s where we dig in a little bit deeper on all of these things and relate them back to how you can use language, how you can use words, and all the rest of it so be sure to check that out Marketing for Good on Facebook. And until next time, keep being amazing and thanks for being here.

The post Ep 9: Michael Brown: Common Ground, Tough Convos and Bold Action appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Scott Jackson on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

SUMMARY KEY WORDS

people, marketing, nonprofits, community, world, campaign, global lens, forge, servant leadership, evolution, impact, kindness

Erica Mills Barnhart  00:15

Welcome to the marketing for good podcast today, we have Scott Jackson with us. Scott is President and CEO of Global Impact, a nonprofit that inspires charitable ventures around the world. Currently Global Impact is supporting individual donors, donor collaboratives, nonprofits, and, corporations with their COVID and non COVID fundraising and marketing needs. Before Global Impact, Scott was founder and CEO of TradeEC, I don’t know if I’m saying that right, you’ll correct me in a second, Scott, one of the first marketing and communications firms in North America to specialize in international trade promotion, technology transfer, market access, TradeEC went on to join forces with global PR and communications firm Echo. Scott then went on to serve in leadership roles at both Path and World Vision, and interestingly, I didn’t know this Scott, you were a founding member of the Management Committee of the One Campaign to Make Poverty History. So definitely gonna talk about that. He is the author of the very beautiful book, Take Me With You: One person’s journey to find the charity within. I’ve had the great good fortune to work with Scott and I can say he truly embodies the term servant leadership. So it was my pleasure, my distinct pleasure to welcome you to the podcast today, Scott.

Scott Jackson  01:28

Well, thank you, Erica, and thank you for hosting this podcast. I think it’s such an important one to have during this time, and knowing that people are listening to Marketing for Good gives me great joy.

Erica Mills Barnhart  01:40

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Me too. So I will never ever forget that moment, a few years ago, I forget how many years ago it was now and you were giving a talk, a keynote, at the Global Washington conference. And you were talking about your book and then you saying acapella at the end, and I can’t remember the song, but I totally remember the feeling and the room and everyone was just captivated. And do you remember which song It was?

Scott Jackson  02:11

Yes. It’s called I Wonder. And it’s a song that my my stepfather, black Baptist minister, used to sing a lot. I wondered if you love the Lord as I do.

Erica Mills Barnhart  02:28

Mmm, it was it was just amazing. I remember like, I think my mouth was actually like, open as I was, because he was a keynote with an acapella song? It was so beautiful. I feel like so many are on a journey to find the charity within in general. And that can be hard work. And especially now people are really, you know, they’re they’re reflecting and trying to figure it out. Will you share a bit about your journey?

Scott Jackson  02:56

Well, thank you, Erica. The book title Take Me With You comes from the fact that my mother was an abused spouse. And every day when she would try to escape that situation, I would say, as a young child, take me with you. And she finally did and we escaped that situation. And then she married a black Baptist minister in 1968, the same year that MLK Jr. was assassinated, and all heck broke loose, and we were losing a custody battle. And so we escaped to Vancouver, British Columbia, and made our way ultimately, because we didn’t have work permits down to Sequim, Washington. So hence, how I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. And we then were found through the school system, and my mother was held for kidnapping contempt of court and I was taken back by armed escort to Kansas, which is where we were from and I escaped again, with a Bible with phone numbers in it and a green knit hat with $20 bills sewn inside and made my way back across the country, to the state of Washington, where my mom and Jefferson, my stepfather had taken the case to the Supreme Court, and had overturned it, but unless I was in that state, they wouldn’t be able to have the appeals trial. So when I showed up in the state of Washington, we were able to have the trial and I was able to live with my mom and Jefferson. We were too poor for him to adopt me formally, so Jefferson, I just went to the courthouse and changed my name for $25. But for me at that journey, and the role that Jefferson and Sidney and the community of Sequim played, education, my teachers, college, all of that helped me understand particularly later on in life, that there were kids all over the world like me that regardless of their circumstances, were having to make a choice to be positive in the world or to deal with the anger and the circumstances they were given. And so really, the charity within is really about how all of us take our story, whether it’s a positive or a negative story, and how do we make sure that we choose the positive? And I think it’s often the other people in our lives that help us make that choice. So it’s about you know, not only making the choice but realizing that each of us are someone else’s other and someone else’s chance to reach their potential.

Erica Mills Barnhart  05:41

Every time I hear your story, I get chills. It’s just in it and you make so much sense. And you and your leadership style makes so much sense when you hear that story.

Scott Jackson  05:57

Well, it’s you know, it’s so important, you know, to realize that often it’s little things, right? Whether you’ve raised your voice or you take out maybe the stress of something else, and people don’t even know, you know what you’re reacting to, especially during this time of a global pandemic. We all have a lot of extra stress on us. And I think that one thing we can all do is just be as kind as possible to everybody we meet and as understanding as we can be.

Erica Mills Barnhart  06:33

Yeah, kindness, I mean it. I tried to go back I mean, I’m thinking right now actually not of marketing so much, but of my kids and homeschooling and you know, just trying to trying to go back kindness. It’s hard. I am not always my best self. One of the great things about this is I think myself included, a lot of us have really established that being I mean, deep respect for all the teachers out there. I was not I was not called to teach middle school I can tell you that for darn sure when my, my son is middle schooler so. You again, this isn’t surprising given your story, but you are one of the most authentic people I know. And that comes through in your leadership style. Did that come naturally? Or did you have to kind of find your way there?

Scott Jackson  07:22

Well, Jefferson was a great role model because no matter what people threw at him any sort of prejudice or anything he had to deal with, he always, he always came back and tried to deal with it positively. So he was a great role model, but it it’s been a learned thing for me. You know, early on in my career, I think I probably carried my feelings more on my shoulder. And even now, you know, if you’re an intense person, you can always hide it. But I think that the notion that you know, sometimes they say a whisper is a roar. And I think all of us as we particularly look at marketing professionals and people in leadership, that we have to remember that our words are often amplified to the people that we’re speaking them to. So, it helps me try to remember to learn everyday to be more, more measured and thoughtful, but it’s a learning I think it’s a learning process. I think you everyday you have to say, how do I make sure that I’m not a barrier to somebody else?

Erica Mills Barnhart  08:32

Do you have a specific practice for that?

Scott Jackson  08:37

You know, asking questions. So, you know, often especially in kind of, I think, you know, urgent decision making and important marketing decisions that people make, is that we want to move forward into action as quickly as possible. But I think instead of kind of saying, here’s what needs to be done, if you can say, here’s what I’m thinking, what do you think? You know? So the more you can ask questions, rather than just jump to the action or assume what what the answer is, that helps me. I also think it’s just, you know, wanting to genuinely care for people. And I think, I think besides asking questions, the thing that really helps me is that somewhere along the line in often the role that Global Impact plays, that I play, is a behind the scenes role. And somewhere along the line, I became so empowered by seeing other people succeed. So if that’s kind of where you get your motivation, then every day you want to try to make sure that you’re, you’re helping the other people that are that are around you. That helps me. So it’s not really very selfish at all. It’s about, okay, how do I really help this person? Because if I help them, I’m going to really, I’m going to be empowered by that.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:09

And that’s true servant leadership.

Scott Jackson  10:12

Well, thank you.

Erica Mills Barnhart  10:13

Yeah, yeah. So you have a long, long history in marketing, both in house with nonprofits, Path, World Vision. And also you have agency experience, which is, so that, you know, gives you multiple perspectives. I’m curious if working on the agency side first, sort of influenced how you approach marketing and branding as a leader?

Scott Jackson  10:41

Absolutely. I mean, I think, first of all, getting a chance to work on the agency side. Our small agency was focused on marketing in developing countries. And then as part of Apco, certainly it was a worldwide agency approach and Apco is known for their public affairs campaigns and marketing, you know, as opposed to always consumer marketing. But I think I think what I learned in the agency world is the power of story and the power of sharing the narrative. So that so that the bringing that to the nonprofit sector, and you’re such a great professional at this, about how you do that and the words that you choose, but I think the power of our stories, and then using those stories for the change in the world. I first got glimpses of the power of the story in the agency world and seeing how that can be used for changing the world. I’ve been able to experience in the nonprofit sector.

Erica Mills Barnhart  11:52

Yeah, that makes, thank you for the kind words by the way, and that makes that makes sense. I am always intrigued when you know somebody comes from agency or working on their their own and then comes into the different contexts. And the the power of narrative and the power of story feels even more important now than before. I want to actually go back just for a second to the idea of authenticity. Because I feel like what I’m seeing, and I’m curious if you’re seeing this because you work with so many nonprofits, is these like dueling forces, where, I mean, nonprofits are really, really struggling, obviously, under COVID. And so there’s a part of them that is just scrambling to, you know, try to stem the tide, or the inevitable is this feeling, but also this the sense of and the ones that I think are successful right now are just coming back to like, what is the essence of who we are and how can we go back to the basics, go back to what is authentic to us as an organization, and shine a bright light on that. And I’m wondering if you’re if you’re seeing the nonprofit’s that you work with and serve at Global Impact is also kind of struggling in this way?

Scott Jackson  13:17

Yeah, the notion of authenticity is a really important one. And I haven’t thought of it in those terms. But I think that the nonprofit’s I see that are kind of making sense of this right now are taking a COVID lens, if you will. So they’re not they’re not ignoring that we’re in a global pandemic, those that are ignoring, I think are going to have a really hard time. But those that are saying, how does this COVID crisis affect my organization and the COVID lens I think is the most successful is when they start authentically with their own staff and their own operations. How are they taking care of their own staff and families and doing their best with that? Whether they’re keeping them on staff or whether there’s furloughs, you know, what, what, what is the role that they’re playing with their own kind of immediate organizational family? And the second, then element to that lens is kind of how does it affect their mission? Some are on the frontlines, others are not. And how are they making sure that they’re pivoting their programs to be relevant during this crisis? And then thirdly, is how will it affect their long term programs and missions? And I think that that nonprofits that take that kind of three part lens are really authentic because they really are having to look at it first from their own personal lives, to their organization and then to their mission.

Erica Mills Barnhart  15:02

I love that, that the COVID lens, I get, I spent so much time referring to the COVID cloud that I say, you know, I like think of it as a lens who feels much more positive. It’s so very you, Scott. I, one of the things we talk a lot about on this podcast is the idea that successful external engagement, which is where so often when we hear marketing, we think about the external shininess, but that that the success of that is really predicated on solid internal alignment. And so how I’m curious how you keep your team aligned.

Scott Jackson  15:37

We, we’ve really gone to going deeper as a community in our communications. So it’s interesting because I’ve learned more about our individual staff members in the last seven to eight weeks then probably I’ve learned in several years, so getting a chance to beyond regular, you know, video conferencing calls, being able to see each other actually having calls where there’s no agenda, learning about people’s families, meeting their children, you know, sharing when they have illness in the family. So I think, I think one way is just to take advantage of what technology and marketing tools have brought us, which is really an opportunity to not only survive this crisis, but to really forge community and forge, you know, relational opportunities. So I think that’s been very powerful. That’s probably been one of the, the really positive things that have come out of this is no longer kind of a barrier to connecting with each other that there’s kind of no excuses, really. And I think I think that that helps to then align to the daily work, that there’s no question there’s more pressure, I think, particularly in the nonprofit sector on marketing and fundraising. So the work we’re doing with our nonprofit partners, and even our corporate partners, there’s more and more pressure to, you know, help us raise the funds help us raise the visibility of what we’re trying to do, whether it’s on the front lines or otherwise. So I think, I think community, encouraging people to not bear that pressure of their work all personally, and then just kind of taking it one day at a time.

