Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 550. How It's Built: How Perkins School for the Blind Transformed their Fundraising, Customer Experience + Brand - Stephanie Jones Wagle

Transcript

550. How It's Built: How Perkins School for the Blind Transformed their Fundraising, Customer Experience + Brand - Stephanie Jones Wagle · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi friends, welcome back to how it's Built, a series where we explore the intricate and often overlooked elements that go into crafting impactful change brought to you by our friends at Allegiance Group and Pursuant.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, they're fueling nonprofit missions with innovative solutions in digital ads, websites, technology analytics, direct mail and even digital fundraising too.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: If you need a partner in amplifying your brand, expanding your reach and fostering that unwavering donor loyalty.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Visit teamallegiancecom and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the good community.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So let's get started.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Becky, you've been hyping this conversation for me so long.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I have.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Like nine months ago I met our guest and once I sat down and heard what the Perkins School is doing to absolutely transform disability tech and bring community and I would say, vibrancy to the incredible community that's around, that surrounds their mission, I was like Stephanie, will you please accept this rose and will you please come on to the podcast?
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And so we're delighted to bring you back to the how it's Built series.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Want to give a shout out to our friends at Pursuit and Allegiance Group for sponsoring this incredible series, because we're going to be diving into how to transform your fundraising, customer experience and brand today.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And we're so excited that our friend Stephanie is here.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: She's the Senior Director of Marketing and Annual Giving for Perkins School for the Blind.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: She has led this digital transformation as well as the customer experience side and brought the rejuvenation of the Perkins brand into, I would say, not just the modern era, but like it busted through the stratosphere.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And so once I just kind of listened to the way that Stephanie listens, the way that they adapt into this incredible community, I was like this is a conversation we need to have on a bigger platform and Stephanie is just this fierce advocate for changing the world for the better through these everyday actions that we can employ and through her lifelong work.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: She's a proud mom of two incredible kids.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: She's a cyclist, a yogi, a cook Basically, she is a complete Renaissance woman, and today she's going to share this playbook.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: But, y'all, I cannot wait for you to get to know Perkins School for the Blind, and I want you to just fully immerse yourselves in the ways that we can connect that are untraditional but are still so human, and Stephanie is going to walk us through that work what they do with disability tech, so that we can look at the way we connect with childhood blindness, advancing accessibility and making community.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: That is for all.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: So, Stephanie, welcome to the we Are For Good podcast.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We are so excited that you're here today.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Becky and John.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: I'm so pleased to be here.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: You're going to make me cry with that intro.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I'm excited to tell you guys more about Perkins.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: It's just a really special mission and I think a lot of us just have a sense of privilege in the way that we think we can write whatever we want and just drop it in a post on the internet and just think that our audiences are accessible and you have modernized connection, I think, in such a beautiful way.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: We're going to dive into it, but first we want to get to know you, of course.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So take us back.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're from Duxbury, Massachusetts.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: You've been all over the East Coast.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about your journey and what led you to where you are today.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: So I'm actually originally from Maine and grew up all over Maine, went to school at the best school on earth, Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, Found my people there, found my way to New York City where I worked in all digital, all things for about 20 years, had my kids, did that Park Slope to Maplewood, New Jersey thing that you do when you're down there and then finally said it's time to get back closer to my family up here in Massachusetts.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: I spent time at Simon Schuster.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I spent time at Patch, which was owned by AOL local journalist journalist company.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: That was incredible.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I spend a lot of time in women's magazines, but always on the digital side, and I think, fundamentally I'm a writer and a storyteller and a journalist.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: And so, even though I kept getting into marketing and sometimes sales and sometimes positioning, what I really wanted to do and why I decided to come to Perkins five years ago was because I wanted to do storytelling for a good cause.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: There is too much not good going on in the world and I was very, very lucky here at Perkins to work for probably one of the best bosses I've ever worked for, Rebecca Fader, who's our Chief marketing and development officer and just be surrounded by incredible people all throughout the organization who every day show up because they want to make a difference in a child's life and in a family's life.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: I've never worked at a place like this before.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: It's really truly one of the best places I've ever worked.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Stephanie, I've ever worked.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Stephanie, I love your backstory and I just do you not feel like listening, like we are buckled up, like we get to talk to somebody who has had this like such rich experience coming into the nonprofit space to such honestly, like a such a well-known organization, but one that needed to like be modernized and be more accessible even than probably what it was.