Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 481. Collective Giving: Harnessing the Power of Shared Resources - Emily Rasmussen

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481. Collective Giving: Harnessing the Power of Shared Resources - Emily Rasmussen · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the Good Community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Hey there, bea, what's happening?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I'm just so happy we have a friend in our midst whom we've actually met in real life, and she loves the arts and gathering women.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I mean like this is going to be a fiery conversation.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I know I love that we get to hang with Emily before she comes on the podcast, because I remember being mid conversation in the loudest restaurant literally in New York City where we had a little community gathering.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know you're anything and I was like Emily's story is so incredible Of just taking what you're uniquely gifted at the pain and problem that you see in the world and just jumping in and figuring things out along the way, and so it's really a huge honor to have Emily Rasmussen on the podcast today.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: She's the founder and CEO over at Grapevine and if you're not signed up, go do this.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I know you can multitask Get out your app and find Grapevine on the web and sign up and create an account.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk to you about it today, because this whole conversation is about democratizing philanthropy, and that is a topic that is really near and dear to our hearts of how do we get more people involved in what we call the impact uprising, because it's transformational and you're going to find amazing friends along the way too.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you a little bit about Emily before we jump into the conversation.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: She brings more than a decade of financing for impact, nonprofit and social enterprise through her leadership now at Grapevine.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: She was the founding ED of NYU's Center for Ballet and the Arts.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: She launched the Lincoln Center at the movies global media initiative so casual, by the way, incredible and developed innovative financing models for impact at enterprise solutions to poverty.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And before that she spent two years developing microfinance and fair trade programs in India, so she's a globally minded citizen.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: She has poured in and done the work on the front lines, and she also was a professional ballet dancer.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to hear a little bit about that story, where she performed with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, among others.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: She has her MBA from Harvard Business School and I'm feeling all the imposter syndrome, emily, but I want you to get into this house.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Tell us about this incredible grapevine that gathers like-minded people to donate to a common cause.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: We are so delighted to have you on the podcast.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, john and Becky, for having me and for that very generous introduction.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: It's so wonderful to be here.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we're delighted to jump in On the podcast it's never just a conversation because this story of grapevine wouldn't have happened if you hadn't had the experiences you had in your life, and so I wonder if you would take us back and tell us about Emily growing up and kind of some of the formative experiences that led you to this point today.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Goodness, that's a way back.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Well, if you can believe it, I was.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I grew up in a log cabin in the woods that my family built.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: My parents homeschooled my brother and myself, and so it's quite a non-traditional upbringing and I really I credit that actually with a lot of things, just pursuing different paths and whatever it is that inspires you, that gives you energy, and going after that, and I think that's very much the kind of education that my parents sought for my brother and me and it's kind of been the approach I think that I've taken with my own life.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I, after living at home and growing up there and then moving on to become a ballet dancer and pursuing that, I ultimately very interested in economic development and global affairs, and while I was dancing, 9-11 happened, and so it was just kind of the global stage was very much, you know, on my mind in a much bigger way than it had ever been previously, and so that led me to pursue a whole other field of work and it was just really an interesting moment for me to explore that and spend some time at the UN, and that's ultimately where I learned about microfinance and got into more of this kind of how can we get more resources into the hands of communities and give them opportunities to put that money to work in whatever ways they see fit to really build a thriving community.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And so that's kind of what got me off on this other path of work and ultimately, you know, to grapevine.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I love that first question because we go from log cabin to ballet, to the UN, to microfinance, and it's just.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I love the mosaic of personalities and lived experience that are drawn to this work.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: And can we talk about a weird parallel we have to microfinance that is also in New York City?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Monica Eunice, who is on our Ungettable Get List, who is a Juilliard opera singer and started seeing for hope.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Her dad invented microfinance.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Mohamed Eunice in Bangladesh.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Is this just not a small integrated world?