Erica Mills Barnhart  17:40

I love that you refer to it as forging community. I think often, we sort of take community for granted, and then it will kind of form itself and although sometimes that’s extreme, you know, that happens. That’s true. I just love this invitation to really be kind of fierce about it, I mean, forge is intentional. And the more we can intent, you know, use this opportunity to intentionally build community, the better both internally and then, you know, and then eventually externally. I think that’s a really interesting way of thinking about it.

Scott Jackson  18:20

Yeah, and you know, I think in any organization, you have people who are really good at that, and others who are not, so it’s been fun for me to kind of follow, we have some really good ambassadors at forging community and getting out there and making sure people are getting connected. So, you know, allowing myself to follow them and be part of it has also been a good lesson.

Erica Mills Barnhart  18:47

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that has definitely come out of this is I don’t know that we’ll ever fully go back to you know, you have your professional self and your professional life and your personal life and your personal self. You know, when you’re doing all this from home, like, inevitably, you’re gonna, you know, you’re gonna see the cat and the dog and the kids and the, you know, we’re just like human. And I feel like this is one of the biggest historical lessons we will have. And we’re just all human.

Scott Jackson  19:15

Absolutely, there’s no separation. And we will, yeah, I think you’re right. I think I think it will break down those barriers.

Erica Mills Barnhart  19:24

Yeah. You were involved with the One Campaign to Make Poverty History. I don’t know if all of the folks listening will be familiar with that. We will you share a bit more about it because it is sort of left an indelible mark in my mind as a shining example of marketing for good.

Scott Jackson  19:45

Yes. So in early 2000, there was there were actually three campaigns. One was called Better Safer World, which was a collaborative marketing campaign to see if we could increase support by the American public for Foreign Affairs and for US Agency for International Development funding. And so a number of large NGOs were part of this, this effort, Saved the Children, Care, World Vision. And I served as on an Executive Committee, a 3 person, Executive Committee for that coalition. And and then there was Data, which was essentially, Bono’s initiative against HIV AIDS in Africa. And then finally, there was an initiative called Bread for the World to increase awareness of poverty alleviation by Bread for the World. And the three came together with Bill Melinda Gates Foundation to form the one campaign. And we didn’t initially start with the word One. But the song kind of led us there. And Bono led us there. And so we did announce the campaign in the front of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and to this day, it’s evolved and emerged and shaped. But the whole notion of bringing bring-

Erica Mills Barnhart  21:36

Oh, Scott, we’re, we’re losing you. So you might need to repeat whatever, whatever you were telling us. I like that we had just talked about being human and then I don’t even know what just happened, who knows.

Scott Jackson 

I, my internet was still up and I could see you then finally your picture went away.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I just disappeared entirely into the ethers. Okay, where I think I lost you was you had just told us about launching the One Campaign to Make Poverty History and you were in front of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

Scott Jackson 

Okay, got it. Okay, so off, I’ll finish that. So. And what’s wonderful is that to look and see now 15 years later that the One Campaign is continuing, is much more of an established voice, if you will, or amplifier, not only with US Congress, but with governments across Africa and Europe, Asia, and it’s being amplified by other important voices like Global Citizen and other other movements. So it’s wonderful to see it continuing the great work that it is.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, I know, I’m not the only one who wants to know, did you meet Bono?

Scott Jackson 

Yes, I did. I wouldn’t say that I could, you know, call him up and chat with him on a regular basis. But, but during that time, had a lot of interaction with him. And he really is the real deal. So talking about being authentic, he really understands the issues. In fact, he and his wife had their hearts touched by visiting the famines with World Vision in Ethiopia in the 1990s. So he really has a passion for the issues and comes at it know, deep in his soul. I actually toured with the band and would work with the One Campaign, you know, members of Congress and other influencers and bring them to the, to the, to the U2 tour in 2005, was one of the American tours, North American tours. And that was fun.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

That must have been I bet you have a lot of stories from those days. I can only imagine.

Scott Jackson 

I do and probably a little more hearing loss.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Oh, I imagine. So I have gone on record as saying I think in terms of like the best marketers, for musicians, my vote goes to Kiss but U2 is a very close second. So it it makes sense from sort of a brand perspective that Bono would have brought that superpower and just will forever be grateful to him and everybody else who worked on to get that campaign launched and it is wonderful to see that it’s still going strong.

Scott Jackson 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, the the AIDS concerts really set the stage for celebrities and musicians being able to lend their voice to, to really marketing for good. And so that’s, that’s been wonderful to see that continue.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of folks, by folks, I mean, maybe some younger folks who are listening, grew up with that and grew up with sort of celebrities lending their, their shininess and their influence to causes but that’s actually pretty, pretty new.

Scott Jackson 

Yeah, that’s right. Probably the last 20 years is where we’ve really seen it had an impact.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, yeah. So So yeah, I mean, so that’s, you know, when I think of the evolution of marketing and when I get asked about that, that’s certainly something that always comes to mind. I mean, I think it’s one of the things that  is true in life is the only constant is change and evolution. To that point Global Impact just merged your joined forces with Geneva Global, right?

Scott Jackson 

Yes, yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

You talk to us about that, in the context of, because Global Impacts been around for a really long time. I think it’s important for listeners to really understand like the staying power of Global Impact. And, and you know, how that how you have staying power for that long and then where you landed today in this most recent evolution?

Scott Jackson 

Yes, Global Impact started almost 65 years ago as a workplace giving federation like United Way only for the International sectors. So, organizations like Save the Children and Path and World Vision, Care, had to be members of Global Impact so that they could qualify for employee giving programs, both with the state and federal government and also with the private sector. But more broadly, as a nonprofit as you suggests to support and inspire charitable ventures and grow global philanthropy. We really work in kind of three areas. One is we have advisory services that we help to design and implement marketing and fundraising campaigns. And secondly, is we will serve as a campaign manager, or program manager, where we actually hire staff and help support that initiative, initiatives like the One Campaign. And thirdly is really where we serve as a fiscal sponsor, and actually do all the financial reporting, receive and get the money out, you know, to various causes. We’re doing a lot of that work right now with COVID related nonprofit responders. And so when we looked at how do we grow our capacity, we had been tracking an organization called Geneva Global for a number of years and they really have those three same core competencies advisory, program support and fiscal sponsorship, but they do a lot more work with high networth donors and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And so by coming together, they were a for profit B Corporation. And they’re now a formally a subsidiary. Global Impact is a nonprofit. But it gave us some tremendous firepower across the whole continuum of marketing and fundraising for foundations high networth and corporations and everyday donors.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

So that’s an exciting evolution.

Scott Jackson 

Yeah, it really is. It’s been interesting from a marketing we’re both kind of b to b brands, you know, so we’re, we’re kind of the behind the scenes-  Yep. Business to business, but being visible enough that people can find us and in many ways, it’s been interesting because actually sharing those two brands, and having those two vehicles of nonprofit and for profit for clients and partners to work with has actually been been really powerful these first six months. So it will interesting to see how we evolve our brand and talk about our work together.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Business to business Mm hmm. Yeah, it was fun when I saw the announcement. Of course, we had done work together just previously. And then when I saw the announcement, and I saw so you redid the logo was part of that branding work. And then I’ve seen it side by side with the Geneva Global logo, I instantly was like, yeah, this is this is good alignment, because the logos work so well together. And if your logo is like, you know, I think of it as your flag that you waive the tip of sort of the visual piece of your identity. And I was like, Yeah, those look good together.

Scott Jackson 

Yeah, I think they really have and the colors, all of that was perfect. And we we can’t thank you enough for the rebranding that Claxon Marketing did for us. You guys did a terrific job.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

It was our pleasure, our pleasure, our pleasure. So I always like to ask guests, a final two questions. So we have to have both motivation and inspiration, inspiration meaning to breathe in and motivation being about action. So will you share with us what inspires you and what keeps you motivated to do this work?

Scott Jackson 

You know, there’s a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that essentially that there’s no greater no greater really aspiration for someone than to serve others. And I think that that during this time in which the whole world is coming around a crisis together and is that that’s really important. It’s important for us to not only think of ourselves and our families, but also to think of the others in our lives. And so for me that, quote, has some real meaning right now. And then I am inspired every day by what people are doing for each other. Actually, those actual acts of kindness just are mind blowing to me, whether it’s employee assistance programs, or nonprofits who used to do housing, and now we’re just delivering food to people, I mean, it’s just restaurants. It’s just amazing to me, how the whole world is really putting, you know, their neighbors in front of themselves.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

We come full circle back to the idea of kindness.

Scott Jackson 

Yes, absolutely.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. Thank you so much, Scott. for being here sticking with me through my epic technology glitch. Listeners if you want to continue the conversation as always head on over to the Marketing for Good Facebook group. I’ll be there. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode and anything else about Marketing for Good. Thank you for making the world a better place. Be well, do good, and we’ll see you soon.

The post Ep 11: Scott Jackson: Finding The Charity Within appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Will Valverde on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

KEY WORDS

nonprofits, people, data, revenue, gifts, writing, growth, audience, donor, benchmarks, channel, organization

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Will, welcome to the show.

Will Valverde 

Thanks for having me.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, thanks for being here. So before we dive into the report finding, so today, we’re going to talk about the M&R Benchmark Study and the wonderful report that you pulled together for the 2021. And I know that listeners will be anxious to get there. However, before we get there, I want to ask you, did you write the report and do the data ,share with us?

Will Valverde 

Well, benchmarks is a big group effort and it has only gotten bigger and groupier as we go year by year. But yes, I’m the lead writer of Benchmarks. I’ve been the lead writer for the last six or seven additions of it. This is our 14th benchmarks.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

It is?

Will Valverde 

Yes. So I have been leading the writing for the last several years. But the team that contributes sort of what we think is going to happen and the analysis, and definitely the data analysis is something that like, I don’t have to do on the spreadsheet stuff, I get to just talk about what we think about and what we think is important.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

So listeners, just in that response, I probably caught onto something You have a very lovely way with words which I’m deeply appreciator. It’s like groupier and groupier. Like that’s funny, right? I just I want to read a little excerpt just to give to give listeners like a flavor for for those of for those of you who haven’t read the report yet one, I totally encourage you to read it. It is one of the most engaging pieces of research every year and definitely this year. So let me just read it a bit so folks can get a sense for it. So, and this is from the intro, and early on. So ‘it comes down to this we can’t chart a new path forward unless we understand our place in the universe. That’s how we keep pushing boundaries and exploring new frontiers. That’s how we endure darkness and glimpse the dawn. That’s how we’ll keep rising. Now. Take your protein pills and put on your helmet. Here we go for launch’. And then a little bit later you say ‘some changes are easy to spot. They stand out bright and unexpected, like a supernova bursting against a placid black sky. Let’s start there’. Let’s do start there. That is just straight up great writing.

Will Valverde 

Thanks.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I mean, it’s like who doesn’t want to, I want the new frontier. Let’s do all that stuff and then the bright supernova, you know, against the placid black sky. And so you have a writing background?

Will Valverde 

I was a creative writing major in college and I definitely come to this work primarily as a writer and have a lot of experience of writing for nonprofits. Yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, so you, you are a writer by nature. Okay. I always ask this to folks who are writers, by training. Do you think that people are born good writers? Or can you become a good writer, great writer?

Will Valverde 

I think that it takes a lot of work. I think sometimes I’ll see an email that I wrote for a client along you know, if I’m going back to look for a sample from even a couple of years ago, it’s like, oh, I would never do that now. I don’t think that you you stop improving, hopefully, if you’re still working at it, but I think certainly some people have some natural ability, but it takes a lot of practice to get better at it.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I get that question because I write a lot and my answer is always like I write a lot, therefore it improves.

Will Valverde 

That’s it, it takes a lot of time.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. So, this voice is very unique voice and this like excellent standard of writing is something that I always admire in M&R, you know, across all like your blogs are always like that. So as an organization, as a company, do you have a defined brand personality?