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: And so I want you to give a little context to Perkins School.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: But in this, like talk about this rejuvenation.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I mean you led this digital transformation team.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: We're talking customer service coming to bear.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: We're talking about brand.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: We're talking about this whole new playbook that we're going to unpack today.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Give a little insights into, like what's the impact of that that you've seen, and give us some context around Perkins school, because if you haven't heard of it, like you got to fill us in on the deep.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll fall in love right here.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: So Perkins school for the blind, our fundamental mission is to help children with disabilities find their place in the world.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Many people, if you've heard of Perkins, probably have heard about it in the context of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Both of them were students at Perkins and Annie Sullivan was trained at Perkins and that was how she helped Helen Keller unlock her world right.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: And so we still talk about unlocking opportunities for children with disabilities.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Perkins has been around for 200 years.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: It is a wildly innovative institution.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: In fact, my favorite word to describe it our superintendent and president, ed Bosso, uses is undaunted.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: All of these teachers for 200 years are completely undaunted.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I mean and I should say so it's a school outside of Boston, but it's actually an international organization.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: So last year we reached 1.2 million children around the world.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: We are-.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so cool.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Our international team is incredible.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: So one of my favorite programs to talk about is the Educational Leadership Program, where we bring scholars from all over the world.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Every single year, 20 of them leave their friends and families and schools and come to Perkins campus and live on our campus for a year and study in whatever various expertise they want to study and go back to their communities and bring that accessible learning and know-how back to their communities.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: And the kids, the students at Perkins love these guys, you know, cause they're teachers right, and so they get this incredible rich experience of other cultures, as well as those countries get the benefit of what they learn at Perkins.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: So it's truly an incredible and that's been going on for a hundred years.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Talk about that digital transformation.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I mean you're taking an organization that's 200 years old, that literally wrapped themselves around Helen Keller.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, right, so how do you take an organization like that and bring it up to the middle of the attention economy, where it's so noisy, there's so much attention being fought for at every corner?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: How do you even break through with something that's got such as quiet, undaunted, beautiful mission?
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Oh boy, there's so many ways to do it, but I would say the very first thing we started with was foundational.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: So when I got here five years ago, I was just one person who was the director of digital strategy.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: We had an outdated organization in terms of even like our web team was part of the IT team.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: We moved that team to the marketing team and we started with.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: We've got to rebuild the website.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: Our front door is our website.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: We had a sprawling family of sites.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: We pulled them together, put them into WordPress, which is an easier to use CMS for more people to be able to use, and made them wildly accessible, and I'll talk a little bit more about that Introduced a brand new vibrant color palette, connected all the sites together so that people could sort of see like this is, you know, in the traditional sense of Banana Republic, old Navy Gap, like this is a family of services that we really provide to educators, families and children, no matter where they are.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: They don't have to be in Watertown to get the benefit of our expertise, and so we crafted a strategy that would help there, relying on SEO, which works for us very, very well.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: So that was the first thing.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I will also say, the color palette when I got here was very gray to the point where now, every day I'm like no gray, no gray at all.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And I get it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I've got a version with khaki.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: You can ask John.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: You were just texting me about your ever.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: No gray.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: And then we looked at our social media platforms.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: So we had some pretty good reach on Facebook.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: We didn't have Instagram.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: When I got here five years ago, we had basically Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest expanded into Instagram, got some awesomely talented social media superstars, including right now Katie Norton, who was an influencer herself and is also deaf, and so she brings another perspective to our feeds.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: We have a really strong archives team and when I got here, a lot of our social media feed was celebrating the history of Perkins, which was cool but kind of had the effect of making us look stuck, and so we said you know what?
