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Evolve and Thrive at the Nonprofit Marketing Summit with Candace Cody | Nonprofit411 Podcast · Nonprofit411 Podcast

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Attention Nonprofit411 listeners.
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The Non profit Marketing Summit, one of the largest non profit events of the year, is just around the corner.
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Over 25, 000 non profit professionals will come together to learn proven strategies and explore cutting edge tools to help organizations thrive in 2025.
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Nonprofit411 is proud to be a sponsor of this incredible event.
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And guess what? We're partnering with the Summit to bring you an exclusive 300 discount on the Experience Plus package.
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With Experience Plus, you'll get access to exclusive live sessions packed with actionable insights, all 80 plus session recordings to rewatch at your convenience, and a special swag package that includes a free t shirt and a book of your choice.
Or if you prefer, grab your free registration today.
Visit the show notes now for the discount link or your free registration.
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Don't miss this chance to take your nonprofit to the next level.
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We'll see you at the Nonprofit Marketing Summit.
Welcome to the Nonprofit 411 podcast, the podcast where we speak with nonprofit professionals and experts to uncover strategies, share insights, and tackle the challenges you face in fundraising and sustainability.
I'm Sarah Barton, your fundraising growth partner and the founder of Nonprofit 411.
My mission is to help you develop tailored strategies and support you as you implement them, ensuring your nonprofit thrives.
Let's dive into today's episode and learn from the experiences and expertise of those who have been in your shoes.
Hi, welcome to the Nonprofit411 podcast.
I'm so excited to have you join us today.
I'm Sarah Barton, your presenter, and I'm with Candace Cody, director of events at Community Boost.
You may remember she's been on the show before, and we're going to be talking about her upcoming event, the Nonprofit411, which is amazing.
Hi, Sarah.
Hey, I'm so excited.
So we, I had you on last year, unbeknownst to me, really right before the summit, like I didn't know a lot about the summit and then I went to the summit, and it was phenomenal.
You did an amazing job.
The presenters are just top notch.
I met so many colleagues that I work with now on a regular basis, and so I am so excited to welcome you back.
Thank you for having me back.
It was so much fun being on the last time, and I just loved our conversation, and I am so excited for this next summit to have you actually as a speaker, so I'm sure we'll talk about that more, but I can't wait to have you and welcome you to the summit.
the virtual stage for, for the next upcoming summit.
Awesome.
Yeah.
I've been telling everybody about it because I'm really excited.
You have invited really amazing guests and people who are dealing with the rapid evolution of the nonprofit sector.
And this, so this, this year's topic is evolve.
And I think it's such a.
well timed topic.
Thank you.
Yeah.
It's, it's crazy because we actually are hitting our 10th Nonprofit411.
So congratulations.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I've been on the team for the last three years.
This is my seventh summit that I'm planning.
There was, there was three incredible ones before I got here.
So but it's, It's been such an exciting journey and we just kind of felt like with this 10th summit, like it was the perfect time to reflect on where we've been and where we're going in the sector as a whole and also as, as the summit evolves itself.
So it was such a cool moment to do some reflection.
And so we were taking a look at some of the themes that we've done in the past three years.
And I felt like all of our summits have been very, very forward thinking, and I think that was exactly what was needed at the moment, right? The summit really started as, as a reaction to COVID where every organization that we worked with and was on our email list was just looking for direction of how do we move forward in this newly virtual digital first world where all of my golf events and galas and all of my things that I usually do in person are now Having to navigate the digital space.
And so for that reason, we've been very, very tech forward.
And it was the perfect way to equip organizations to continue to scale in in these digital spaces.
And so now I took I took a look back.
And I think a lot of our messaging, I don't, I don't think that this was ever stated outright and it, and it definitely wasn't even the intention, but it could have, if you weren't really diving a little bit deeper and attending the sessions, be interpreted as Hey, like technology is a silver bullet to driving nonprofit growth, which it's not.
It's all about how you're leveraging the technology for your organization.
And how you leverage that actually goes back to a lot of those foundational principles that have always propelled nonprofits forward.
And so, And even myself, like, I just hit 10 years working in the nonprofit sector, and so many people like yourself and so many of our attendees and speakers have been doing this work, if not for a decade, but decades.
And so those foundational principles that are hard earned and hard learned over the course of 10, 20, 30, 50 years are still so valuable.
It just looks Different in the context of 2025.
So that's what I really want to do is really celebrate all of us who have been doing this work a long time and take all of those foundational principles and then put it in the context of how you can.
Take these ideas and then use tech tool solutions and all of the opportunities available for organizations To drive growth in 2025 and beyond so that's really where evolve came from I do feel like we're in the midst of this big nonprofit evolution of, of technology and how we engage with it and how we incorporate it into our organizations.
And so yeah, it's not about getting rid of the old things.
It's about looking at what does that look like in today's context.
So I love that for so many reasons because I, you know, my business is relatively new and this is the second time that I've done nonprofit consulting.
And one of the things.
That is different this time I did it before in 2014.
One of the things that's so different this time is that as a solopreneur, I have the opportunity to be able to add to what I do in so many positive ways because of technology, you know, I have a CRM, and I can.
Post my social media on it in advance.
We were just talking about automations.
Like I can do some automations, which helped me with like reminders and things that I know are really important to the people that I serve, but there are other things that.
Are the same and actually things that I'm revisiting because this year I have started doing 15 minute phone calls instead of zoom calls with people.
I just want to check in for 15 minutes on the phone and it feels different, but.
It's right in that space.
And it's something that I have not been historically comfortable with.
I just, I've never made a ton of phone calls.
I, you know, I don't use the phone for that reason which is funny cause I'm 45, so like I'm right there.
I'm always on the cusp of everything.
I was born in 78.
So right as technology was changing and I have a little brother who was born in 82.
So by then.
Technology was, had infiltrated everything and I was blessed with an opportunity.
To be raised with technology.
I have no memories without at least a computer in the house.
Now the first computer was the Commodore, but you know, I had a computer in my house from the time I was little.
And so I think that you're right.
I think we're in this really unique place in time where we are evolving, but evolving means looking at the whole picture.
And remembering those things that are really strengths and keeping them and then looking at the weaknesses and seeing how we can improve or change in those areas, but it doesn't mean scrapping everything.
Exactly.
And I feel like it can be overwhelming for a lot of nonprofit professionals.
They're like, well, we've been doing this the same way for 20 years.
It's like, how do we just.
fully change our focus and adopt all this tech and, you know, what does that even look like? It can be, it can be overwhelming.
Especially if you're using a lot of new platforms or tools for the first time.
And so evolving is also incremental, right? You can do one piece at a time.
And it's not so overwhelming because you're incorporating this on an ongoing basis.
And it just is enabling growth in a sustainable and organic way for organizations.
And so that's really something that I want to equip people with as well.
Because yeah, the last thing I ever want is someone to come and be like, wow, there's so much great things.
I learned so much and I have no idea what to do next.
You know, because there's so much.
Opportunity, but that can in and of itself be a little overwhelming.
So I do think that with evolve, we're taking this new approach because we want to say like, Hey, here's the things that you're already doing are really effective.
Here's just like a few other ideas of how you can do this throughout the next year in order to drive growth and add to it instead of necessarily you know, Yeah, having people revamp the entire way that they've set up their organization.
So there's like some really cool sessions that I think are going to help with that.
You know, we have Tucker Wanamaker from Thrive Impact.
And so his session is all about like, How do you say no to, like, the things that are, are good in order to say yes to the things that are great? And so I'm really excited for so many of the sessions, but I think that's, you know, just an example of one of the sessions that is going to really equip a lot of nonprofit professionals to move forward with that confidence and, and ability as well.
Yeah, I think that's very important.
I know whenever I work with clients, it's really the first question.
I, the first question I usually ask is like, what are you currently doing now? And then my follow up question is, okay, how's that working? Right.
And it's funny that.
So often the, what are we doing now is really easy to answer.
And when I say, how's that working, they say it's not, but they have maintained it for a long period of time, but it's not working.
And maybe one at one point it really did work, but you know so many things have changed.
Right.
And so the, I think pausing, you have to pause and you have to ask that question, how is this working now? And I, we're at a, we're recording this the 17th of January.
I think it's going to be released the 29th, but we'll still be in this first month of the year.
I think this is, I think at the beginning of the year, but really you can do it anytime.
It's really a great time to pause and say, how is that working for me? And I've learned.
I'm trying to add in exercise.
I really love exercising, but you know, I haven't found a perfect time for it to work.
And so I'm playing around with some different times and, and right now I have, it's working well for me, but when it stops working well for me, I need to figure out, like, I still, I'm still going to love to exercise.
I'm just going to need to figure out, okay, how can I do this now? Yeah.
I, and I mean, I think that's, that's what it is too.
It's, it's.
Our, our tagline actually for the event is adapt and thrive in 2025 and so a lot of the times it's maybe like when you ask those questions because I also have a background of working directly with organizations on their I digital fundraising campaigns.
And so I did that for, for years and years.
And so a lot of the times that would also be a question that I would, I would ask, like, so what, why do you want to do this campaign this way? And a lot of the times the answer would be, oh, because we've always done it this way.
A lot of the times it's not even that the campaign or event or idea, whatever they're working on, it doesn't even need to be.
Fully like done away with it just might need some adaptations to it so that it can thrive in today's landscape.
And so that's what we're also really baking into the, the summit itself is what are those ways that we can adapt and.