Will Valverde 

We do, we have some brand values. And when it comes to benchmarks, it is I think, the purest expression of who we want to be in the world because we want to, we are really data driven as an organization. We believe that data can really guide strategy and should and needs to so much of the work that we do is about direct response. It’s about people clicking to give or signing a petition, and all of that really needs to be data driven, which is why benchmarks is what it is, which is the most comprehensive data set that we are able to compile each year. And we also know that data isn’t enough, it has to mean something, it has to be interpreted, it has to be analyze, and that it’s not enough to actually motivate people to change their behavior. And one of the things that we know from the work that we do is that if you just tell people there are a million people who need help in place X, there’s a big, big statistical problem. Global warming will kill us all. That’s actually not enough to really get people to take action, storytelling and making it be relevant, making it be authentic, making it be something that matters on a human level is a big part of it. And there are lots of ways of getting at that, there are lots of ways of sort of making that human connection. But one of the ways that we do it is through creative and so that is what we try to really live. Benchmarks is, I do a lot of writing every day for clients and I’ve written gotten to write for all sorts of different nonprofits, all sorts of different voices, all sorts of different signers. I really love it. I like to adopt somebody’s voice. This is my chance to sound like the way that I want to sound and the way that I want M&R to sound and so this is a chance for us to be our own client, which is a really rare thing for a consultant to get to do. So yes, I think we we really give it our all and when it comes to benchmarks, we also want to make it be fresh and different every year. So the segment that you read, I think, if you have not seen the benchmark study this year, it is space themed. So everything that we do from the from the visuals to the graphics, and the language we use is about space exploration and supernovas, and all of that sort of stuff. That’s stuff that I’m personally nerdy about. And so I really embraced it. But last year, it was something else. And the year before something else, we had one year, that was music themed. And so there were a lot of music quotes and lyrics kind of quoted throughout as we, as we told our story we have, we did a version that was in 3D. And so everything was about the visuals were in three dimensions that came with a set of 3D glasses a few years ago, and the copy reflected that by talking about death by talking about dimensionality by talking about looking beyond the surface. So in a metaphorical sense, we address it. And then also, there was a more subtle sort of literal sense. There were triplets of D words spread throughout the copy, and so on like, that, I think makes it more interesting for us to produce it, I hope that it makes more interesting for people to read it. But I think what it also does is it gives us a structure. And so, you know, if you’re, if you’re sitting down to write a blank verse poem that can feel really intimidating because you can do anything. If you’re sitting down to write a sonnet, at least, you know, here’s here’s the rhythm, here’s the structure, and you can work within it. I’ve always found that to be a lot easier.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the triple D’s. I’m like, oh, that’s amazing.

Will Valverde 

I hope that anybody noticed that I was doing that. But it was, it gave me something to do with a copy and it sort of drove the process forward a little bit. It probably was not noticeable. I don’t know that anybody ever mentioned it, but-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. So, I think that’s not inconsequential. In terms of like keeping your attention and interest as somebody who you know, writes and by the way, I’m not only talking if you’re listening, and you’re like, well, but I don’t produce the blah blah, blah, yeah, you’re writing emails every day, probably. Right. You’re like we are all in communication in that way. And I mean, I do a lot of work with leaders around kind of finding their voice and and how that you know, personal brand and how that melds into organizational brand and all of those things. And it’s it like every time once I’m like, just find your like, let’s work to find your voice. Because you will show up differently and more authentically. And you’ll be more interested in, in how you’re communicating how you’re writing, you’ll be able to stay interested in a different way. But if you are someone who’s just producing the content, it gets boring. I mean, I’ve had that I’ve had that job. And it’s kind of relentless. I mean, it can be super fun. So I think you can build in things like that, like, go for it, right.

Will Valverde 

And I think the audience feels that when you get bored. I mean, a lot of what we do is not everything gets a bit as big, fancy, elaborate production. A lot of what we do is routine it is here’s a welcome message from it, here’s another membership drive, here’s another December 31 last chance to give kind of deadline message. But if you treat it like oh, here’s another one then yeah it will feel that way, if you’re writing it, then it’s going to come across and it won’t be as effective. So effective trade I think a lot of it does rely on if you don’t care it’s really hard to make the audience care and so it helps to put a little bit of your heart into it and it helps to do that even if nobody notices even if nobody notices the buried in joke that is six paragraphs and nobody will ever read it that’s fine if nobody realizes that the 3D version of benchmarks had triplets of D words spread throughout like that is okay it made me more excited and more engaged with the work while I was doing it and hopefully that translates to the reader experience.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I’m hundred percent going back and finding all those D’s just let you know right here right now.

Will Valverde 

They are all available for download as is this year study at MRbenchmarks.com, that’s MRbenchmarks.com, go check it out.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay. Let’s turn our attention to the report itself, this years. I know listeners are anxious to hear about the findings. So wait, so we’re recording this well sheltered in place. I can’t wait for the day where I don’t have to do that like thing, caveat, but here we are. So I know folks are anxious to hear about you know, so what does it mean in terms of COVID? and post COVID? You know, because right now we are in this moment of like a little bit looking forward, really super weird, a lot of uncertainty I want to get there. However, if you’re open to it, actually, what I’d like to do is walk through the the key findings first, and then sort of look at them in the context in which they were rolled out. I know that you were writing these as COVID was sort of unfolding. But the data itself was gathered prior, correct?

Will Valverde 

Right.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. So let’s look at the findings. And then we’ll turn, we’ll sort of have some time to talk about what they might mean for our new world order. First, share with us who took the survey? And based on who took the survey, how generalizable is it to the entire sector and those sorts of things?

Will Valverde 

So the benchmarks data comes from a pool of nonprofit participants, anybody is welcome to sign up and join and we encourage all nonprofits to participate because we I think it is helpful for the nonprofit. Actually, if you have to be confronted with your own data, I think it helps you to actually have a better sense of it. But also for us to produce this report and have it be reliable and useful, we really need a big data set, the bigger the better. And so this year, we had 201 nonprofit participants, that’s by far the biggest pool, we think our previous record was 150 some. So it’s really great because it means that we have more data to share and we are less likely to be skewed by somebody’s individual strategic choices or like sort of one group swaying it. So we have an over, as we report on our data in a couple of ways, we report the overall average. So if we’re talking about what’s an average open rate for a fundraising email message, that’s looking at every one of the 201 participants who submitted data, then we break things down by sector. So we have I think, nine of them this year. I think one of them is others. But if you are an environmental nonprofit, you can look at that cohort of environmental groups. And if you’re a Public Media Group, you can look at those. We also break down by group size. So we have small, medium, and large groups, and that is, it’s about how your revenue. So a small group is a nonprofit with annual online revenue under $500,000, medium is from $500,000 to $3 million. If you’re raising more than $3 million online, we call you a large group. And that should help. And so we encourage people when you’re looking at it, look at the overall number that matters. But oftentimes, you’ll see that your sector is really different. So it may be that in general, the numbers are moving in a certain direction. But when you look deeper, you say, oh, but for international nonprofits where I am, it’s a really different experience, because our fundraising results are so dependent on is there a humanitarian crisis somewhere in the world, that’s what drives giving. It’s not about the electoral cycle, which may be more relevant other types of groups. So there is so it should be relevant to everybody, I think. We try to make it be that but it’s especially if you look at some of those those breakdowns by sector inside you can really find your peer groups in that way.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, I find that so helpful. I know having done research for this project called, being called the wordifier.com. Sorry, I’d like to share with you and for listeners for what it’s worth, if you hear squeals of laughter in the background, my daughter who’s almost 16 is a dancer and her she, has not been able to see her dance mentors in however many months and they just came to the door. And they are so, they are distanced, they are physically distanced, but they have brought her her end of year present, which they do every year. She’s in a pre-professional program so that’s what you’re hearing in the background is a whole gob of joy.

Will Valverde 

I have not heard it, but also if you hear smaller children screaming, that’s my kids. They’re five and seven. They don’t need a reason actually, or any particular joy to be loud.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, close the door. And that was my 12 year old. Okay, we’ll see if Jimmy wants to edit that out or not. But I just I feel like we’re low on joy moments these days. And so when it happens, I just I had to share plus, I didn’t know you could hear it or not. Okay, I did some research a couple years ago to figure out which specific words were being used and really what I was looking for was overused by nonprofits building on research about brain novelty. And because when something, our brains love novelty when they, you know, if something is no longer novel, then it sort of we don’t pay attention. So that ended up, we ended up pulling every single word off of 2503 nonprofit websites that gave us a database of 11 million plus. And with that, we produced a tool the wordifier.com, and so you can go and put in a word. Getting and we broke you and it’s broken down by sub sector. And so I want to note and appreciate that extra step that M&R takes it is not inconsequential. It takes some coding, I blessedly did not have to do that. Nobody wants me touching spreadsheets. And it’s such a gift in terms of how actionable the data is because, we you know, anytime it is aggregated, it really does lose that texture. So just for listeners, that’s like one yay, gives you much more information and in in the report itself, you can play with a lot of the charts and so that’s super fun as well. All right, the findings. So online giving has had a bit of a wild ride the past few years. You want to talk to us about that?

Will Valverde 

Yeah, sure. So like I said, this is our 14th benchmark study. And this is a seven-ish one that that I’ve been the lead writer on. And over that time, we’ve gotten really used to seeing and reporting certain things. And so one of the baseline most fundamental truths that used to be true was year over year, you could expect low double digit growth in online revenue. So we report like 12% growth year over year, one year 14%, the other year and 11%. But in the sort of narrow range, it just felt like well, this is sort of the long term trajectory. We’re getting bigger, part of that is the economy growing part of it is you know, online being a bigger part of the pie relative to some of the other channels over time, but it felt like that’s, that’s where we’re going to be and that’s the path upward, these programs continue to grow. And then in 2016, there was an election, which you may recall. And I believe, and a really big reaction to that. And so what we saw was that when this really extreme volatility began, so in 2017, we suddenly saw this really dramatic growth. So this like huge spike in revenue, and it was led by environmental groups, by LGBT rights groups, by reproductive choice groups, by groups that were the resistance essentially, groups were either their their causes felt like they were at risk, or they were particular organizations were targeted. There was this outpouring of like, we need to save them, we need to fight for these causes we care about. But it wasn’t only those groups, sort of generally we saw this really broad based spike in giving as people just started throwing money at the causes they cared about in 2017. And then in 2018, we saw essentially flat growth. So that just all came to a screeching halt. And it was, it was a sort of very worrying thing. We were so used to reporting double digit growth. And then it was it was 1% growth of what we reported last year from 2018. And it became, well, is our model broken, are people just not going to give any more? Can we, is growth finished is this sort of how we plateaued? And then a lot of sort of different explanations sort of floated for it. It was there was a new tax law that made it less, made people sort of less inclined to to itemize their deductions, which might have an impact on giving, the stock market in 2018, sort of like, right around the middle of the month in December, right when the really big end of year fundraising, which is the most important couple of weeks for almost every nonprofit online, the stock market just tanked. And that really, really hurt end of your giving. And then the broader context for us, as we looked at it last year was that that all feels true, and it’s probably not one explanation. But what it really looked like was maybe what happened was we had essentially two years worth of growth in 2017. And we just couldn’t keep building in that momentum, all the 2018 growth happened, it just happened a year early and we sort of caught up to that. And so we went out on a limb, which we almost never do, benchmarks is very much it is our place to see the things that we know and things that have happened. It is not a place where we like to make speculations and predictions of what will happen. But we went out and we said, if this is all true, if our interpretation of this data is correct, then what we expect to happen next year is 2019, will report a return to that long term path of low double digit growth. And that’s what we saw, we saw a 10% increase year over year from 2018 to 2019, kind of back on track. So if you blur the numbers, if you look at a five or 10 year curve, it looks pretty smooth. It’s only if you look year by year that it looks really spiky. But if you smooth that out, it feels like we’re back on track, which is, gives me hope, as we were coming, as we were writing this and this was in February, we were writing this data is really when the COVID situation started to turn dire. And so the data we have is 2019 data is January through December and looking back before that, so it all predates the current crisis that we’re in, which I think offers sort of a really interesting snapshot of like, what it was like before. And so that prediction, but what it felt, at first, it was like, oh, great, we’re right back on track. When we first saw that data is like, well, we can just say we’re back to normal now. That’s very nice. And, you know, barring another election. And clearly, that’s not the case, I think we’re going to see a lot of volatility in really unpredictable ways we’re already seeing it. There are going to be some nonprofits that come that are right now, in this moment, seeing a big surge in generosity, because especially those that are on the frontlines of dealing with the COVID crisis and sort of the impact it’s having on communities, those groups are probably going to see maybe a really amazing amount of growth that also can’t be replicated. Other groups are really suffering. And I think in particular, about groups that rely on in person events, especially those that rely on ticket sales. So if you’re a museum right now, you’re in trouble. You know, you’re really or if a big part of your budget is an annual gala that you can’t hold anymore, you’ve got a lot to figure out. And so that way, that’s all going to shake out, I think there’s going to be a really tough time this year, it still gives me I think, some sense of perspective and a little bit of hope to think, yes, this year was going to be wild for a lot of groups. And it’s going to be really difficult for a lot of nonprofits. But I still expect that over time, we will return to that long term growth trajectory because it is because nonprofits are building their programs bigger, they are doing a better job, the donors do want to be giving online and people are not going to stop caring about the causes that they care about and stop supporting them. So it’s going to be a really difficult time or in some cases, maybe a really thriving time, at least in terms of revenue as challenging as everything is. But I do think that that that long term growth is still going to be there. It’s just I can’t I can’t wait to get all this data, my hands on all this data from this year next year and do it again and what it’s going to be it’s going to be really complicated.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I wonder, so I teach at University of Washington and one of the ways to indicate this not unique to UW but it’s happening all over the places to have an asterix on students transcripts as a reminder because you know it like right now it’s all we can think about in five years but somebody is looking at the transcript they may actually forget and you know, there could be volatility, so I feel like the asterix is gonna make a big, it’s gonna have a moment. I’m curious if it’s gonna have a moment for the benchmarks.