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: You guys have your own special audience as well, because there's a whole history community that loves that.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: So we said let's put you on your own, and that expands our reach but allows the Perkins sort of mothership feed be about our broader brand and mission.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about messaging, but before I talk about messaging, can I talk about accessibility?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: We're totally going to ask you that.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So that's wonderful, go there.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: What I want to say technically about accessibility for anyone who's out there who runs an organization or runs a marketing department or is looking at their digital experience.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I think I knew nothing about it when I first started at Perkins, which is not okay, honestly.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Luckily, I learned a ton.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: I have learned so much, and here's the beauty of it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: We set out when we redesigned the website to prove that accessible websites could be beautiful, and I think we did that really really well.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: I think too often when we think of accessibility, we're like, oh, it's for blind people or deaf people.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: It's actually truly better for everybody, including those of us who are aging and sometimes struggle with font size.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: One in four people in the United States has a disability.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: 240 million children around the world have a disability.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: We have since recently learned that one in 30 children have the leading cause of childhood blindness, which means there's a kid in your class that has the leading cause of childhood blindness and that's called cerebral cortical visual impairment.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: It's a complex condition I can talk all day about, but I'll go back to the accessibility thing.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: So the other piece of accessibility is it's not just for visual, it's not just for deaf, it's also for mobile mobility.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: So someone has carpal tunnel and you can't use your mouse.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: You need an accessible website.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Try not using your mouse for an hour.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: How does that work?
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: It doesn't go well.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: So that's why it's so important we were able to.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: When we relaunched Perkinsorg and the family of sites, we have a special team called Perkins Access.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: That is just astoundingly awesome.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: They started from the very beginning, from the moment we started wireframing the site all the way through development and testing and QA, making sure, telling the developers how to code things so that when we launched we were as accessible as possible and there was no such thing as perfect, but we got as close as we could to it.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: That included the color palette.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: That included making sure all of our videos had audio description and in attention economy, audio description was a little frustrating to me at first because it made every video longer.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: So we really had to work on the art of audio description where, if you could work in to the script some of that description, you wouldn't have to pause the video to describe what was happening.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Once you start to live and breathe it and I have a fabulous designer who lived and breathed it, it was like a fierce advocate for it, it becomes just second nature.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: So you have to know that it's important and believe that it's important and believe that the people with disabilities, who can't access your stuff, matter.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: And then it's like why wouldn't I do this?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and I keep going back, john, to like core value number one, which is like if you believe that everyone matters and you believe that accessibility and connection matters, then I think that this is such a vibrant and good conversation for this community to talk about.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: How do we expand the table?
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: How does the table not look exactly like we thought it would?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: How does the table benefit and give accessibility for all?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Honestly, this is making me rethink.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: We Are For Good's website and the way we turn out our content as well, so I think that's great.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: It can be a very beautiful thing.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: And, becky, you asked about how we're building community and it goes back to that fundamental belief that it's not just children with disabilities matter, it's that everyone matters.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And fundamentally, we want people who believe in a world where everyone belongs to be a part of the Perkins mission Because there is something to learn from everybody in this world.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Everyone who walks around has value.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Thing to learn from everybody in this world.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Everyone who walks around has value, whether you are volunteering at the YMCA.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: This is a true story of a former Perkins student calling seniors on their birthday because no one else is going to call them.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: That's value, right?
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: That's making somebody's day, that's adding good into the world.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: So that's sort of what we started with when we started to tweak our messaging.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: We used to use a lot of words like potential and thrive, and those are all good words.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: But as we talked to more folks in the community more mothers of kids with disabilities, teachers we felt like that wording was good but not good enough, and so we switched to unlocking opportunities, as in defining success as key phrases that we use when we were talking about what we're trying to do for kids with disabilities, because that's what everybody wants to be able to do, and why would kids with disabilities be any different?
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: I think sometimes in fundraising there's this.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I think sometimes in fundraising there's this.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: It's tricky.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: We want to evoke emotion, to compel the gift, and I always talk about Sally Struthers but I guess I should talk about Sarah McLaughlin and like we don't want to do that, like I'm not here to make you cry.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: I'm here to inspire you to be a part of something really world-changing, and so we've really been working on taking that pitying oh, the poor kids with disabilities.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: I feel so bad from them out of the messaging and really talking about.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: No, these are kids that have value and they matter, and there's someone's daughter and there's someone's son and there's someone's brother and sister.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Let's help them access the learning that's very unique, that allows them to enjoy their life and bring things to their communities.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh and PS, they have so much to teach us.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I was about to say and you're about to get schooled on the superpowers that these kids have, because it's going to unlock something else that they have.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: That is a strength that we could never tap into, because we have the ability to be able to do all these things easily.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: So, wow, I love that, can I?