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And I just think about the callings of so many people that are just heartwired, and you've become kind of one of these beacons to us of what the collective giving movement can look like, and I want everyone to kind of take your brain back to the 1.0 of crowdfunding and what we began to see, you know, with movements of people pouring in to these group ideas that have been sourced in community.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: And collective giving to me is like an evolved 2.0, transformational, you know, versus transactional experience, and I want to know how you develop this vision for really creating a purposeful community-based giving experience with grapevine and what has been the vision for that, and tell me where you guys are today.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I first.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I love that you brought up Mohamed Eunice, because he was my inspiration when I was at the UN.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: That's where I learned about him, you've got to go meet Monica.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: No, I need to meet Monica now Next time you're in New York, yes, but yeah, so that was a big part of my inspiration and looking at microfinance models globally and then working for an organization in India for a couple of years and I really really enjoyed that experience and learned so much.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: And it was around that time that Kiva was really starting to take off and Kickstarter was just launching and with my arts background, you know, the whole Kickstarter model resonated deeply, and so I was.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: I was really following those early days of crowdfunding and very, very excited about it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I think there was something just theoretical that I loved around this concept of unlocking funds from communities around the world for communities around the world that I got very excited about.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't know exactly what that looked like or how to get involved, but I just I wanted to be a part of it and ultimately I spent some time at business school exploring that and was able to do some consulting for Kickstarter and even launched a crowdfunding platform for performance artists while in business school.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, I was always trying to merge the art side with with the other work as I was, as I was getting going, and I Think one of the things that I I learned through that experience, though, and engaging more with crowdfunding, was that it was feeling pretty transactional and, in a lot of ways, that was different from the kind of real community-based, connected experiences that I was having working in microfinance, and, ultimately, that's where I came up with this idea of like is how could we, you know, is it possible to create a more purposeful giving experience, create something that's more connected and meaningful still using technology to help democratize access and unlock funds, but, you know, breathe a little bit more of that community and and meaning into the experience?
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: And, yeah, that was a big question.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what that looked like, I didn't know how to really go about that, and so I spent several years in the nonprofit space after business school Just to try and better understand how word donors connecting with nonprofits, what was working, what wasn't working, and ultimately, that led to the early ideas around grapevine and creating a more purposeful giving experience through community and collaboration, and I have to say we, when we got started, it really was from that lens of how are we creating a whole new category that's separate from crowdfunding, which I now like to call crowd granting.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: That's, that's, you know, bringing this whole other element, yeah, this whole other experience Into that, that, that moving of collective funding.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: But I had no idea giving circles existed, and so it was in the early days of creating a couple of concepts and Experimenting with them that a few giving circles discovered us and reached out, and that's where we realized, of course we're not creating anything new, right, this is something that communities have been doing for decades.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: You're in the US coming together and connecting with each other, pooling money and giving back as a collective, and they don't have good tools.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: The traditional philanthropic infrastructure has largely kind of left them out of the picture, and it just became this wonderful moment where we connected and started to build together to create what is now a grapevine.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, what a cool founding story.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You're such a brilliant founder at how you have this North Star, but you've just let it evolve and it clearly is getting brighter and brighter as the community has Surrounded this effort and that's very apparent.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I just wonder what have you learned?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You know we're talking to a lot of founders this season, so I'm curious what you've learned in the journey of building this to where it's today.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, so much.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: I Mean John.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: I had never I've never worked in a technology company or startup before, so Just learning how to do that was was enormous.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I, my approach, was just how do I find great engineers, great technology Professionals who care, who want to make a difference?