Will Valverde 

I mean, we try to, we try to it’s one of the things that, you know, the continuity from having done this for so many years, I think really helps because we have that context. So when something is is different and weird, we can be like, oh, that’s actually stands out from the historical trends. We’re not comparing every year we have a different pool of participants. So we never like line up like, what did you say last year? What did we say this year? Because it’s not really comparable data wise, but the experience and sort of what matters, that’s what we try to get through and refine it, we try to sort of identify like, why is it that this is the way it is so that we have that context.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I went through the report. And there’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different sort of areas that you talked about. Facebook, web traffic and devices, text messaging, social media, digital ads. I want to walk through them. I want to say the one thing that jumped out most for me from each of those and see if you would have a counter to what you think folks should be paying attention to. All right, so for Facebook, in 2019, giving on Facebook accounted for more than 3.5% of all online nonprofit revenue for the health sector, Facebook generated in nearly 10 cents of every dollar raised online. Oh, striking.

Will Valverde 

Yeah, I agree. No, it’s a big deal. I think this is, last year was our first time reporting on Facebook fundraisers and we call it Facebook revenue the best it’s like 97% of Facebook revenue is actually fundraiser so that’s a peer to peer tool. So many people say my birthday, please support this cause I care about and yeah, it’s really 3.5% feels like well, that’s not gonna make or break your budget, 10% might, and, and 3.5% if you think about who those audiences are, and what that revenue is, in a lot of cases, those are not really supporters of your organization or your cause, necessarily. They are people whose friend is having a birthday. And so whatever it whatever they put up there, I’m going to support it. In a lot of cases, they are somebody who maybe is a monthly donor to your organization who might give otherwise, but they’re going to make an additional gift over and above their previous giving level, because they’re like, well, I’m already a monthly donor to whatever organization, but my friends having a birthday and like, well, sure, I’ll throw another gift of $30 on top of that. And so it is, in a sense, it’s sort of extra revenue. I think it is it is revenue that would otherwise be really hard to acquire through normal channels. And so I think that’s where a lot of the potential is. And when you look at health groups, yeah, if it’s if it’s 10%, their entire online revenues is Facebook fundraisers. That’s pretty huge.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Why do you think that is?

Will Valverde 

Why is it bigger for health groups?

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, yeah.

Will Valverde 

So I think a couple of things. I think part of it is that Facebook fundraisers work best when they are personal. And so when somebody is saying it’s my birthday, or it is it is Giving Tuesday, and I’m gonna, I want I want to do a Facebook fundraiser, who should I do it for? A lot of people have a deeply personal connection to healthcare nonprofits. So you might be a survivor, you might be doing it in honor of a parent who passed away from cancer, whatever it might be, that personal connection is gonna make it be sort of the first place that you look. That’s part of it, another part of it is also these health nonprofits have a long history of peer to peer fundraising. So walk-a-thons have been a thing for health nonprofits forever, they have this sort of baked in peer to peer model, which means that there may be more effective than promoting it. I mean, it’s maybe a more natural sort of choice for somebody setting up a fundraiser. So that history I think really helps them as well. So I think it’s more than one thing, but I think it’s an interplay of like, what feels personal and authentic for the donor. And then also what is sort of a natural advantage that sector has in terms of their different fundraising models.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense to me. I actually ran my first marathon with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society with team and training. That was because my mom had at the time, she’s fine now, by the way, but my mom had cancer. She had stage four Lymphoma, so non Hodgkins Lymphoma, so yeah. Okay, so that’s Facebook, web traffic and devices. Half of all nonprofit website visits come from users on mobile devices. Holy guacamole.

Will Valverde 

We’ve hit that tipping point.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, right, 50%. So what says you about that? What does that mean?

Will Valverde 

I mean, this is, we were waiting for it. We were like this is the trend the direction been in this is not for nonprofits only. This is sort of where IA is going and how technology usage is changing. This is one of my favorite charts out of all the charts we have in the study, it is. Half of all traffic is now coming from users on mobile devices, as opposed to their laptop. That’s like 40%, I think is now desktop devices,  41%. There’s a little bit of tablet. But the tablet is not interesting, we’ll set that aside, half of all traffic’s coming from mobile users, but a third of transactions so actual donations are coming from mobile users and a quarter of the revenue is coming from mobile users. That’s why I said the data sounds made up because it’s so clean, it’s half a third and a quarter. And so what that means is somebody who visit your site on a desktop device is more likely to give than somebody who visits using a mobile device. And when they make a gift, they’re going to give a higher average gift if they’re on a desktop device. And so what we see is that the traffic share and the end of transactions or in the revenue share is all mobile is gaining on all of that there, it’s getting closer to parody in terms of conversion rates and average gift size. But it is still the case that a mobile user isn’t worth as much on average, but a bigger share of our audience is composed of those mobile users. And so this is there’s a lot to figure out there and a lot that we need to be doing as nonprofits trying to make the most of each visit, trying to try to increase our revenue to adapt to that reality, because we’re not going to go back people are not going to put down their cell phones.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

No they’re not. That has huge ramifications in terms of nonprofits thinking about their websites and making them mobile friendly.

Will Valverde 

I think we’ve gotten the message. I think most nonprofits have now done at least the basic thing of saying our website needs to load quickly it needs to look okay, you can’t just have everything sort of breaking if you’re on a phone, and we have mobile versions of our sites for the most part, and particularly for larger nonprofits. But yeah-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I was gonna say I don’t know that, I wish I felt that to be true for the smaller ones but I think they’re still struggling and the bums me out because it feels like yet another way where if you’re a smaller nonprofit, you’re you’re gonna fall further and further behind.

Will Valverde 

It’s hard. There are tools out there, but yes, it’s, we’re seeing a lot more doing that. But now what what we’re seeing the large nonprofit, if you’ve got that figured out, if you’ve got the sort of mobile optimization side figured out, then there are still, I think, two big questions that are being sorted out. And we’re responding some changes happening. So one is about content. What usually happens with sort of the mobile version of a site s that the same content that is just sort of rearranged and restructured so that it loads properly on a phone. Maybe that’s the best way. But it may actually be that we need to be reassessing the actual content that we are displaying on our websites, even in our email, so that there’s actually a version that is making the case in a different way, rather than just saying, let’s make sure the columns shrink, so they fit on a smaller screen. So there’s a content question. And then there’s a whole tech question of, are you using PayPal? Do you have Apple Pay set up? These kinds of things are as they get adopted make it easier to actually complete that gift on mobile, even if the asked is just as powerful, but you don’t want to be typing in a little form with with your thumbs on the bus. Having those having access to those other platforms can really sort of make that process easier. So I think we’re, that’s that’s sort of the next, the current phase and for some groups the next phase.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, that the difference between the acquisition channel and the transaction channel being clear about those and optimizing for both very important. Okay, text messaging. This is what stood out to me that nonprofit text messaging audiences grew by 26% in 2019, at a time when Facebook audiences grew by just 4% and email list sizes declined by 2%.

Will Valverde 

Yeah, so this is, but I think the scale really matters here. So the growth is definitely there for text messaging. Email, the size is declining by 2% sounds like a bad thing. But I think it’s actually in many cases, reflection of nonprofits taking list hygiene more serious. So it’s not that they’re not acquiring names. It’s doing a better job of actually eliminating the parts of their lists that are not performing somebody who hasn’t, who has a hotmail address that hasn’t opened an email in seven years. It’s like it’s better for your, yeah, all of those ones, some of them are active and that’s great and no shame if you’re somebody who has hung on to your AOL address the whole time monitor listening. But what what you see is that it is it’s better for your, for your your sender reputation. So you’re going to land in the spam box a lot less often, if you are having good list hygiene, it also makes your testing much more effective. Because if you are testing two different subject lines or two different approaches, whatever AV testing you’re running, if you have this massive dead weight that is not responsive to either one, it makes differences really hard to see, because everything gets drowned out by the non responsiveness. So in so that this declining, we saw that the same time as response rates slightly rose and I think what we’re doing is we’re actually doing a better job of cleaning up our list and sending relevant messages. So that’s a whole digression about the size. The growth in nonprofit text sizes at 26% is great, the average nonprofit had 72 mobile subscribers for every thousand email addresses they have. So The scale those is really fascinating. While it’s really it’s gonna be a partnership to supporters, it’s really small and we don’t really know how the performance is going to change as it grows.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

It’d be helpful if I unmuted myself. It feels like the type of relationship that nonprofits have with their text. Are you seeing or does the data say anything about differences in like, you  know, whatever the equivalent is to open or responsiveness to text versus email, text to me is so much more personal and intimate.

Will Valverde 

So it’s, it’s a little bit hard, the number that I care about most is response rate. So that’s like the percentage of people who receive a message in whatever shell and actually do the thing we want them to do, right signing a pledge or yelling at Congress or giving a donation. And because of the way these platforms are connected or not connected, we don’t have response rate data for text messaging, we have what we have is click through rate data. So that is how many will receive a message and then click through to the landing page or maybe they’re going to compute that gift, maybe they won’t. And so the click through data is, I think, really promising from the text perspective, it is an order of magnitude higher for fundraising. So the fundraising message at the email you’re going to get like, I’m sorry, I have that wrong. That’s for that’s for advocacy. But it’s about 10 times higher for fundraising about five times higher for advocacy. To see, well, the click through rate you’re getting for text messaging relative to email so much, much higher. The audience is much smaller, so you’re not seeing it that’s not driving all the revenue but that’s really promising. I am skeptical that that’s going to hold up over time. Just because right now people it’s not unusual to be on 15 or 20 or 30 different nonprofit email lists. And it’s pretty unusual to be on that many text messaging with the volume that we’re seeing is much, much higher. It is with more novel to be getting a text message, it is more personal. So I think there’s promise there. Email is also supposed to be personal. It used to be it should be I think we’re doing well we back in the day was still personal to the reader, and we should be making it as long as we can is it seems like-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I lost you there for a minute. I don’t know if it’s me or what but am I back?