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: just I have to also say for any long-time listener of the podcast we've talked about, marketing is mission for a couple of years now.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: You are the most visible, tangible expression of doing that, that the way that you market can breathe your values, can be an attractant to people that share those values.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And it looks like a lot of different things, but it's about mobilizing everybody, saying everybody's part of this it's a collective.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: We don't want just this type of person, we want everybody to have their place in this.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: So I'm over here so pumped and so excited to get your playbook as we think about how we turn some of this success for other organizations listening today.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Do you want to talk about the fundraising transformation that's happened specifically?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: I know y'all have poured into customer experience and what's that before?
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and after look like Bravo on that.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: So the before was back to foundation three disparate databases of customer information which a lot of and especially complex higher ed places have, and there's ways to unify those.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: For Perkins, the way we unified it was we got rid of Razor's Edge and moved into one unified Salesforce database.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: It was not easy and I could do a whole thing on that and I do not want to, but we did it and we had an incredible team and a lot of helpers to help us get there.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: We're still working through the kinks.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: What that meant was we could lay on top of that database Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is its own fun tool but does have a lot of power in terms of being able to deliver automated customer journeys based on what we know about our customers.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: So when I first got here, we had a million different newsletters and emails going out at any given moment and donors were getting things that they shouldn't have been getting, and it was a mess.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I will say I think we've cleaned up about 50% of the mess and we're working on the other 50%, which will totally get figured out in like the next few weeks no, that's not true, but anyway of the mess and we're working on the other 50% which will totally get figured out in like the next few weeks.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: No, that's not true.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: But anyway you've committed to it on the podcast.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: I used to say everything was going to be fixed by my son's graduation and that just happened, so we're still working on it.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: It's okay.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So systems, unified database, salesforce, marketing cloud.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: The other thing that's happened is we've got more teams at Perkins creating more awesome digital content about our expertise and they're establishing sort of their own digital presences and so we're working to bring but the audience for that content is all the same.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: It's still educators, it's still families, it's still some kids, right.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: It's still educators, it's still families, it's still some kids, right.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: So we're working to figure out how can we deliver one single set of content to these folks on a regular basis, based on what they care about.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: So they care about preparing their kid for college or life after high school, or they care about the leading cause of childhood blindness, or they just had a baby who has a visual impairment and they're just looking for family support and services.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: We have all that stuff.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: We got to get it to you really thoughtfully and not overwhelm you, especially in the inbox is where I mostly think about it.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: The other transformation is how we change the direct mail and mail program in general.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: So we used to send a magazine out every quarter.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: That was expensive and took forever to create.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: We transitioned to a new, simpler format that actually made three times as much money and cost half the cost Bravo, and it wasn't even supposed to make money, but it does.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: But what we set out to do was we just need a moment of delight in the mailbox, like, let's stop thinking about this as direct mail.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Think about what happens when people go to their mailboxes because they still do, and it takes a lot more time to walk to your mailbox, walk back to your house, look at your mail than it does to scroll through an Instagram post.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: So you're actually getting more quality time in the mail box.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this is so good, right, so?