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: And that's really how I found my early collaborators, justin and Chloe out of Google.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: They had collaborated to to launch the Google giving week and help build Google's giving platform, and it was One, you know, meeting one person getting connected to another and another to finally connect with them and realize, okay, here are my people, we're going to be able to do something together here.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: And so I think you know, through them, I have learned so much and and Continue to learn so much about what it means to build a startup, which is a whole different approach, a whole different way of think.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Preach, you're running your own startup we're all in the same, in the same boat here or you're building something from scratch, out of nothing.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: My business school used to say, or probably still says, entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity regardless of resources, controlled, which is a very technical way of saying you're basically going after something with no resources to go after it, you have no money, you have no staff.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: You have, you know, and you have to pull all that together at the same time.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: So I've just learned so much about the technology space, about about how to build something, build the plane while flying it, how to have kind of ridiculous confidence when you have none.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: You know there's someone and being okay with that, one of my advisors said to me months well, you might as well bet on yourself.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: And I think that's such a great, the great saying, because I think that might be one of the biggest things that I've learned along the way is that you know, if you have enough conviction and you have enough belief in something, you'll figure it out.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: And so just keep going.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: That's good, it is.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It's the Marie Forleo.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Everything is figureoutable.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And I like having that mindset and I think it's a good one when we're talking about sort of the state of giving right now in the world.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And I think you know the fundraising climate is clearly calling for this democratization of giving.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: And you know we've talked a little bit about the GivingUSA report, which, again, we take with the grain of salt, friends, because it's not the reflection of what's going on in your shop.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: It's the collective reflection of the collective and also it's a micro look into a reflection of giving that's only on the financial side.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: But we do have to talk about the fact that giving is down.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Charitable donations dropped in 2022 for the fourth time in four decades and so we're seeing a bigger wealth disparity than ever before.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: The number of people that's giving back is going down.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: But the way that people are giving and I put this caveat on here because this is not a depressive stat, this is an evolving stat because we're not just looking at giving as the only cursor for generosity, we're looking at behaviors, we're looking at how people are showing up, what they're pouring into the sector I think is very, very interesting.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: You have this unique lens on it and I want to just get your input on how you've seen generosity change during your decade of experience in this field and how collective giving is becoming one of the great catalysts for the democratization of giving.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up, becky.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I think the sector the nonprofit philanthropic sector is.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: We are challenged and those numbers reflect that as things are changing.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: But I love that framing of it.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: It's an evolving stat and it's so true.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: I think, from what I've seen and what the numbers show, yes, giving to charitable organizations, to nonprofit public charities, is down, and that is concerning less than 50% of households in the US gave last year.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: But what we're seeing is just a much broader range, I think, of ways that people are giving back, and so we don't have great tools to track all of those other ways, to give a full picture of generosity.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: And I know that there are some really great organizations working on this, like Giving Tuesday and others, that are trying to better track those other ways.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: So I have a lot of optimism around generosity more broadly, even with those numbers going down.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, broadly, people are generous, right, and we're just finding other ways to give and that could be through crowdfunding campaigns, that could be by joining a mutual aid society and giving items and time a variety of things I think that we're seeing people doing and I think it's really great because it pushes us to think beyond the traditional legal structures?
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: When did nonprofit as a legal status become the only way to make a difference, whether you're funding one or starting one, right?
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I know, john, you've talked about this a little bit on LinkedIn why I poked the bear man.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I mean yeah, yeah, you did.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I love it when.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: John pokes the bear.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: But it's important because I think we are evolving and that's what we're seeing just in the behavior of how people are creating impact and funding impact, and our systems and other processes will probably take longer, as they always do, to catch up.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: So I am very optimistic.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I think generosity is alive and well.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I think we're seeing it flowing through a number of other channels, whether they're online or in person, whether it's funding with actual dollars or spending time, skills, other resources to help make a difference.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: So I definitely think we have a lot of opportunity ahead, and I think one of the bigger challenges is for those of us who kind of straddle or are in the traditional nonprofit space how do we evolve?
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Because I think we need to.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: You know you need all of these people that are in these organizations doing their work, but maybe just some new processes and approaches to getting that work funded and supported.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: We're here for that and I think you know one of the age we even call it the ye old donor pyramid.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: We feel like this is like this graphic that's haunted us our whole careers, you know.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I see the font when you say ye old Like.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of an old like.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: But I think you know, like to us that's one of the examples, because while we were within the nonprofit, we're like there's so much more power when you flip the script and I think obviously the rise of just engagement online and social media and things have made that more accessible or more broadly visible but just unleashing the base.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: We just feel like we're at an inflection point and I think you're hitting that at such a beautiful time and showing up with a technology solution that helps do this.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: But why do you think this is the time to really flip the pyramid and, you know, throw out some of the traditional methods, for how do we engage more broadly, how do we open up and democratize this moment?
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess there's no time like the present right.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: I mean you could say that the time was 10 years ago and some probably do.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: But I think COVID created an opportunity for a lot of organizations not just an opportunity, a necessity for a lot of organizations to rethink things and start collaborating more and think about other ways to engage donors and think beyond the donors that they already had and how to engage and connect with new donors.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: So I definitely think that has helped, kind of pushed everyone in a direction.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I have deep empathy for people working in nonprofits who are on the development team, or even I was never directly on a development team but was running an organization or was running a program where I worked directly with my development colleagues and I know that pressure.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I know what it's like to have.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's real.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you have to get that number in the door in the next three months or at the end of this year.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: How are you going to make the space to think about a new model and try to cultivate donors in a new way?