Will Valverde 

Yep.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

All right. Okay, well to be continued on what happens with text messaging, and it is novel. So that makes sense to me. That’s also one that I think listeners should look at by sub sector because they’re pretty keen differences there.

Will Valverde

And, you know, it may also be that has different uses. So I think one of the things that we’re also seeing with texting is there’s also peer to peer texting, which is so things like hustle and get through these channels where organizers can use them to start these one on one conversations. Which is something that is not really done it at any sort of scale. It’s certainly not through email and social media sometimes you can do this with a chat windows and that sort of support. But I think that has a lot of possibility and a lot of potential there so we’re seeing, we’ve already seen it a bunch, I expect to see a lot of it this election cycle as candidates and campaigns and nonprofits use that peer to peer model to, especially as we’re still separated from each other to say you’re a volunteer, you can’t go knock doors, but you can do a you can do a canvassing shift on your phone. And you can be texting people to make sure they go register, get out to vote, and do all those sorts of things. So I think that potential for that peer to peer text messaging, I think, is really high and I’m pretty excited about that.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Interesting. Okay, social media. Here’s what jumped out at me, Instagram was the fastest growing of the three social media platforms for nonprofits with a 42% increase in the number of followers. So that’s a pretty big increase.

Will Valverde 

Yeah, I think this is the the trend we’ve seen over the last several years, which is social media is growing, all the channels are typically growing, the younger channels grow faster. And so Facebook is now growing at 4% a year it’s more mature, both in terms of its user base, but also in terms of sort of nonprofit participation in that space, most nonprofits have had now a Facebook page for a decade or more. Twitter has now been a thing for nonprofits for for a great many years. So while those audiences are growing, there’s just they’re closer to their ceiling. If there’s not be a ceiling, in general, it’s always new users, but they’re closer sort of maxing out sort of who is the potential audience. For a channel like Instagram, it’s still relatively new, a lot of nonprofits have only had their Instagram live for a year or two or less. And so we’re gonna see faster growth there as those audiences mature and then that’s gonna be quickly followed by like, are you on Tiktok, and with that, is that going to be the next thing so we right now just report on those three Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, but we changed our data set every year and if it looks like TikTok is becoming an important one or one of the other new ones, we’ll include those ones as well.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, okay. And this is my, I have to say, because I was worried that folks will hear that and you know, if you’d like then, we have to be on Instagram. Not necessarily. This is where you have to look at who your audiences and whether or not they’re on Instagram. So don’t hear that is like we have to be there, we have to be on all the channels. Most nonprofits don’t have the bandwidth to be on all the channels and or at least not do it well. So just don’t rush out and start your Instagram account just yet. Digital ads, nonprofit investment in digital ads increased by 17% in 2019.

Will Valverde 

Yeah, it continues to grow. It’s an important piece of the puzzle I think for a lot of nonprofits. For both lead acquisition, you’re gonna get getting new names and their email address on their email list or on their text messaging list, as well as just direct donor acquisition and retargeting, getting people to make a second gift becomes the standard, all the different things that we’re trying to do. It is it’s a crowded space, being able to pay for placement can really really boost your efforts.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

And just to be clear, digital ads much more for acquisition and really not a place for retention and donor stewardship based on what you’re seeing with the data?

Will Valverde 

Well, I think it depends on what we mean by retention and donor stewardship. So like, Yes, it is, I mean, it can be useful for that. And what we really see is really different breakdowns in the uses of advertising based on nonprofit size. So this is one where I feel like the sector breakdowns are actually a little bit less useful than the size breakdowns because we see big nonprofits with significant online revenue behaving really differently than small nonprofits that don’t have these big budgets. It’s a place where so for example, that  change in investment for large nonprofits investment in digital ads grew by about a third is like 30 some % growth, small nonprofits actually, on average, pulled back by about 20 some % in the amount that they were spending. And all these are individual decisions that are going to be sort of have their individual reasons. Some of them are budgetary changes, some of them are we tried it for a year and it kind of didn’t, we couldn’t make it work. So we’re gonna we’re gonna put that money somewhere else. All sorts of different reasons. But those really divergent trend lines I think are important and worth and worth looking at. It’s also when we look at sort of what nonprofits are spending sort of where they’re directing it, it really depends. And so for a large nonprofit, they’re spending 44% of their budget on direct fundraising. So that is some of that’s acquisitions. A lot of that is retargeting so, and retargeting is whether somebody landed on your donation page, but didn’t complete the gift so you kind of follow them around the internet until they complete the gift. That’s one method. But retargeting might also mean, we have an audience that our email list that we have, we know have taken action on this issue. We are going to upload that as our audience and target them on social media at some particular audience. It’s also that so it’s retargeting based on some behavior. And so I think in that sense, it can’t be retention. It can be about donor stewardship.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, that is fair, creepy, all that stuff gets super creepy in my mind.

Will Valverde 

It does, oh, yeah, there’s a lot of, you have to do it with a pure heart and then it’s okay. But for small nonprofits, only 20% of their budget is about direct fundraising. They’re spending almost half of the revenue of their of their budgets on digital ads on branding and awareness and education. So just name recognition or talking about the issue, it’s a really different mix of goals for a small nonprofit compared to a big nonprofit.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. Okay, that all that all rings true for sure. Okay, so now we’ve made it through the sort of key findings, again, go read the report, one, two, just get a dose of like, fabulous writing, total joy bomb in that department. And then also just the data so good, and so interesting and there’s a lot more where that came from. What does it all mean? Like as nonprofits hear all this and are looking to a post COVID world not only what does it mean for nonprofits, what does it mean for donors and for folks who are thinking about supporting the sector?

Will Valverde

It’s complicated. It’s complicated. Yeah. So I think that there are, as we were putting this together, so the timeline here was we gathered all this all this data in January for the previous year, and then in February we have all the data together, we start writing our analysis. And like, we were like kind of halfway through that process, when it became really clear that this pandemic was going to be really different than other crises that coming forward, there’s not going to be something that lasted a week or two, and then we all moved on, it was going to be with us for a while. And so it did become this moment of like, well, what can we even say about this, that is still gonna mean anything six months from now. And now we are a few months later and I think that some of the things that have felt important in the past still feel true now, I think they can still guide us. So and some of the things we’ve already been talking about. So talking about this, the increase in investment in digital ads, that’s not something that has to be affected by by COVID. In fact, in some ways, it is it has created new opportunities for some nonprofits, because as corporations have pulled back on their advertising spending, which we have seen, then that creates that that actually lowers costs for nonprofits. And so there’s actually a little more room there’s more inventory. And so that has actually been sort of a weird, unexpected effect of all these things, but the fact that we need to reach our donors, like hasn’t changed. And regardless of what your causes, it hasn’t stopped mattering. Even if you are a cultural institution, your Symphony and you are not actually allowed to perform right now. The the nature of who you are, and the value produced in the world hasn’t actually changed and we still need to communicate that. And so I think one of the things that I want people to do is still do what they were doing, but still do your job, still talk about your cause whatever it is, and talk about why it matters. This is a time I think a lot of transparency is really necessary. So if you’re a cause that has seen revenues declined by 50%, because you had to cancel one of your major fundraising events. Be honest about that with your supporters talk about what it’s going to impact and how it’s going to change the way you fulfill your mission moving forward. I think this is a time for honesty and transparency. It’s not a time to pull back. I think a lot of times, especially right away, there’s this instinct of being like, well, this crisis isn’t about us so we need to wait our turn. And I don’t think that that serves nonprofits really well. And I don’t think that it actually serves donors particularly well, either. I think, certainly we don’t want to say there was an earthquake yesterday, now let’s talk about our good news, like, that’s not quite the thing. You know, there’s, I mean right now, what’s happening in Minneapolis is is painful for a lot of people. And so, acting like that’s not happening or like it’s about you when it’s not, I think isn’t appropriate and wrong, and also just not going to work. But that doesn’t mean that because there’s a pandemic that you’re caused has stop mattering, or that your donors don’t want to hear from you, you may need to change what you are saying. And I think you should always acknowledge the reality of what people are going through because because I just think it’s the right thing to do. But also because your donors are humans, they are feeling things. You’re also a human. I’m assuming that most of your listeners are human beings and so we can talk about your own lived human experience and be authentic about it and when you do that, it will make a difference. It you may not see the same response to in fundraising, you know, right now, that you might normally see because if you’re not a cause that is sort of directly addressing the current crisis, but it does mean but you but you will still be in people’s hearts in their minds and they will come back to you, they will stay with you. And you’ll be surprised that they get how many of them are willing to support you, if you can make them know that they matter and that your cause still matters.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the point about we’re all humans and and that’s more important than ever, really. It concerns me, I totally get it and it concerns me it feels like a lot of nonprofits are waiting for permission to advocate for their mission. And, you know, if you go dark, folks are going to think you’ve gone dark. It gives a really, possibly not accurate picture of what’s happening for you. So I definitely, you know, hear from a lot of organizations that are like, feels weird, and I feel weird and like because it’s weird, it’s all weird. And so that’s, you know, start from that place of empathy and acknowledge what’s happened in the world and, and you still, if your work was important before, it’s important now and it’s going to be important into the future.

Will Valverde 

And I think it’s also one of the things that’s hardest is there’s, it feels like there’s no space for joy, or there’s no space for positive feelings in a moment like this. And that is maybe appropriate when there’s an immediate tragedy. So when there is a tsunami, talking about the joy you bring to the world, I think it’s inappropriate and bad in all sorts of ways. But the covid pandemic is a moment that is extending in all of our lives and touching all of us for months and months and months in, in all these different ways. And so, if you are a group where what you do is you if you’re an arts organization, and and what you do is expression sayings now’s not the time for us to express ourselves, I think is not right, and you can’t, we can’t wait forever. You actually you have you are performing a valuable service by bringing that human expression into the world and by fighting for the causes that you fight for whatever it is, people need that too. They need to feel like they can do something that makes a difference. I think that’s, you know, early on in the when this pandemic happened and things were starting to shut down, it wasn’t really clear what you were allowed to go do, I went and I donated blood, because I just like was scheduled to do that and almost nothing over the last several months has made me feel better than that. Even though that is like unhelpful in any sort of scale. It was like, oh, I can do one thing. And I think that you anytime you can get somebody to make a donation to your cause, and they feel like they’re making a difference about something in the world. It’s empowering. It feels like you’re in control, like you’re doing something good and like you’re making a choice.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

And it releases happy chemicals in their brains.

Will Valverde 

That’s a thing, yeah, there’s a biological response. And there’s sort of it can feel good. And so I think that’s, you know, I don’t think we’ve seen a decline in people setting up Facebook, fundraisers, the balance of which organizations are being the beneficiary, those might have changed, but, you know, on my feed, anybody who’s having a birthday is still like, well, now I’m raising money for this thing, and it feels good to give to it. I think people should keep doing it.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, yeah. So it’s funny you mentioned joy and some other things and inspiration and arts organizations. At the end I asked every guest this, at the end of the interview so I learned somewhat recently that if you look at where the word inspiration came from it actually means to breathe in, and then motivation of course means to take action so you breathe out so you need both in balance. And so my question for you is right now what inspires you and what motivates you to keep doing this work?

Will Valverde 

Oh, man, that’s like heavy.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

It’s only heavy if you make it heavy, Will.