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: we're seeing it in the numbers.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I mean as much as I want digital to replace mail, it doesn't.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: And also all of those fundraising services take a pretty hefty fee off of my donations when they go through digital.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: And right now the people listening to this podcast that work with me are like what is happening to Stephanie?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: She was the digital person.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Now she's talking about the mailbox.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: So mail is a part of a healthy, diversified revenue program.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: It's not the only thing.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: The goal is moments of delight.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: There are donors who still really love it.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: They haven't all switched to digital yet.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: But we are also making incredible strides in email from a fundraising perspective.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: So we've increased our email revenue this year alone by something like 40% because we've just figured out how to get the subject lines right and the timing and the audience and we've started to incorporate it into our marketing as well as our fundraising, if that makes sense.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to compliment you about something, because I'm hearing this in your words without you actually saying it, Like you have this culture of trying stuff saying it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: You have this culture of trying stuff and because you're constantly iterating and because you're segmenting based on your audience and what your audience's needs are and I'm not just talking about content needs, I'm talking about the way they consume your content, the way that they interact with you as a community.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: You're having to think about it differently all the time and it is keeping you so relevant, it is keeping you so in tune with your community the fact that you would say we want to give a moment of delight and juxtapose that with well, they could either scroll on by or they could walk to.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Like me, when I I mean, if I walk down and get my mail and walk back which I am a sifter, I sift all the way to the trash, all the way up, and I I really being all the way to the trash.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could skip and probably do, I would be singing to myself but I just mean that everything is coming back.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I mean catalogs are coming back.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: We just had a great episode with Kel Haney talking about the phone is coming back, and so I think the ways that we are getting in front of people in the attention economy is unique, and if you are not constantly testing, iterating, asking these bigger questions, then you're not evolving with the times, and so we really want to get into this playbook here.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So we got our notebooks ready.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Stephanie, we're ready to like get get into this.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: So talk about this implementation that led to this absolute transformation.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: We'd love for you to break down the key steps so anyone listening can implement this in their work today.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: So where are you going to start?
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: I'm going to start with raising the bar brand audience, revenue.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: So I have a great team.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: I needed to give them a construct to help them define their own priorities on a regular basis, and that's the construct brand, audience and revenue.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: If the thing you're working on isn't moving one of those three needles, or all three, don't work on it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: So that was the first thing.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Second thing is we have an incredible style guide and messaging guide so that at any given moment people right, like systems process I love a good process At any given moment, someone can grab the consistent line about whatever the 95 programs are that we have and use that.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: So we're not constantly rewriting the wheel.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: It minimizes review time, review cycles, all that stuff.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: The third piece was really the look and feel of the brand and continuing to evolve it with really an awesome designer, um, and making it feel vibrant all the time.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: The next piece is about how do I want to phrase this Making it possible for everybody at Perkins to be a part of it.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: So we have a great marketing and annual giving team and development team, but now, with tools like Canva and, of course, the Google suite, everyone really is a marketer.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: Everyone who works at Perkins is part of our mission and an ambassador, so we took advantage of the free Canva available to anyone who's a nonprofit.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: We set up all the brand templates.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: We gave it to everybody.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: We're like use these and they are using them and it's awesome running their own social media or their own emails or their own.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: So it's a funky, sometimes challenging way to work when you have everybody doing it all and it's a little bit distributed and they're all writing their own emails.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: When you have everybody doing it all and it's a little bit distributed and they're all writing their own emails.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: But ultimately, if we're using the same style guide and the same brand playbook, it should be better than one small team.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: I say this a little bit with like I have a little trepidation about it, but people are doing it anyway.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking of myself 15 years ago.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: This is like my worst nightmare.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Julie educated me as a designer.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I was like no that's going through me, like everything went through me, but, like in the age of authenticity, transparency, there's gotta be a collective.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: It can't be speed all that efficiency.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: But we adopted Canva and it changed our game because it's no longer a single point of failure and I can actually leave town for a minute, you know, and people can like get access and have things that still look great, and it's no longer a single point of failure and I can actually leave town for a minute, you know, and people can like get access and have things that still look great and it's so accessible.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Well, good on you and the mentality.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Our organization has shifted dramatically and we have far more people who are younger than me who are very used to just putting up whatever they want to put up on the internet, and they're not going to stop when it comes to Perkins.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: So give them the tools to do it so that it's on brand and consistent.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Something we've learned Perkins is unique in that we do not have a built-in alumni network.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: How is that?