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: It's very, very difficult and I think COVID kind of helped create some of that space because people had to take that opportunity to do that, because the traditional models weren't necessarily available.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: You couldn't just have another gala, you know that kind of thing.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: So I do think there's a unique moment now that has been spurred from that, and I think that the funding issues that we're seeing more broadly are also giving people that kind of license to maybe carve out 10 or 20 percent of their time to look a little bit further afield Because, look, this is a challenge and we need to be smart about this.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: It's not five years from now, it's next year, you know, it's three years from now.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: I do also think there's this broader kind of what we're seeing at Grafine, just from the community, from donors, this real desire to connect with each other, so real desire for connecting with like-minded people, for connecting with others who share your values of giving back, of supporting your community, and I think that's what's really driving a lot of the engagement and the adoption of the giving circles on our platform, and I think that's also kind of come out of, or at least been accelerated by COVID right and people coming out at that time and really seeking those connections, and maybe we always wanted that and we found other ways to get those things.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You can look at other models historically too, whether it's Junior Leagues or Rotary Clubs, where a lot of the connecting was kind of built around also giving back.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: But a lot of those models people think of as outdated you talk to younger generations they don't even know of those models, they haven't heard of them, right?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: So I think there's like a natural, inherent thing in us to want to connect around this idea of giving back and with others who share those values.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: But I think some of those traditional models are a little bit outdated at this point.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: And then I think COVID has really pushed a lot of us to seek those out in bigger ways and, yeah, I think it's created this really wonderful moment for us to provide those opportunities for people.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: And at least from where you know, from the work that we're doing at Grapevine, I think giving circles is one of those models, one of those paths.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I agree with you and you're poking the bear on me now.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: This time because I want to express something that really hurts and bothers me is that you know, we try to be abundant thinking here in this community and we try to talk about how do we do exactly what you're talking about, how do we integrate innovation?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And I mean in the last probably six months I've had five people that I can just think of off the top of my head say Becky, I want to do this very progressive work that you're talking about, but we only have enough in our reserve and revenue right now for two more payrolls and we are literally on the margins just trying to churn.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: And I want to give everyone out there who feels that a little bit of mom hug here and say we get it and it's hard, and I think some of those traditional models are really stifling our ability to scale.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I just want to double click on what you said in your community how is your community activating?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: How does Grapevine within all of these subsets you know you were talking before we got on there's a women in business leadership in New York.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You know collective giving circle.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: How are these individuals activating within their circles?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I would just like to see some examples or know what you guys are working on.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah absolutely.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: You know, I think the nice thing with community is that there are just so many ways than levels at which you can engage, and so when you're joining a giving circle like the New York Women in Business for Good Group, for example, the idea is that you're joining a community of other people who also want to give back to New York in this case, but you're joining this community of people.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: So maybe I'll just start by framing how I like to talk about crowd granting as different from crowd funding, because I think that really does highlight the ways that you can engage and the ways that we see our community members engage in giving circles.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: And so I talk about the four C's of crowd granting.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And the first C is community.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: So community is front and foremost in this model, and it's about you joining a community and getting to connect with those other members, build your own community while giving back to the community, right.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: So community first and foremost.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Second, collective resources.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: So you are pooling your donations.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: This is about money.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: We know money matters when we look at getting things done, but it's not only that right, it's also your knowledge, your networks.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: You get to bring those to this model, because there's the third C, which is collaboration.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: That's where you get to help decide where money goes.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: You, as a Giving Circle member, might have the option to nominate a nonprofit that you know is doing really great work.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: This community should know about it.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: We should support it.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: You have the opportunity to vote.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Most Giving Circles operate on this nomination and majority vote model.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: You can help decide where that pooled fund goes.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Finally, the fourth C is continuation.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: This is not a one-time crowdfunding campaign.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: We all pitch in to support someone else in their project or the thing they care about.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: This is about us coming together as a community, pooling our resources, collaborating to decide what to support and then doing that again, whether it's every three months that we do this or every year.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Every month, there's some concept of continuation, typically built into the Giving Circle model, where you continue to build and connect with your community while giving back to the community.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Boom.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I love that framework so much.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I think we're talking about community all the time on the podcast.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of these threads resonate to me.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I think you can have community too, as you find partnerships in this work.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I definitely feel that in our work at we Are For Good, I've seen just the way that y'all have shown up to partner with incredible companies, social impact organizations.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I'd love for you to take us below the hood.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: What is your approach as you lock arms to grow your impact with different companies?
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as an organization, collaboration is one of our key things, one of our key values of how we work as a team and how we work with the broader community that we're building, as well as with other organizations that want to get involved From the beginning.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: It's actually funny.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Philanthropy together is another organization that supports Giving Circles.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: They're wonderful.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: I know we share them as friends.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: They launched the day after we did.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: We launched March 31st.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: No way March 20.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they launched April 1st 2020.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: We knew about each other long before that.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: We'd already been talking as we were planning and working on things.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: We've just been longtime friends and collaborators from the get-go.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Wherever we can collaborate with others, we're always seeking those opportunities with philanthropy together, we're trying to work with partners to raise awareness about Giving Circles and give donors more opportunities to easily find and join a group or start their own.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: It's a big part of what we do as a platform.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: We give people that opportunity to find and engage in this movement immediately in whatever way makes sense for them.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: We're always looking for partners to help raise awareness and to bring this model to their communities.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: We're also always happy to help partners, whether they're nonprofits or companies, think about how can we engage with this Giving Circle movement or how can we be part of it in a bigger way.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: For example, how can we launch a Giving Circle for our team?
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Because we would love to cultivate culture within our company through this process of learning about what each other cares about and giving back as a collective.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Let's not let one person on our team decide where our company funds go, what nonprofits to support.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Let's all be part of that.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Let's have this be a culture building, community building effort along the way, whether it's companies or nonprofits who are trying to learn about this movement, how they can engage with it, and or how they can learn from this model to start similar community based donor circles.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: We're here to share, to learn and to collaborate to just further this movement broadly.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited y'all, we get to stand in a moment where we're not fighting each other for scraps in the margins, where a whole bunch of different organizations are trying to solve the same cause.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: If you want to evolve, this is the way.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I absolutely love that you don't look at philanthropy together as a competitor.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: You look at them as a partner.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: This is a completely different way to look at philanthropy and how we can move faster when we partner up, when we get together.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I thank you for talking about this and the way that you are.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you for talking about the importance of tech to power this collaboration.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I just want to double click on this partnership, because I'm just so excited about it, because I do think we can run faster.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Tell us about working with these giving circles.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Talk about this partnership with philanthropy together.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: By the way, we're going to drop in.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: We've talked with Kaisen Bangthuong, who is a great friend over at philanthropy together, and Sarah Lomelin is a great TED talk.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: We'll link up those conversations within the show notes.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I want to know how did these interactions inspire innovation within your company, within the movement?
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: What are you all seeing there?
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's almost coming back to the startup lens.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Let's think about in startup land.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: You're pursuing opportunity without resources we talked about a moment ago.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Relatable to the nonprofit world.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Let's be clear.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, true.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: If you have a partner who can help fill a gap, why recreate the wheel?
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Why do that?
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: That's wonderful.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: You can move faster, you can do more.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: We're always seeking those kinds of partnerships and I think philanthropy together from the directory that I mentioned earlier to collaborating with us on developing leadership training programs.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: We as a platform, now Grafine, hosts over 900 giving circles for every state across the country.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: We have more than 60,000 donors on our platform.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: I'm so proud of you.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've turned over 1,000 new giving circle leaders who are active in giving circles.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: That's a lot, it turns out.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Community building is a lot of work.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: To have a partner like philanthropy together and some of the others that can step in and say oh, we can help you develop this training program.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: We have some good resources and tools that we've developed over here.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Or help us just think about some of this work and step in and even bring some of the good thinking and work that they're doing to augment what we're doing and complement the training and events and resources we provide our leaders is so valuable.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: It's valuable for them, it's valuable for the leaders, it's valuable for us, as we're all trying to do more than we possibly can in this sector.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I think that's usually pretty universal.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the partnership there has been really valuable.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: That's generally how we think about.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: It is how can we partner with others to create and unlock more value more quickly than we can do on our own?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Man, am I here for that?
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: so good and that's uprising.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And like the value alignment you can just tell, like how those sink together in such a beautiful way.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And so we always carve out time on the podcast to talk about a story and I wonder if you would take us back to a moment when philanthropy maybe you're witness to it or you it happened to you personally but take us back to a moment of philanthropy that's really stuck with you in your journey.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Oh goodness Picking one.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I maybe the first experience with philanthropy that I have just just coming to mind right now, and it was I actually had never experienced it directly.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: My mom always took us to volunteer, but I hadn't ever experienced like giving of money.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: And then somehow I ended up on a list, for I think it was the ASPCA or one of these animal shelter organizations.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: And.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: I was just little.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: But they, they were asking for funding and I can't remember what the story was, but it resonated so much with me and I just remember pooling, getting my change, you know, literally putting like quarters and dimes and pennies into this little envelope that I don't know if it ever made it, making it heavier for big stamps.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Got it, love it.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to run some more stamps than my mom did than was actually in the envelope.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: But it was just the first time, I think, and I remember later on, you know, things like going around with Halloween, right, and you had those little cans we were collecting change as well, but that was the first one that really resonated with me where I could see that money instead of buying this thing.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: I could actually somehow make a difference at that moment for this particular organization, you know, for animals that I really cared about, and that was just powerful for me.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I think that kind of set me off on just a broader understanding of the different ways that we can create impact.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: You know, I, like I said, I'd been volunteering as a younger from the time that I was pretty young and I became vegetarian when I was 11, because I cared about animals and all these other things.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: But that was, yeah, the first kind of experience with philanthropy and the financial sense and that's the one that comes to mind.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And I love that I'm the only carnivore on this podcast because John is also vegetarian.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: And.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I, I love those formative experiences Some way to go, emily's mom because I think when that's modeled for you when you're young, it's a, it's just a shorter leap.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: When you grow older, it's just a natural extension of what makes you feel good and what you care about and pouring into those things.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: So you've listened to the podcast enough, emily.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: You know we're going to ask you a one good thing and what would be the one good thing that you would leave with our community today?
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, the one good thing I would just say if not now, when and I just I'd like to share that with people, because I know the people that are listening are people who are inspired, people who have a lot to give, people who are giving a lot that might be thinking about something more that they'd like to do, a different approach they'd like to take, and I think there's always a reason to wait.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: But you know, to your question earlier about why now, I think well, if not now, when, and now is always the right time.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: So I encourage everyone to take a leap.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: That's sort of what got me to jump into working on Greatvine and so glad that I did so.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I love it and I love that you're why now is I'm going to start a tech company, because I know nothing about tech.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: So, whoever's listening, it's got to be less scary than that, right, I think so.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, emily, this has been so fun and far ranging of a conversation.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: How can people find you, follow you and get connected through Greatvine, like what's some a call to action of how to just get involved with what you're doing?
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to go to LinkedIn Emily Rasmussen, greatvineorg you can find me there.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: That's where I do most of my online connecting, and then otherwise, greatvineorg Find us there.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: We have lots of great resources for individuals looking to find and join a giving circle or start their own, or companies or nonprofits, others looking to learn more about and connect with this movement, and you know you have lots of ways to be in touch with us there as well.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: As far as how we can support you along that journey, we would love to be your partner.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Hey, more hands in the pot means more good, more impact going into the world.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Find your squad, you know, if that's in a giving circle, if that's in a knitting circle in your hometown, who wants to sponsor something?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Find a way to get in community with other people.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you, emily.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: I mean I just think this has been such a robust discussion about how we can democratize philanthropy and we are just rooting mightily for what you're doing over at Greatvine.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: It is extraordinary and from ballerina log cabin to just changing the world, one giving circle at a time, you're extraordinary.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad to know you.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Becky and John, for having me.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: It's been such a pleasure.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.
• 36:04
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• 36:06
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• 36:10
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• 36:13
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• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear our next conversation.