Will Valverde 

Yeah. I am inspired, I mean, always, but this is like so pandering, but like by my clients, honestly, I feel so lucky. I am a consultant which means that I get to work for every cause that I care about at some time or another. I am not limited to just the one cause that I’ve been putting in day in day out with and and I have not seen for the wide variety of causes we work with, anybody who is not still showing up. And I think people are reaching out to each other they are, they’re doing the work, they are having a really hard time in many cases, and they’re still doing it. And so it feels to me as a privileged person, I in in so many ways, including the fact that I was already working from home, I’ve been a remote worker for eight years. So I didn’t have to set up a home office and scramble to figure out zoom like even just like that, like if I if all these people who are having such a hard time are still showing up and doing the work. It’s it feels easy to do it no matter how hard it is. And so I think that’s that’s my motivation, or inspiration. So clients if you’re listening, you’re my inspiration that is like the most pandering thing I could possibly say but like, there it is. That’s the truth.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

What motivates you?

Will Valverde 

Oh, I don’t know. Wait, what’s the difference?

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Inspiration is breath in. It gives you energy and the motivation is kind of like what what’s the impetus to like keep going.

Will Valverde 

Sheer terror, I think, and despair, I think is my main motivator. Like-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, we’re going there at the end of the day.

Will Valverde 

Yeah, by, on the flip side everybody’s showing up and doing the work is that the work needs to be done and and you know, looking around the world already, you know, in general and pick your your crisis that has been building for decades and centuries or sort of the current political climate. Or then you know, obviously now we have pandemic and then like right now I don’t know when this is going to get posted, but like, right now there’s like, unrest in Minneapolis because of the police violence and like, those things aren’t going away and they’re not going to go away on their own and nothing has ever gotten better by people either ignoring it or or just only hoping without doing and so I don’t know, I guess it’s yeah, it’s like constant existential dread and despair is what motivates me. So there you go. I’m inspired in a pandering way and I’m also filled with despair and horror.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

It’s a good thing you have those clients of yours, Will. Because otherwise I feel like it’d be a lot of existential negativity.

Will Valverde 

Yeah anyways, go look at M&R everybody there are jokes about space.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

There are I mean, there’s throughout this report, I mean, I don’t want to leave that but without saying I feel that and there’s a lot in this moment that is heavy. And it’s, you know, I’m a very privileged educated white woman and it’s so it’s by definition less heavy for me and heavier for our friends, colleagues and people of color. So before we move on, whenever this is whenever this airs, that’s still going to be the case. I appreciate M&R as I’ve said on a number of levels one of them is your constant. There’s always a call to action, a call to be better and do more, just in the most inviting of ways however, so Will, I thank you for this report. It has been so fun, as a fan of the report it has been really fun to hear from you about it. Thanks for coming and sharing all the data goodness and dorkiness with listeners. Listeners again if you want to dig in more go to MRbenchmarks.com that is MRbenchmarks.com. I feel like that’s Will keeping himself entertained right there. I mean M&R anyway, MRbenchmarks.com and as always, if you want to keep talking about this if you have more questions about it join me in the Marketing for Good Facebook group and we’ll keep talking about how marketing can change the world. Do good, be well and I will see you next time.

The post Ep 14: Will Valverde: Benchmarking Your Way to Fundraising Success appeared first on Claxon Communication.

This is a transcript of Erica Mills Barnhart’s interview with Beth Castleberry on the Marketing for Good podcast. You can listen to the episode here and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. Enjoy!

KEY WORDS

people, fundraising, marketing, mission, nonprofit, thinking, invitation, grounbreaking

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Welcome, everyone, to the marketing for good podcast. If you’re new here, I’m so so glad you’re joining us, if you’re returning thanks for coming back. I have a wonderful guest today, Beth Castleberry, who I will introduce in a moment before we begin a reminder if you or your team they’re not mutually exclusive, but sometimes are, are feeling a little like low on inspiration or motivation as it comes to your marketing your fundraising, messaging, anything like that, it turns out I tire of a lot of things but but I never tire of talking to people about nonprofit marketing. So let me know, get in touch, if I can help for sure. And I do coaching I came to realize that people didn’t realize that that I still do coaching I do I love it, love it, love it. It’s like part cheerleading part therapy part like strategy. So anyway, if that sounds good to you go to claxon-communication.com/coaching book a time and we will make that happen. Now to our guest, Beth Castleberry. Beth is a native of the Seattle area, which for those of you who are not familiar with Seattle is quite rare. That is worth noting, I want to come back to that. She has served in the nonprofit sector for more than 20 years. Today Beth serves as the Chief Development Officer at Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center. Previously, she spent 11 years fundraising for public libraries and held leadership positions in development and the arts, higher education and with a social impact investor. Beth is past president of AFP Advancement Northwest. She was the Founding Board President for the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation, where she crossed paths, just fun fact, where she crossed paths with Maria Ross, a former guest on this podcast. So that was just fun to learn. And she currently serves on the Campaign Committee for Seattle Girl School. Welcome to the show, Beth.

Beth Castleberry 

Thank you, Erica.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Super fun that you’re here.

Beth Castleberry 

I’m delighted.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I always start with backstory. I mean, you’ve listened to the podcast. So thank you. So you know that like I always ask people kind of like, what was your path to get here? Partially just because I find it really fascinating. I hope the listeners do too people have commented like, you know, it’s kind of interesting does it relate directly to nonprofit marketing? No. But it’s interesting. And clearly, you’ve done a whole bunch of interesting things. So you’re a Seattle native?

Beth Castleberry 

Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Let’s start there, born and bred, super unusual. And then you stayed.

Beth Castleberry 

I did. So I do have a big asterix next to my native status in that my parents who are from here, Tacoma kids, both of them, graduated from, my dad from Bellarmine, my mother from Aquinas, married, went to the University of Washington, and then were drafted and moved to Georgia. So I was born in Augusta, Georgia at an army base there. And then we migrated back to the Northwest. So, I still consider myself a native, albeit my actual place of origin, place of birth, my place of birth is a little bit different. But definitely, you know, raised here, all my family and friends are here and was first introduced to fundraising here when I was a student at Washington State University, working in the Alumni Association. And at that time, WSU had really kind of the leading edge tele-funding program Call-A-Coug.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Cougars, it’s the Washington State Cougars for listeners who aren’t familiar with the area, so Call-A-Coug, love it.

Beth Castleberry 

High affinity in the alumni base. So it was a very successful, groundbreaking early outreach to like, hey, we could call our alumni with students and students could relate their experience and because Washington State University is located in very small town in Pullman, we quickly realized that it didn’t really matter that this alumni had graduated maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, they can very much relate to the campus experience that the student was having today.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Oh, that’s interesting.

Beth Castleberry 

And you know, I don’t I, I no longer get calls from Call-A-Coug. They’ve kind of moved on from that outreach. But, you know, I found it to be true when I was in alum as well, you know, I really did want to ground myself and kind of watch what’s going on in the campus today. And, and then specifically, of course, they would try to match students who were studying the same things that you had graduated in. So I’m a graduate of the School of Hospitality and Business Management. So like a good grad, I ended up going to work for a hotel chain in Los Angeles. And it was very glamorous it was actually exactly what a gal who grew up in rural Western Washington and who went to school in rural Eastern Washington would think Hollywood was.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

That’s fun.

Beth Castleberry 

It was really fun. I mean, it we because the I was working at the Beverly Hilton. So we had a lot of award shows, we had the Golden Globes, we had the Directors Guild, we had, you know, the Emmy Award voting was my was one of my clients. So I got to go to the Emmy Awards and be a seat filler at some awards that happened.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

You were a seat filler?

Beth Castleberry 

Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay. Well, who was your favorite famous person that you met? Or one of them?

Beth Castleberry 

You know, one of the famous favorite people I met was Sean Connery. I will tell you, I mean, this was in the 90s. And he was already, you know, a distinguished gentleman, shall we say? But his physical presence is pretty daunting. It, he just has this charisma that jumps out at you. And then the same was true of Iman. She was the model, creator of David Bowie.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yes. David Bowie’s wife.

Beth Castleberry 

And I saw her in the, in the ladies room when we were at an event together. And I, I just kept looking in the mirror really looking at her, but I was, she just glows. She’s, I mean, this was, you know, an event where there were lots of movie stars in line. And, and yet, even amongst this amazing group of beautiful women who were all, you know, very, extremely quaffed and put together, she’s still just jumped off the page, and she was, just jumped out of the room. She was beautiful. So it’s kind of fun.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, so you have your glitzy Beverly Hills experience. And then how do you make your way back to fundraising in Seattle?

Beth Castleberry 

Yes. Well, you know, I’ve come to believe that all of us in the Pacific Northwest are a little like the salmon. We all start here. We go away, we come back. And so when I when I was in Los Angeles, and this is really fun, but this doesn’t feel like real life. And I’m eventually going to get back to Seattle. And when I come back to Seattle, I think I’ll look for a job in fundraising, being kind of the littlest fish in the in the food chain at the Beverly Hilton. Most of my clients were nonprofit clients. So I would have Dennison College reunion or the MS Society annual meeting. And I found that I really enjoyed reconnecting with these nonprofits. And I thought, you know, planning an event on the hotel side, and planning an event on the nonprofit side can’t be all that different. So within a year of coming back in Seattle, I’ve landed at the Seattle Symphony in the campaign to build Benaroya Hall, which is the performing venue for the Seattle Symphony. And worked with an extraordinary group of leaders who have gone on to just do amazing things. I was just making a note before we jumped on this of where everyone had landed. And Jeb Ricard, who was the Executive Director that time is now the Director at the Kennedy Center. You know, Bernie Griffin, who was the Director of the annual fund at that time is now the Director of the Fifth Avenue Performing Arts in Seattle. You know, Betsy Kern, who was my immediate boss was head honcho at the Seattle Parks. I mean, it’s just this extraordinary roster of dynamic and thoughtful and driven and compassionate leaders. And I thought, all right, this fundraising things for me, so I mean, I was all in. So that was at the Seattle Symphony. And then from there, I went to my first library gig, which was Seattle Public Library, where I spent five years later, I would spend six years at the King County Library System where you and I had a chance to work together. Then I spent a little bit of time or a period of time, seven years with Global Partnerships, who evolved from very much a family founded funded micro lender to what they are today, which is an extraordinary impact first investment organization that really helps people living in poverty, find opportunity. So right now, here I am. Coming up in my first year anniversary at Fred Hutch. We call it Fred Hutch.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I was wondering about that. So it used to be Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center and now it’s just Fred Hutch?

Beth Castleberry 

Now it’s just Fred Hutch. So you know, part of that was actually very intentional pre COVID. But Fred Hutch has always had a big piece of business, if you will, in viral research. And so much of that had to do with the fact that when we pioneered bone marrow transplants, transplant patients would survive the transplant, and then the first flu season that would come along, they would pass from the flu, right? So from that they really started a viral enterprise to figure out how do we cure viruses, and then as HIV came along, our working in viruses grew. And then we’ve actually had some amazing scientists join the faculty in the last decade or more and really pioneer the HPV vaccine. And then here, we were ready, and did a lot of the early tracking and testing with COVID because we already had the Seattle Flu Network up and going. So we were tracking the spread of the flu at the same time that the Coronavirus hit. So we have a huge enterprise actually now of everything from the tracking and the tracing to I think there’s five vaccine trials that are active at the Hutch right now. And amazing amount of work. So.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Wow, I did not I did not realize that. Okay, so that’s super helpful.

Beth Castleberry 

It’s really, so for many reasons, but certainly that is one every day I’m so grateful to be at the Hutch. And it’s just been a really extraordinary year in the world.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. What a first year.

Beth Castleberry 

Yes. Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

So Fred Hutch is a big enterprise. So for listeners, can you give a sense of like the bigness?