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Like a hospital or like a higher education, the folks who have disabilities most people with disabilities do not get employed.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Their families are spending a lot of money to take care of them, to save up so that they are taken care of.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: So there isn't a built-in alumni network of kids and families that come through Perkins.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Necessarily, there are plenty that are part of that, but that's not.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: That's not where you're going to get your donors.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: So we've had to work really, really hard on acquisition and it's challenging and it's expensive and sometimes you get the wrong donors who aren't going to stay with you.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you get the right donors who translate into planned gifts, who translate into major gifts, and we've been able to prove that in this past year with data.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, actually, we're getting many millions of dollars every single year from people we found through the direct mail acquisition programs.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Now our challenge is using that unified database to make sure that these folks who do know us know that they have the opportunity to be a part of our community, no matter what size the gift, or perhaps with a planned gift, you know, later in life.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: So that's another piece of our program was using data to understand what's really happening, where's the opportunity and where's where is the risk, and acquisition is one of our risks.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I'll say the last thing we have an awesome team, we have awesome leadership.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Say the last thing we have an awesome team, we have awesome leadership, we have a lot of ambition, and it's so easy to want to do all the things, and so one of my phrases I use a lot with the team is perfection is the enemy of done.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you just got to finish it and iterate on it later so that you can move on to the next thing Ship it Totally.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, we struggle with this as well.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of us out there who probably admit to struggling with this.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I got to like throw you a storytelling question.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Having somebody that's such a brilliant storyteller, how have you evolved or helped change the way that y'all storytell through your brand?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I'm just curious what lens you're bringing to that, cause it's kind of a difficult topic.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: You could use the wrong language and you know um kind of create more harm than good.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: How do you do that in an ethical way?
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Um, we have.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: We really rely on the style guide and we are always iterating on the style guide and adding new things.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: So, um, and we're always talking with the community, even through social media, and trying to gain insight into what are the preferences, cause it is always evolving.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: So another um brand that we own is blind new world and it is a beautiful, powerful brand run by um.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: A woman who works for, works for me, leah Barrett Demers, and she's brilliant with it, and it's adults telling their stories of like I'm blind and this is what my life is like, and sometimes it's a little adult, so that's why it's separate from Perkins.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: But we get a lot of real time feedback from that community about like, why did you say that that way?
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: We wish you hadn't done that, or this wasn't accessible or whatever.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: We have plenty of folks at Perkins who have loud voices about please don't say visually impaired anymore.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: We prefer low vision and just constantly telling us how to evolve our language.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I love that you said that it was a living document, because we also at least those folks that have been in this a while feel like it's like this brand guide that is just set in stone, but it's in a Google Doc these days because it changes and it's like everyone can have the update.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you're building a community of belonging, it's like everyone needs to see themselves in.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: And I say, see as like, however feel themselves in that community.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: They want it to sound right, they want it to look right, they want it to be a representation of them.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: And I think you could probably go back and listen to even us, as we're like trying to make sure we find the right words and that we don't overstep and we don't mispronounce or pigeonhole into someone, and I think if you are fearful of that, just freaking, ask your community.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: They will tell you.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: One of the rules we have for voice on my team and as an organization is there's no shame.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: So, while one of the things we are trying to do with our social media platform is advocate for disability inclusion, we're trying to do it in a way that's always positive and always educating, versus telling people they're doing it wrong.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: What a beautiful alternative.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just I thank you so much for this conversation.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I just I thank you so much for this conversation you come for building this campaign.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: But I think the awareness and the awakening in how beautiful this conversation can be, because we want more people feeling like they are welcome at our table, we want more belonging wherever we're building, we want as many hands, voices in our missions as humanly possible, and if there are ways that we are impeding people from coming in, we want to know about it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And so I want to just say great job to you and the Perkins team.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is a 200-plus-year-old mission and that's got to be challenging to keep something that has such a rich history and legacy, modern and evolved, and the voice of the people and and I think you've done it so well and I want to hear a story from you.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: You know how much we value story.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I know you do too, because I've heard some from you in the past, and I wonder if you would take us to a moment of philanthropy.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's at Perkins, maybe it's a moment of generosity growing up, but what's a moment that's really stayed with you and changed you?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Oh boy, a moment that's changed me.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I will use a recent example, although it's like one in a string.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I think that the change started when I first got here and every single day would encounter the work and be like, oh my gosh, like it was overwhelming sometimes how amazing the people were here.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Last week, my team and I went to observe an adaptive phys ed class and it was bike riding day.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you, the bikes that we have for kids with disabilities cost $6,000 each, and the phys ed teacher, megan O'Connell Copp, was telling me she's like a lot of folks don't understand how critical this is, because they see these kids with significant disabilities they're not always mobile, they don't, you know, riding a bike and they're like but they're not doing anything.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And she's like don't you see the look on their face?