Set ourselves up to really, really thrive and drive growth in 2025 and beyond.
So I am, this summit is so extra special for me in so many ways, but I just feel like this is.
Kind of the right message at the right time and really overall empowering and yeah, I'm just really excited for this one.
Plus, it's a decades theme.
So, we have four stages that are fully, like anyone can join live for free, go to all of the sessions.
And then we also have our fifth stage.
For the first time ever.
And this is a gated stage for our experience plus members.
And so these are people who like purchase the experience plus pass, and then they have all a whole stage of exclusive sessions, which are mostly workshop oriented.
They're, they're Designed to be a little bit more practical so that you know, you're not just getting the know how you're getting the Real opportunity to put these things into action and walk away with something So that's really what a lot of that stage is is designed for but each stage as you navigate through it, you're kind of on a little journey back and forth through time And so that's that's the idea.
Yeah, so we have our main stage is gonna be the 70s.
So you'll see me all out in 70s vibes.
And then we have our community stage is the 80s.
So everyone loves the 80s.
That's going to be a lot of fun.
We have our 1920s stage.
So we're going 100 years back.
And that will be a swanky type of experience.
And then, you know potentially my, my favorite, but it's, it's.
Very, very biased, I'll be honest, is the 2000 stage which I feel like we've officially reached the time of nostalgia for, so I'm taking a little bit of a, like a pop punk, Emo route with that one a very off the wall warped tour sort of vibes.
And so that's our, our fourth stage and then our, our fifth stage or experience plus stage is gonna be the sixties.
So it's just gonna be a really fun journey, like throughout the whole process too.
And yeah, I, I'm really looking forward to it.
Oh, no, that's interesting.
I'm not very good at dressing up, but I'm gonna have to.
I'm going to have to find out what stage I'm on.
So I know you're on the you're on the 2000 stage.
So I'm on the 2000 stage.
I can wear pretty much anything on the 2000 stage.
So, well, that's so fun.
Yeah.
I'm so excited to present.
It's it is an amazing opportunity and I'm going to get to present on something that I just.
I have fallen in love with it's called ripple mapping.
I came across my first ripple map.
Oh gosh, it was probably four years ago now.
And it's a way of capturing people's experiences with your organization and visualizing it.
And the amazing thing is.
That we often don't realize how far our reach can go.
But, you know, I think that the nonprofit market is such, or the summit is such a great example because so in ripple mapping, you like.
Interview people who have been involved with your organization and they can be from the community or they can be from your organization and you ask them how they've been impacted by it and you let them kind of just like below and you get, and then when you're all done, you find themes of you know, where you're doing great, you know, and how some of these connections have been made.
But I think about how just From the last one, when I was on, I was on this call and then I went to the Nonprofit411.
There I was in a conference with Tim Milwaukee, who has been on my show twice and sponsors actually a space for AI for everyone through Nonprofit411.
So like, you know, my.
Can get a discount.
I had Julia Campbell on, and she's phenomenal.
You know, she does social media.
She did a social media presentation last year that I really enjoyed how to her on.
And then I did not meet Mallory Erickson from what the fundraising, I think Eric sensor lesson on the stage.
But I know that she was there last year.
And, or she's, you know, but we've connected and so like, you know, and then through them, I got connected with other resources, other people.
And so you can see just from my own experience that these ripples just continue.
And how exciting is it for an organization to collect those? And be able to talk about their impact in a different way.
So I'm so excited to share.
I can't wait to see what organizations do with that information and how they utilize it and implement it because it becomes amazing to see how much our nonprofits impact their communities.
Yeah, I cannot wait for your session.
When you first told me about the concepts of ripple mapping, you blew my mind.
So I was like, 100 percent that's going to be on the stage at the summit, because I think that's so valuable because there's so many things where it's like you can report on impact, but you Not every impact is necessarily tangible, and so how do you really share that with your stakeholders, share that with your audiences, where it's like maybe you do a fundraising event, and yeah, you reach your fundraising goal, but also there's all these kind of soft tips.
Yeah.
Soft, hard to measure pieces that can come out of that, that oh, this person heard about your organization there and then they actually connected you to your next major donor.
Like, that's not always something that you're able to report on, but now with this concept, there's going to be so many opportunities to also just show the impact of, you know, what the work you're doing, and also better understand what that, Impact is too, because I think that's one of the things that a lot of nonprofit professionals probably don't know is some of those soft impacts that, you know, they're making every day, but because they're caught up in the day to day, they might not be hearing those things and understanding the full impact.
So I just think that's going to be so powerful.
I would love.
To attend your session.
I am going to, while I'm hosting, try to pop in a little bit, but I'll definitely be watching the recording after.
And yeah, no, I think what's so amazing about the summit and I'm just so thankful to be in this position where I really do see the summit as the sector leaders coming together to move the sector forward.
And so we would be completely lost without all of our sponsors, all of our speakers like you.
And you just named some of my favorite people in the world.
And everyone is just So, so smart.
And I've learned so much from, from all of these speakers and partners as well.
And just so excited to have them back.
You know, Tim Mallory, Julia, everyone's coming back to the summit this time.
And then I'm really excited to have Adrian Sargent.
Are you familiar with him? I'm not.
I saw that he was going to be there.
I want to look him up because I haven't gotten to yet.
He is so brilliant.
He's a professor of philanthropy at the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy.
He's basically like written the book on philanthropy.
And so he we're really excited to have him back at the summit.
It's been quite a while since he spoke.
So we're, we're talking about growing love in fundraising in that session.
And we have just so many really, really great.
Speakers, including we just got Neil Patel.
I don't know if he means anything to you.
I do know that name.
Yes.
So Neil Patel is joining us for a session closing us out on day one.
And we have Jake Wood who co founded team Rubicon and we're doing a fireside chat with him just to really like learn what that whole process was like of, you know, creating that incredible organization and also scaling it to what it is today.
And then we're going to hear from the one and only Deepak Chopra joining us.
Yes, that's so exciting.
So we're, we're having just like a stack, stacked speaker lineup this time.
So I'm just, I'm just so thankful and excited to provide this opportunity for just honestly so many smart people to join us and show their stuff.
So that's what I love about my podcast too.
I just get to like talk with all these amazing people who do amazing things and it's so fun.
It's so fun.
And also, you know, like it's such a great resource that, you know, not, not many things like this are free and available.
And so.
And, and, you know, with a lot of in person conferences, you got to have some budget set aside for that, you know, cause it's not cheap to fly out and pay for the ticket and you know, pay for all of your travel expenses.
You know, there, there's something about being virtual that makes this really accessible to, to anyone with a laptop or even a phone.
So, yeah.
I'll tell you something I didn't do last year that I did do this year is last year I didn't block the full days on my calendar, and I have all of those days blocked so that I'm sure I'm attending as many as I can.
So I recommend that to any of our listeners, if you're going to go, make sure you block the time, you will want to be fully present.
You'll be wanting to be able to take those screenshots as they present.
And then you will probably also want to be you know, paying for the recordings because you're going to miss all this amazing stuff when you're going to the ones that you're actually in.
So like, there's not, you know, there's not enough time in a day to do it all in.
In three days.
Right.
But so, and I will drop a link to the conference in the notes in the show notes here.
How else can they reach you, Candace, if they want to reach you and get ahold of you.
Sure yeah, so there's, there's a couple ways probably the easiest way, if you're looking to get in touch with me, you can actually just shoot me an email, Candace, C A N D A C E, at communityboost.
org, if you're interested in, in reaching out also check out nonprofitmarketingsummit.
org for more information.
More information about the conference, and you can see our speaker line up there, and all of our sessions that you're able to attend for free, and then, of course, register, and if you are interested in buying your Experience Plus Pass for access to those exclusive sessions and stages, by the time this releases, there'll still be two days to get it.
The pass for 100 off, so it's 197 through January 31st, so check it out if you're interested and take advantage of, of the extra, extra money off because that way you get the same incredible experience for less, so.
Yeah.
The other thing I wanted to say to you, cause I want my listeners to understand that like, this is called the Nonprofit411, but there is so much information that goes so far beyond just marketing.
It fundraising is intimately involved with marketing.
Right.
So it's marketing it's fundraising.
It is just.
Any type of nonprofit professional development, you really get a little bit of everything here.
Even human resources, you know, even human resources, there's, you know, things that are touched on in there.
So it's such a dynamic and amazing program.
I cannot wait to be there.
And I cannot wait to share this out with as many people as I know, because I really want them to join too.
And I hope that we make another record year.
Yeah, it's, it's already set up for it.
And we just, we just need you, the listener to join us there for, to make it even better.
So perfect.
Thank you, Sarah.
I can't wait for your session.
I'm so excited to have you part of this incredible event and yeah, just so thankful for, for being here today.
Thank you.
I am so honored to be welcomed with this.
Stages of giants.
And so so exciting.
So, all right.
For my listeners, you can find your link in this chat in the notes and the podcast notes.
And I will also be posting that on my social media several times over the next couple of months.
I really encourage all of you to sign up and enjoy the amazing experience at the Nonprofit411, which will be March 4th through six.
Thanks.
And have a great day.
Bye.
That's a wrap for today's episode of Nonprofit 411.
I hope our discussion with nonprofit professionals and experts gave you actionable ideas to take your fundraising efforts to the next level.
At Nonprofit 411, I partner with leaders like you to develop strategies and guide you through implementation.
Visit nonprofit411.
org to learn more and let's take the first step together.
See you next time.