Beth Castleberry 

Yes, though, you know, for if you want to look at, for instance, just fundraising, our annual fundraising goal, annual goal, not campaign goal, not being in a campaign is about 80 to 90 million. And that’s on an average year. Yes, a lot. And so, you know, this this last year, we got over 80, which was extraordinary. This year, I think we’re going to be a little less, but you know, we’re still really excited about that. And we on the individual side, we’ll probably raise about $40 million through our annual fund, through our major gifts effort, and then through plan gifts. And that’s about a team of about 25 people will be-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay, that’s helpful for scale.

Beth Castleberry 

And that’s gifts in the door this year. So there, they may be multiple year commitments, but the actual cash that will come in.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Okay. So you’re on a cash basis rather than accrual.

Beth Castleberry 

We do do accrual, but cash is king as they say.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Alright. And you have like, I mean, Fred Hutch has multiple lines of business. I’m assuming a lot of research funding and all the rest of it.

Beth Castleberry 

Yeah, we have national international grants. Yes.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I wanted to sort of get that in listeners, minds and viewers minds. Because with I mean, this is always true that there is kind of, I would say, have a fuzzy line. This is like an ongoing conversation in the nonprofit sector, right. Like, what’s the difference between marketing and fundraising? And, and then I want to go into like marketing, when we hear the word we most people are like, oh, external marketing. But there’s this whole part that is internal marketing. So let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with how do you see as a fundraiser, what do you view the role of marketing to be?

Beth Castleberry 

I view the role of marketing, as the invitation. And the invitation can be meeting someone who is what is Fred Hutch? I’ve never heard of it, just generating some awareness. It could also be, why would Fred Hutch be of interest to me? So how does this relate? Oh, do you study viruses? I didn’t know that. Oh, you know, I didn’t recognize that you do ongoing trials. I thought it was something different. Maybe it was just research. So I think it can be the invitation. And fundraising is one of the actions that can come from that invitation. So in listening to your podcast, I was listening to one where you were talking about calls to action. And initially I was thinking about well, you know, the difference is marketing is the invitation and fundraising is call to action. But the reality is, I think, or at least for me, I think marketing is the invitation and it may include a call to action. The difference for me is that fundraising is also about the impact the donor wants to have versus the invitation that the organization is offering. The fundraising side is hopefully the donor is also offering, what impact they want that gift to have.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

So marketing is like the kind of like the getting folks into the door, the invitation to sort of like, join and come inside. And then they could go to multiple rooms within the home or the organization, fundraising being one of those rooms.

Beth Castleberry 

Yes. Could be, they could become a really informed advocate, they can become a volunteer, they could become a staff member, marketing can result in a lot of wonderful outcomes and a philanthropic gift might be one of them.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

And then let’s just tie here, just I don’t know if any listeners are thinking or wondering this, but my brain then goes to like, okay, so then what’s the difference between marketing and branding? And my take would be that, you know, branding, let’s just stick with the house example. Because it’s working for me for the moment, I hope for others, you know, that’s like, what kind of house are you going to have? Are you going to have a mid century modern? Are you going to have a colonial as a, you know, what’s it going to be? So it’s sort of like those, those external things. But here’s the important kind of thing I want to point I want to make is, that informs everything that’s inside too, right. So we’ve all experienced, like, you’ve walked in, walk into a house that from the outside, you’re like, oh, it’s gonna be like this and you walk in, you’re like, I’m sorry what? You know, why is there an anti hutch in the middle of this ultra modern home? And we’ve also experienced, like, continuity of, you know, from the outside to the inside to everything. So, you know, these things are all related, obviously. So I just think it’s really important to like, call out how they’re related, yet, they all have their individual distinct roles. So okay, let’s go into because you do work at this, like big enterprise. Now. So how much and what does it look like for you to kind of do fundraising and marketing internally, when they’re already in there? They’ve already accepted the offer. So is there a role for marketing internally in a place like Fred Hutch?

Beth Castleberry 

Absolutely. And I think there, there are always is in, you know, one of the things that I borrowed from the CL Girls School, who I think, was masterful in setting up their charter, I’m not a parent, part of their charter is that at least 40% of their board members will be non parents, because they actually want it to be larger than, well, Spanish works really well for my daughter so I would like everyone to have Spanish, they really want it to be much more global and larger than any one individual child, what are we doing? So one of the things that they did, and I was introduced to as a board member who was a non parent is they had a mission moment. And a lot of organizations do this, but they really baked it into the DNA that every meeting, we would have a mission moment and whether it was a student, whether it was a faculty member, whether it was a parent, but someone talked about why this organization was important to them. So they would read the mission statement, which they also have on their table tents, which I’ve seen done before, but their mission is so delightful that it really works. And they would have someone talk about why they came to the organization and why they stayed. And we folded that into our meetings at Fred Hutch as well. And we just recently did a survey about how effective our meetings are, especially in remote work, we found that to be really important. And the mission moment came up as the number one aspect of our meetings that people really connected to it. A) It was a great way to learn about our colleagues. But B) it just affirmed that for most of us, cancer is very personal. And we can forget that we can forget why we’re here, what difference it makes whose lives are at stake, what are we doing, so if I think grounding in the mission on a on a daily basis, or weekly basis is really key. And helps some of the distractions just fall away. So I think that that’s really, really helpful. And it also is really core in that branding or orienting on the inside is for people to also appreciate what methodologies we’re going to employ to hit our goal. So you know, if there was someone who said, gosh, you know, I really care about cancer, but my mission is going to be help people whose kids are in treatment right now. Like that’s really what I want to do is I want to give relief to those families. That is tremendous. That is not what Fred Hutch does. So making sure there’s both alignment around the mission, and how are we going to go about fulfilling that mission? Otherwise, I think you set yourself up for for a lot of friction and a lot of tension because people feel like, this is what I want to do. Why aren’t we doing it?

Erica Mills Barnhart 

And an instance like that, do you guide them to someplace that is doing it? I assume there’s some education where you say, that’s, that’s wonderful, that’s, that’s not what we do and here’s another place you would think of?

Beth Castleberry 

Exactly.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. Okay. And I can imagine some listeners that work for smaller organizations were like, well, that’s nice for you, Fred Hutch with millions of bucks. I mean, it’s tough. You know, and I think the smaller your budget is, and particularly right now, with COVID, and everything else that’s happening, we, you know, we know how much organizations are struggling, actually, you know, my capacity at University of Washington, we just got we just closed a survey last week about the impact of COVID on nonprofits in Washington State. Total, not surprising, out of that was just, you know, how much it’s impacted fundraising roles. So so we’ll see, we’ll see what that shifts, but um, you know, I think I think it’s tough to turn down money.

Beth Castleberry 

It really is. And I think, you know, one of the funny experiences I had in my years of libraries, was that whenever I told someone I worked at the library, they would immediately say, oh I love the library. And then they would say, do people still use the library? On a dime, you know, just the exact same two sentences would come out of their mouth. And, you know, 10,000 people a day I think it is, or is it is it a month, 10,000 people a month, sign up for a library card, at the King County Library System. And it’s really our privilege that we can of step back and say do people still use the library? And people were often, you know, nostalgic about the library, they wanted the library to be just about books, and they wanted it to be hardback books, or at least soft back books, so that they could go in and physically check out because that’s how we remember using the library. And we would have to talk about like the library, the busiest library branch is its online database, and why it is so important that we fund flexible dollars. So the library right now is offering job placement services, is offering new online story times for families who are housebound, is offering you know, citizenship classes for those who want to become American citizens, and all of the other things that the library would do, and kind of why their nostalgia for funding books is important. And the end that they wanted to see through that was informed citizenry would only happen if they can broadened their vision. And sometimes it worked, and most times it worked, but not always, you know, sometimes people are like, no, this is what I want to fund. Trying to, that’s why it’s fun to raising versus the marketing. Like we can tell them what we’re doing and they may not accept that invitation to support it.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

The marketing has gotten them there, though, into the library back as it were. Yeah, that’s what it was interesting in the work that we did together at King County Library System, which is the King County Library System is the largest in the country?

Beth Castleberry 

The fourth largest.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Fourth largest. It’s big, though, I mean, huge, huge. And the online piece of it, prior to COVID was a really big part of what that library system did. And that was, you know, that was eye opening, like I kind of knew, but just the sense of breath, which of course, you know, from branding and marketing messaging perspective was interesting to kind of navigate. It was like how much in the mission statement do you talk about books, when books are just at this point, kind of an example of how you access information, and you know, what, and then what does information do for you and, and, and all of that. So I want to go back, though, to this mission moment, which I agree isn’t necessarily a new idea. But I think it’s really, I think it’s interesting, how much of an impact that that’s had for folks at someplace like Fred Hutch, which if we take a step back, I could see makes sense, because so many folks are I mean, it’s big, right? So it’s like in it’s administrators and researchers and scientists and you know, lots of folks, but I actually in every single instance where I’ve worked with an organization and they and they start doing that it’s just huge. And then I’m thinking particularly a board, you know, boards of directors who come out and about in the world in between those board meetings. So for listeners, if you’re not doing the mission moment in your board meetings, and staff meetings, you know, it’s definitely something to add and doesn’t have to be like big or onerous, it lovely. I see no downside to mission moment.

Beth Castleberry 

One of the great things I think this meeting virtually has given us is these different tools in which people can respond. So one of the facilitators that I’ve really appreciated, has has done this work where, you know, he’ll ask a question about, you know, what, what piece of the mission do you feel most connected to you today? Or what is inspiring you about our work today? Or who’s a researcher whose work you admire? Think about it either, write, he, he really encouraged you to take a physical implement, and write it down, because there’s so little of that, or once you’ve written it down, and if you have written it down, rather, or type it into the chat, but don’t push, send, don’t push send and then everybody push send at once and, and you really do get this cascade this waterfall of just wonderful attributes and why people are there and why they’re connected. And it allows for people who are on that continuum of introvert and extrovert to kind of share equally which has been just great. And the other thing I think, has been really key is that, you know, in these, this new world that we’re in, we’ve had a lot of shining stars come forward that maybe wouldn’t have, you know, one of our more introverted, quieter scientists is a guy named Trevor Bedford, and he has become like this Twitter superstar. He was one of the earliest that was tracking, you know, the pandemic and flattening the curve and he had all these amazing graphics about what would happen if we did this, and what would happen if we did that. And, and, you know, you can follow him on Twitter, he will say that one of our internal meetings I thought was hysterical, you know, he was having a very thoughtful dialogue with our president director about, you know, what we could expect in the next couple months and this was way back in March. And Trevor’s cat would walk in front of the camera. And so in the chat, you see all of these wonderful comments about like, what’s your cat’s name, Trevor, say hi to the cat. And he just kept going, you know, he was a scientist, he was not going to be dissuaded. And it was, it was great, though, you know, he was there because he was, you know, an industry expert. He wasn’t there to chat about his kitty cat. But it was it made him human in that moment, and it was really good fun.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, those moments are, those moments are good. So it sounds, it sounds like also, you get internal alignment through this reminder of the mission moment, or you know, who’s inspiring you internally and, you know, that’s so helpful, because then when you go to do external marketing, and then fundraising, just knowing that everyone’s in alignment is so important, because otherwise it causes, you know, kind of, it can cause a little bit of mayhem, when you get some further along.

Beth Castleberry 

Yeah, and I think it’s also really key to invite people to realize how their role connects to it to a researcher, it’s pretty easy, it’s pretty straightforward. So for someone who works in the business office, and is processing invoices, it might be a little harder. And so one of the things that I think is really key is to look at that and say, okay, but if our financials are not in order, when we go to apply for a grant, we may be turned down, no matter how brilliant the science is, or when we show it and report to a foundation, and we ask them for their support, if they say, gosh, you know, we’re just looking at your website, and this doesn’t line up, or we looked at your 990 and we see these errors, we’re not going to have confidence. So I think making sure that people can see, oh, my role in accounting, is to provide accurate financials, because without those accurate financials, we’re not going to have this organization that we’re all so proud of.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, yeah. And also, I mean, I love that, that like accounting all the way to getting the grants, because oftentimes, those can be pretty siloed. Yeah, yeah, super important, you know, up, down, sideways, in and out, to get that alignment going on. So aside from the obvious that we are all working from home, all sheltered in place during a global pandemic. I want to transition talk about trends a little bit. It’s, I mean, it’s such an interesting time to be looking at trends and, and what’s happening and, you know, trying to like figure out like is that a trend, or is that just something that Suzy was doing last week? I don’t know. Um, but what, what trends are you seeing that you think nonprofits should be paying attention to? I know, you’re, you’re particularly intrigued. And actually now this makes more sense about the now that I know the backs this is why as for the backstory, knowing that you were in hospitality at that fancy hotel, particularly intrigued with the idea that the pandemic, that there’s a relationship between the pandemic and the anti-racist and Black Lives Matter movements, and how that’s changed the way celebrities are using their influence. Now audiences are, you know, interested in hearing more from experts and all that’s so. Okay, so let’s start there.

Beth Castleberry 

Yes. So I’ve been noticing this and then when I was reflecting I thought I should just make sure that I’m just not alone in this

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Sure. It’s like, a thing thing and not just a bad thing.

Beth Castleberry 

Yes, exactly. Yes. So I, as we all do, you know, started searching and realizing that yes, there there has been this coalescence, if you will, around, really wanting to hear from experts. And there was a great piece in The New York Times a couple months ago that talked about and it tied it back to our most basic needs around security. And the idea that in these moments, we feel most safe and secure when we know we are listening to experts in their field, and that they have no other agenda, other than to impart their information. And that they will acknowledge if they don’t know. And so you know, I think in in, you know, the United States, we look at Dr. Fauci and his credibility rate is, you know, I think high 80s last I checked, there’s a Dr. Fauci in for in Germany. There’s a Dr. Fauci in Italy, there’s a Dr. Fauci in Japan, whatever their expert biologist or epidemiologist is, is having those same press conferences, and they’re becoming household names, you know, that everyone knows who Dr. Fauci is, now, where six months ago, I don’t think any of us had ever heard of Dr.Fauci. And now they sell t shirts and candles, and you know, stickers with his head, candles-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Candles?

Beth Castleberry 

 Yes, at least I know a person with-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

That’s super creepy. I’m melting.

Beth Castleberry 

And so it was fascinating to see, at the same time, they were kind of, you know, gaining fame and presence. We also saw this diminished kind of role of people who used to be on the cover of kind of People Magazine and Us Weekly and, and more every day people becoming our faces of celebrity, and that we have this need for connecting that is happening on a very genuine level with people and this empathy that I’m sure that you and Maria talked about, that people really want to know, like, what, what’s going on for other people who are experiencing this? What can I expect? And what I’ve noticed is that celebrities are using their platforms to introduce either new people they feel like should be lifted up, you know, whether it’s a black lives matter movement or someone in the health profession, and they’re getting out of the way. So there was the Pass the Mic Campaign that One Campaign did where you know, Julia Roberts was one who she gave over her social media channels to Dr. Fauci for I think it was a week and he would, you know, post pictures of himself on Instagram washing his hands and, and you know what he was tweet about what he was doing throughout the day. And then Joel McHale, local Seattle’s love, had started doing some work with Fred Hutch years ago. But then in this pandemic, started using a platform of Facebook Live to host conversations with a Fred Hutch researcher all about COVID. And he is obviously well read when he is prepared for those interviews. He knows what he’s talking about. He never comes on and says, this is Joel McHale telling you, he sets it up so he’s going to have this conversation with Josh Schiffer who’s the expert and field some questions and in response to what he sees in his chat and the Facebook Live and is using that platform versus you know, taking his own stance on it. Just opening the door for an expert to come through.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, you know, I, I think a lot about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And really, it becomes, it becomes relevant, you know, moments like this. I do actually take a little umbrage with the idea that on the hierarchy It’s like basic physical needs or you know, at the bottom food shelter, not that I disagree with that. I just happen to believe that in our, that we have evolved to a certain place where psychological and I think this is playing out where we’re seeing, like psychological needs and physical needs are kind of on par at this point. Like, if you don’t feel safe psychologically, you’re not gonna, you know, it’s hard to think about some other things. So, you know, I just offer if he was still around, maybe a little bit, a little adjusting of that. But that, you know, we’re down here like if we stick with it, we’re not up here in like self actualization, you know, even though some of us have a lot of time, more time than we’re used to having. So you may be doing like some other activities. But the other thing I’m definitely you know, hearing from a lot of people is that, you know, the impact, the cumulative impact of just the weirdness and how stressed everybody is, and that, you know, people’s ability to access, any length of concentration is just shot, and then people feel guilty about it. So I guess I mentioned in here to say, if this is happening for you, there’s nothing, don’t feel guilty. There’s nothing you can do about that, like you are human, that is the most normal thing to be happening right now. But the you know, and what breaks my heart is when to hear examples of folks who are in, you know, working situations where there is no grace for that and-

Beth Castleberry 

There just needs to be grace for this. And I and I, so appreciate what you’re saying about, you know, this moment in time, you have to look at, what are you doing today, and it works today. It may not work tomorrow, it may not work next week, I had occasion, I had to go back into the office. We’ve been remote for six months now. And I had to go back into the office yesterday to pick something up and yeah, just surreal to go in that space and it’s this time capsule of what posters are still on the wall and the clocks are still on daylight savings time. It’s really strange. We had a very fun what was like, in a bonding experience across, you know, the entire fifth floor of the building I work in, which was a Bachelor bracket. I’ve never been a big Bachelor watcher. But you could-

Erica Mills Barnhart 

I had no clue what that was, I was like are you talking about the show or an actual unit?

Beth Castleberry 

But anyway, and I actually ended up doing pretty well. I think I came in like fourth or fifth. But I was like, that person who is really annoying and the sweet 16 where it’s like, I’m going to pick them based on their mascots. And then you know, you end up doing well. But, any who, it’s still up on the wall, because we went home in March before the show had finished. And so you know, that feels like ages ago, you can, that we we didn’t have a television show where people all live in one house together.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah. Okay, so I want to, I want to bring this back to something you said earlier to make it relevant aside from just a complete sidebar, slash rant about Maslow’s Hierarchy being a little off in my humble opinion. I feel among especially within nonprofits, you know, where you kind of carry your mission, really close to your heart and I am definitely noticing, and I would say particularly my, you know, colleagues of color, those working in communities of color, other marginalized communities closer to the black lives matter movement, all of that. There’s just so much. And the burnout is so high, and it’s so real. And I wonder what your thoughts are on, you know, if you’re managing, if you’re managing people or teams, like, you know, there’s a certain amount of like, the work has to be done. So how do you balance that with, you know, there’s like, your goals so if you go back to 80 gajillion, I’m rounding. You know, how do you, how do you balance that?

Beth Castleberry 

Yeah, I think a big piece of it is grounding in that psychological safety. And, you know, Google did, this is a decade ago, probably now, a deep survey over what teams were the most productive. And the teams, they found that were the most productive were those that had the most psychological safety. And that really came from having clarity about what was expected of them, having respect, and then knowing that they could rely on their colleagues. So when I started this job almost a year ago, I went in with that knowledge thinking, okay, I really need to create this safe place where people are going to have trust in me, and they’re going to have trust in each other. And how do we do that? And then, of course, that work was just amplified when we went remote. You know, how do we continue to have, you know, a safety zone where people feel like they they trust that if they tell me, I have to I have to miss this meeting, because my child has a really important exam and we can’t be on WiFi while they’re doing this, I have to honor that. And I know that that’s not going to reflect on that person, that their commitment is still real. They’re also having this other commitment that is really real and how do we create space for that? So I do think it requires a lot of fortitude, in being grounded in what the end goal is, and not getting caught up in the how do you get there? And also allowing people that space to not always show up as their best self and giving them a little bit of grace and forgiveness if they’re having a tough day, because we all have those tough days. And I think someone might be having a tough day, because I’m getting little dings as we’re talking. But um, you know, there’s those moments of that. So I think there is continually reminding people of that safe space, then there’s a couple other things, I think one is definitely communicating in multiple channels. So what I’ve found is that we have, we have regular staff meetings and regular meetings. And then two days after that meeting, someone will say, you know, they just haven’t told us like, what is going on with XYZ? And I think, gosh, I know, you were in that meeting, and I saw you on Zoom so I, you seem present, but then having it in writing for that person is just critical, you know, or maybe in that moment, even though they looked physically present, they just mentally were thinking about, you know, why is that dog barking upstairs or what’s happening in my life? So I think it’s having the multiple channels of communication additionally and then I think, you know, it’s also doing really regular check in so sadly, one thing we have seen is that the number of meetings we’re all doing is is just skyrocketing. But if you can make those shorter and more concise, they can still be really present for people and, and having more regular check ins is really, I think, been really key for keeping those doors of communication open.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Yeah, I’m definitely hearing from some of the organizations that I work with the move away from the once a week to, you know, an hour once a week to like 10 minutes once per day and those types of things. And something else you were mentioning, I would just paraphrase maybe, as you know, when you check back in and that whole, like, but you were there, weren’t you there? And the difference between, you know, I think of John Powell’s quote around I can’t know what you heard, I only know what I said, and I and I want to make sure that what left my mind and heart lands in your mind and heart intact and without distortion. Now, do you need to say the entire John Powell quote, no. But I think if you take the idea of it, right, it’s like, did that did that land in and what did you hear? So there’s like, as a manager, or leader, here’s what I’m hoping you heard. So let’s check back, and I love that you were like, so for some people, it’s gonna be verbal, for some people it’s gonna be writing, and then how you offer the opportunity for them to sort of hold up and say, this is what I heard and then if they heard something, where you’re like, oh, just take it as information, right, like, oh, that’s interesting. Totally not not what I got. Right? And so how do you, you know, just circle back and make sure that it’s landed? Takes effort. Okay. I always end with the same question for all guests. So there’s inspiration and motivation. Inspiration is about breathing, in keeping you going. And then motivation is about action. So what inspires you? And what keeps you motivated to do this work?

So I was thinking about this question. And I knew I was going to be chatting with you today. And it coming around to the same quote that I really loved. It both inspires and motivates me, and I think will bring me to my answer. So I’m going to share the quote, life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage and it’s by Anaïs Nin and I’ve had that quote, just pinned up in almost every workspace I’ve ever worked in. And I think it’s the idea that I’m motivated to learn new things, and inspired by the exercise of the learning, not just a product, not just what did I come out with. But it’s propelled me to travel to places that I’ve been maybe afraid to go but once I decide, yes, I’m going to go take that trip by myself or I’m going to go do this adventure or I’m going to take on this new job or this new challenge or this campaign or a project that I don’t know that I’m ready for and someone’s invited me to, I have to just take that leap because I know my worlds can expand and when the world expands I’m really inspired by whatever I’ve found there.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

So inspired by the process and maybe motivated by the product.

Beth Castleberry 

Yeah.

Erica Mills Barnhart 

Oh, I love that quote. Thank you for that, Beth. Thank you for being here. Thanks for all your good thoughts and insights thanks of course to listeners and viewers for joining us as well. I noticed reviewers like I look a little ghosts like I’m not I don’t know what’s happening. I rely on natural light and so I think we’re having a weird natural light thing. Maybe it’s the transition into fall. I wonder about that. But I do I’m looking a little ghost like I feel fine. Anyway. Thanks for joining us and as always do good, be well and we will see you next time.

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