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: And you should have seen the look on these kids' faces.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: They're feeling the wind in their hair, they're getting a break from being in the classroom, like we all did when we went to phys ed class, and they're feeling the sun on their shoulders and they're moving, even if they're even if they're like, kind of I don't want to say strapped in, but like.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: They're like clipped in, yeah, and moving around the track and getting that just like physical outside experience that they so deserve.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: It's worth $6,000 to give kids that every single day, no question, right?
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: So I think that was my one of my moments recently.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: And it's not lost to me Like.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I see kids like riding bicycles behind me right now.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: It's just like the joy of that and your description.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like 6,000, like what um an unlock that is, and that's the power of this philanthropy how we can connect people's story to these projects that really do make a difference.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know it's it's, it's changed the game for us and to us.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: That's what creates believers.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: If you can connect that tangible impact to a gift, they're with you for life too.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So, um, love that story and just want to give you space to share a one good thing.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: We wrap up our podcast asking for a piece of advice, maybe just a mantra that has held true for you, or something that's bubbled up this conversation.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: What you got my one good thing is take vacation and make sure your team takes vacation too.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I love you so much.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I didn't know you were going to say that and I love you for saying that again, because I'm not thinking about work and the list and the pressure and the things that you think you need to improve, which I'm very good at thinking of those things and I think you know when I do that for my team there's a happier team, there's a rejuvenated team who's going to be more creative and more productive and more motivated and more dedicated to even the team.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I just think it's so important and you know that's the sort of the beauty of the boss that I work for is she gives me plenty of space for that and sometimes even is like I don't think maybe today, maybe you just log off a little bit early today you know when there's like a tough day.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: I think it's really important today.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: You know, when there's like a tough day, I think it's really important.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Gotta have not a tired team.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I really feel like you connected your story and your one good thing together because, if you, I want each of us who've ever ridden a bike to like just picture in our mind's eye what it feels like to be free and to be joyful and to have that sun on your face and the wind at your back and the freedom that comes with it.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And I really believe that what you just said that disconnecting is going to give us that freedom back.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: It's going to give us that creative joy.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: It's going to give us that moment of delight when we can have those intersections of tranquility and creative expression and belief.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: And so thank you for centering it and just being calm and giving yourself a break and making sure that you understand that PTO is there to be used and not used, but exhausted, and so you are not exhausted.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I love this mission so dearly.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I love your passion for it and it.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: People are going to want to know how to connect with you, stephanie.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Like, tell us where you hang out online, how they can connect with Perkins School for the Blind, and, heck, if you have some needs, throw them out there.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Volunteer fundraising oh my gosh.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: We need volunteers, we need social media influencers and we also are always happy for videographers and creatives.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: What a good ask.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Marta, so smart.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: So smart.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: I'm on LinkedIn.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: It's Stephanie Jones-Wagle Perkins.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: I would say the best place to find us is Instagram.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: At Perkins vision, we're on Facebook.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: We're on all the socials.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: We are not yet on Tik TOK, but we're going to get there.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, my goodness, yes, all the creatives listening.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: There's a way to pour into this and, if not, this mission.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Use your creative talents to help a mission like that.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Such a beautiful call.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I mean it.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Y'all are living.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Marketing is mission.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: My heart is so full.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I love the work that you're doing, love the way that you're showing up.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you for taking a left-hand turn into this work from your background and media and whatnot.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: It's just been such a great story and time together.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you both.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: You just expanded our hearts and I want everyone to leave this conversation.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm throwing a one good thing at us, at everybody.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: But like getting your website, getting your content, how accessible is that?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Do you have something on your roadmap today that could make your community, your mission, your content more accessible to someone else?
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Let's expand the table.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you, stephanie.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you both.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: This was a really lovely way to have a Thursday start.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate you and all your encouragement.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend.