Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 124. How to Grow Your Social Impact in the Attention Economy - Eric Ressler

Transcript

124. How to Grow Your Social Impact in the Attention Economy - Eric Ressler · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, I'm john.
• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: And I'm Becky. And this is the we are for good podcast.
• 0:05
  Becky Endicott: 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
  Jonathan McCoy: 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
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Hey, Becky,
• 0:37
  Becky Endicott: welcome everybody.
• 0:38
  Jonathan McCoy: It's such a fun day,
• 0:39
  Becky Endicott: man. We're going to like Santa Cruz, California.
• 0:42
  Becky Endicott: And we're like talking about our most favorite thing ever, almost branding intersection. And
• 0:47
  Jonathan McCoy: that with impact, I mean, this is gonna be such a fun conversation I did.
• 0:49
  Jonathan McCoy: So let me tell you a little story. I'm scrolling LinkedIn.
• 0:52
  Jonathan McCoy: And I literally see some scroll stopping content, which is so funny, because it's what our guest talks about. And I dive in. And I discovered this manifesto of this company. I'm like, Who is this company? That is she, you know, putting out there this disruptive idea of a digital revolution and how nonprofits need to step into it.
• 1:14
  Jonathan McCoy: And I get lost in this website, which I'd never really do like this. I lost her by like 45 minutes, and just going on this black hole of like, who is on the end of this, like, who is the wizard at the end of this curtain that has these brilliant ideas, the most beautiful, immersive website, and like so much alignment with the core values that we talked about that start movements, and I finally found the end of the wizard, and it's Eric. And I asked Eric to come on the podcast. And so I'm really delighted to have this conversation. Eric Ressler is the founder and creative director of cosmic their websites designed by cosmic so go check it out. But today, we're going to just dive into everything that they do, and kind of their ethos for how they really want to help the nonprofit industry disrupt what is the status quo. They are a social impact creative agency, they work with some incredible big organizations and small organizations alike, to really just amplify what they're doing using the power of technology using the power of storytelling.
• 2:11
  Jonathan McCoy: And they do it in the most beautiful way. So I just can't wait for this conversation. It's going to be amazing. Eric, welcome to the podcast.
• 2:19
  Eric Ressler: Thanks so much.
• 2:19
  Eric Ressler: I'm so excited to be here today.
• 2:21
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, hey, would you kind of you know, tell us what led you to Santa Cruz to start cosmic give us a little bit of your backstory, because we kind of all want to move to Santa Cruz after hearing a little bit about it.
• 2:31
  Eric Ressler: Yeah, that story actually loops back a little bit to our pre conversation. So I actually moved to Santa Cruz to join a band. I had some friends who were going to UCSC. And I've been playing bass for, you know, most of my young adult life in various bands, and their bass player was moving on, and they needed a bass player. And I was at a point in my life where I was really ready for a change of scenery, and to experience something new, in my early 20s.
• 2:54
  Eric Ressler: And I was like, this sounds awesome. I had visited Santa Cruz a couple times and really loved it. You know, one of my best friends was the drummer in the band and had a spot at his house. And I was like, I'm in let's do it. So that's that's essentially how I got started in terms of moving to Santa Cruz.
• 3:09
  Eric Ressler: And then how that links into kind of my unintentional slash intentional career path, is that I needed to make money because the band wasn't paying the bills. And I'd always been doing design and creative work and really digital media from a young age and started basically just doing that in freelance kind of capacity. And it got to the point I was working on my room, and you know, had the band in the house. And you know, it was not always conducive to getting work done. So eventually ended up moving downtown to a co working space, just running a desk and an office eventually.
• 3:45
  Eric Ressler: And that was really a great source of connection and community. And just getting involved with a lot of different interesting startups and folks here in Santa Cruz, doing cool, innovative things, and all of them need to design and development work. And so it's just this great synergistic thing that just happened. And that led to basically the formation of cosmic, I started getting too busy, I needed help.
• 4:07
  Eric Ressler: And so started reaching out to other designers and developers and bringing them on and eventually starting, you know, affirming a more official capacity and growing that firm to, you know, today, we're a team of eight, we've been larger, we've been smaller as as kind of the natural ebb and flow of business goes. And that was really kind of the beginning of the path. And the path didn't really start with social impact.
• 4:29
  Eric Ressler: It started with design. And we just started taking clients from, you know, all different industries and sectors and sizes, and just really trying to experience all of it to see where we could figure out what our niche would be. And when we were about six years old, we decided that it was time to really dig in and carve out a niche and stand for something because there's just so many different brilliant design agencies out there doing exceptional work and marketing agencies and branding agencies.
• 4:55
  Eric Ressler: And we didn't really have a clue differentiation other than just the work that we've done in our experiences. And so we realized we needed to figure out a path that we could really own and that we could really deepen our expertise around. And we started looking at all the work that we've done over the years, and we've been doing work with startups with b2b brands, b2c brands, and also in the social impact space. And we started trying to figure out like, how to describe this space for the longest time, like, we want to do community focus stuff, we want to do human focus stuff, we're gonna do arts and culture focus stuff. And then we just started realizing we're just saying social impact and a bunch of different ways. And that's really the niche that we need to own. I mean,
• 5:35
  Becky Endicott: as the daughter of two hippies, you know, you are the john paul Jones, I said this before, no one knows what that is. That's the Led Zeppelin bass player. I mean, when you take someone who has a penchant for incredible creativity, I mean, like truly an artist, and then you can funnel that through the lens of creative through design. And I have to say, just the storytelling that your company can impart through design, the pacing of it, I mean, we're, I'm sure we're going to get into the manifesto that's on this website, because we were geeked out when we saw this, you cannot even click to like, number nine value on their manifesto before they force you to go one by one. No, no, number one is this, and
• 6:21
  Jonathan McCoy: they just build
• 6:22
  Becky Endicott: it. It's like a crescendo. I mean, we're gonna have so many music metaphors, I can tell in this conversation, but the crescendo to the to the endpoint that gives you the sense of who this company is.
• 6:33
  Becky Endicott: It's like, I got to tell you, if I were a nonprofit right now looking for somebody to amplify my brand, this is a really awesome agency to do it, because it's really incredible. So and I think the thing that I wanted to dive into is, you all talk about a digital revolution. And that jives so well with kind of what we talked about like because we want a sector revolution right now we call it our impact uprising, the way we want to look at how we connect with each other. The way that we want to amplify our brands and our missions has got to be I'm using the word I'm sorry, john, john hates this word. We got a pivot like a hard hard pivot away from what we've been doing before.
• 7:15
  Becky Endicott: And I want you to talk a little bit about this digital revolution and how you're leading the social impact agencies through it in organizations. Awesome.
• 7:24
  Eric Ressler: Yeah. So I think the the way that I came to come up with this digital revolution, framing for the manifesto is really it really starts with the attention economy. And you guys may have heard of this concept, not a concept that we invented.
• 7:37
  Eric Ressler: But it's one that we're all living. And it's one that I think we find ourselves in without realizing it's happened, right, because it didn't happen totally overnight. It's this incremental, natural evolution, all the technological innovation that's happened over the last decade. And, of course, there was technological innovation that happened before that decade to like, let that decade happen.
• 7:55
  Eric Ressler: So it's this kind of, but now, you know, we live in this in this space in this experience, where information is free and flowing and overwhelming. And so the scarcity is no longer access to information for a lot of people. Certainly, there's still some people in underserved communities where that is still an issue. But for a lot of people across the globe, even in third world and underserved countries, information is free and accessible. And so the new scarcity is people's attention.
• 8:26
  Eric Ressler: And I think that that fundamentally changes the game, as a storyteller, as a marketer, and as a nonprofit, in terms of how you spread ideas about the better version of the future that you're hoping to create, how you connect with those that resonate with idea. The idea that, you know, basically, once you get people engaged, you have to inspire them to actually take action. And all of this happens primarily through digital channels these days. But a lot of nonprofits and social impact organizations are still playing the old game, they're still doing things in the old paradigm, and they don't have strong digital first culture is built out within their organizations. And that's really the large shift that needs to be made in order to really play in this new attention economy.
• 9:16
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, I think you're spot on, obviously, but something that you that is called out in your Manifesto, because I love that you're very comfortable talking about that we need to step into being a brand. You know, I think there's some old guard at nonprofits that would be scared of that, you know, that that's moving the attention away. But those evolved, organizations that understand you're competing for attention. This is a quote that I love to have as part of your Manifesto. people ignore or forget organizations all the time. They become diehard supporters of the brands they believe in. And I think that that is a shift and it's true.
• 9:52
  Jonathan McCoy: If you start to look at Where's your spending patterns, where do you spend your time? Where do you go shop and buy your groceries, all of it as part of brands these days. isn't how you're connected? So would you kind of talk about that? I mean, how how does a organization move to becoming a brand that people love, and that they become supporters of what are some key cogs of that?
• 10:44
  Eric Ressler: I think it really starts with having a clear mission and vision, and a very clear niche within the social impact ecosystem, similar to how you know, we needed to carve out our niches and agency, these nonprofit organizations need to carve out their niche within their area of focus. And I think it's really important. And there's a distinction between, you know, what would be called positioning in the business world and carving out your niche and the ecosystem and the social impact space. And that difference is you're not really competing in the same way for customers. Because if you're working towards an issue that people care about, it's really more of a synergistic partnership with other players in the space who are working towards the same issues. And so I think, then the strategy becomes, as an organization, what is our niche? And how do we determine what our niches and you look at? What are our unique strengths that only we can bring to this issue that other organizations can't, and really doubling down on those things.
• 11:41
  Eric Ressler: And if you start with that, and you have to start with that, because then everything else can kind of flow naturally from that. And if you don't do the hard work, of really clearly carving out your niche, and saying no to things and saying yes to other things, then it's really hard to do the rest of it well, because you start to create these really broad muddy stories. And a story needs to be concise, it needs to be clear for it to be effective. But if you're not, if you're trying to say everything to everyone, you end up saying nothing to no one.
• 12:11
  Eric Ressler: And so you really have to figure out what is our niche? And then what's our story based on that niche? What is our mission based on that niche? And then what's our vision based on that niche, and that's kind of the core strategy that guides all the rest of the work that needs to happen.
• 12:27
  Becky Endicott: I really liked this discussion on just focus and on niche because you're exactly right, Eric, I mean, there, there are so many messages that could be coming in from our organizations. But it's like, we need to focus on the one that is the truest that is the most sustainable and supportive to our missions. And I want to quote something the thing that I love the most in your Manifesto, which ironically, is your third piece, and you're talking about it, which is we will thrive in our niche and the ecosystem. And I and I want to emphasize this final point, I'm going to read this real quick. We will establish our position in the social impact ecosystem and ensure that we maintain focus on our unique perspective approach and strengths. We know that our success lies in staying true to our mission, whereas straying from the path only prolongs our journey. Okay. When we stray from our path, it prolongs our journey is that not a profound thought that if you're trying to say too many things, if you're trying to and I like want to crystallize it for people who maybe are not in branding, it's like, if you are trying to be on every platform, if you are trying to, you know, build a website that has all the bells and whistles, it's just a distractor, because we need to do the one thing that we're really good at, we need to take our donors, our champions hands, and we need to walk that them through that focus line. Because if we do, we're not straying, and we're able to achieve the bigger thing down the road, which when we do we get to set another goal that's bigger, you know, and that is the journey. I think that if we put some focus around this, I think that that could just be really ground bake breaking for a lot of people.
• 14:12
  Becky Endicott: And I love how baked in that you have it. So I wonder like, what advice would you give? For our listeners, especially, we always talk about the little nonprofit, somebody who doesn't have like a marketing team behind them?
• 14:22
  Becky Endicott: Where would they start, if they were going to try to find that focus within their niche.
• 14:29
  Eric Ressler: So there's a lot of different methods. And you know, I can only kind of share our experiences doing this for ourselves and helping other clients do this as well.
• 14:37
  Eric Ressler: Oftentimes, this is the kind of thing that would happen at like a team mind retreat or like a strategic planning session. And I think really starting in a conversational way and asking some key stakeholders within your organization to just write down almost like a stream of consciousness response to a prompt, like, what are the unique strengths that we bring to our sector, like or to our issue or our area of focus, because that's really where a niche begins, because there's oftentimes, these organizations are working towards some of the most complex and intractable problems in the world. And they're huge systems level issues. Other organizations might be focused regionally, but these are sticky problems.
• 15:18
  Eric Ressler: They're thorny problems. They're the problems that the private sector hasn't solved, that government hasn't solved. And so the nonprofit sector is kind of this like third sector that's come in to try and solve these really difficult issues. And then they're under resourced and they don't have enough capacity to really do it. So There's a lot of barriers, and there's a lot of complexity. And there's a natural tendency towards mission creep. Because these folks are super passionate about their issues. And they see all the different connections, they see all the different pieces that need to be fixed for the larger problem to actually change. And so it's quite common in our experience for these organizations to just have a clear mission at the beginning, and then just start tacking on and on and on and on, and on and on to that. And because they're spreading, they're already you know, under resourced efforts across more and more, they're actually able to achieve less and less over the long term. And so we're big believers in really just nailing What is your unique strength as an organization, what is that niche that you're going to carve out, and then building on that. So you know, it's there's no magic bullet to this, it's the hardest thing you're going to do as an organization is the hardest thing we did in our pivot as an organization. And it takes a lot of thought and soul searching.
• 16:29
  Eric Ressler: But it's really, at the end of the day, you want to come back to your unique strengths and what you really believe in, and the thing that you really want to spend your time doing as an organization. And you have to realize that there's going to be things that you say no to because of that, there's going to be things that you're just not going to do anymore. As an organization, there may be staffing changes that happened because of it. Both in terms of, you know, shifting staffs responsibilities, increasing staff, reducing staff, just depending on how things are structured internally. But there's always opportunities to partner with other organizations that have their own unique strength and niche that you no longer serve. And I think we're big believers in that both in terms of operationally partnering, partnering from a marketing perspective and a co marketing perspective to amplify other people's stories and voices. But you really have to do the hard work and sit down and figure out, what's the part that we're going to bring to the table and focus all your efforts on that. Because that's when you can actually truly make an impact
• 17:25
  Becky Endicott: to me and like the most simplistic form, it's like, Do you know who you are?
• 17:27
  Becky Endicott: And we, if you cannot answer that question, we got to do some work on that. And we talk a lot just about our if your organization is that is rooted in values. And if you know who you are, what are those things, it makes the mission so clear, it makes who you are so clear, it's how you respond and show up. And I really appreciate that you made the nonprofit, the hero in this situation, saying that we do have sticky problems, government's not going to solve them, corporations are not going to solve them, we're gonna solve them. So let's cut out the white noise of the stuff that we do in our organization and focus really well, on the one thing that we can do to show up Great, well,
• 18:07
  Jonathan McCoy: I think a theme of this season two is, is dreaming really big. And I think pairing that with the council that you're giving us here is painting a really specific picture of what is this vision you're trying to create. We can't just all show up and say we're going to change the world because that's not doesn't really mean anything. But to say I want to, you know, in homelessness in Oklahoma City, or in you know, something very specific. It's like people that care about that cause are going to understand and believe in that I want to see that happen and eradicated in my lifetime or in the next decade, or whatever your vision is. So I really appreciate you doing that.
• 18:44
  Jonathan McCoy: Taking a quick pause from today's episode to thank our sponsor who happens to be one of our favorite companies virtuous, you know, we believe everyone matters. And we've witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you see an activate donors at every level. And virtuous is the platform to help you do just that. It's so much more than a nonprofit CRM.
• 19:01
  Jonathan McCoy: virtuous helps charities reimagine generosity through responsive fundraising. And we love it because this approach builds trust and loyalty through personalized donor engagement.
• 19:10
  Jonathan McCoy: Some, like virtuous may be a fit for your organization, learn more today@virtuous.org, follow the link in our show notes.
• 19:17
  Jonathan McCoy: Something that I want to pivot, oh my gosh, we've said it three times. I'm scared. Y'all are so disruptive in this space. And I feel like it's only disruptive in nonprofit because brands moved this way a long time ago, is that you've got to become a digital media platform. It's not just about being you know, your social media. I feel like I have these conversations with nonprofits all the time of like, they think that their social media is like trying to get a donation there. Like I didn't get any response on this. And it's like, Did you really think that one post is going to get somebody to give no? How are you elevating the conversation and building a platform and using all the channels to advance your cause? And that's something I'd love for you to kind of geek out with us and kind of cast some vision for how to look at that.
• 20:04
  Eric Ressler: Yeah, so the way that we think about this is that you basically are building a machine. And if you think of the machine as a flywheel, your core website is kind of the hub of that flywheel. And then you need all kinds of different pieces of content and communication that essentially are all trying to drive people back to that core website. And there's a lot that that core website needs to do for it to be effective. One of the biggest mistakes that we see nonprofits make and all kinds of organizations make Because of that they make their website about themselves. And their website needs to be about their community and how they can help and how they can become activated. And certainly there's a place to talk about the history and the story. But that's actually like, you should have to dig to find that a little bit. And often, that's what these websites lead with.
• 20:47
  Eric Ressler: And so sometimes that's just the issue is like, we see people who are actually getting a lot of engagement on their social channels and driving people back to their site. But that core hub of the flywheel isn't functioning the way that it should. There's really three main components to all of this, and all this machine that this flywheel machine, and it's basically content, technology, and culture. And so content is this need to create ongoing, authentic, interesting, engaging, and oftentimes, a couple times a year scroll, stopping content that can like really capture people's attention, continue to engage them, give them reasons to come back to the site to interact with your brand, to become part of the community and help kind of move the story along. And then on the technology side, there's all kinds of technology that needs to be set up to make sure that that's all integrated and working in a way that allows you as the organization to identify people who are engaged and give them opportunities to act. And they'll oftentimes there's these disparate systems, there's stuff happening on social, there's stuff happening on email, there's stuff happening on the website, but there's no integrated CRM or donor engagement platform that allows the people within the organization to understand what's working, and what's not working, and getting an idea at a per contact level or per user level, how they're interacting with your content, how they're engaging with your organization, and what opportunities that are to kind of move them up this thing that we call the engagement pyramid. And so that's the technology side. And then the culture side is there's a need for these organizations to build out a strong internal digital first culture. And what does that mean? It means that your digital and your brand gets the same amount of attention does your program work because it is your program work, because this is how you engage people.
• 22:41
  Eric Ressler: And oftentimes it gets thought of as this marketing costs, this expense that has to happen after the program work is done to talk about all the program work success. And we want to flip that on its head and show organizations that this is actually where you should start.
• 22:54
  Eric Ressler: And when you start with that in mind, then you start to see this upward spiral happen, you get more engagement, you get more donations, you get more people showing up, inspired and activated. And that leads to the ability for this upward spiral to start to form and then you start to actually make an impact. And then you can talk about that impact. Do you actually have the right content strategy in place to do that, you have the right channel set up to be able to engage more people, you start to see your list grow, you start to see things that used to fall off start to actually connect. And so those are kind of the three main pillars of this flywheel.
• 23:27
  Eric Ressler: And it really only works if all three are in place.
• 23:33
  Becky Endicott: In the words of Julia Endicott, who has my seven year old Oh, my nachos. Oh, my gosh, Eric, like, I'm trying to take in all that you just said, I want everybody rewind about two minutes. Listen to that, like five times I need I need to absorb that that right. There was a branding masterclass on how you can elevate your brand in the digital space that has meaning your brand, john should get as much attention as your program. Has anybody ever thought that way other than cosmic,
• 24:11
  Jonathan McCoy: because you're subscribed at a bigger level, that it's also moving this community with you. And we're trying, we're talking about galvanizing communities around our causes. So that is just a beautiful way to find amazing.
• 24:24
  Becky Endicott: I mean, we've talked about brand quite a bit on this podcast. And we've, we've talked to you all, you know, several times about, it's not your logo, you know, it's everything. It's the way people feel about you, it's it's the way that you show up, it's the way you reveal your soul of the company. And I just think the authentic way that you have genuinely talked about how we can show up. This could be this is this is where I can completely understand what you're saying about a digital revolution, because it feels good to I do want to talk just about this planting seed concept that you had, because you talk about using vision to plant seeds to make bigger impact and connect with funders. And so I want you to talk a little bit about like vision statements, and how does how does somebody Start to begin to plant those seeds that lead to these very large donations or I wouldn't even say a large donation, like a very rabid fan is what we would call it to.
• 25:21
  Eric Ressler: Yeah, the seed planting a metaphor is one that I resonate with personally and I think, oftentimes these these issues and these vision statements are so lofty and it's so complex and At the end of the day, like if you really distill it down to its core, all these organizations have some kind of idea around a better version of the future. And they're really their only job really, is to convince enough people in the world, that that idea of the future is a good one. And then to get them inspired and activated to actually help make it happen. And this, you know, as a culture as humans, we've achieved so much. And sometimes the way we've achieved those things has been, you know, because of bad influence or because of money. But oftentimes, some of the best things that have ever happened, are because people have come together, sharing a vision of a better vision, a vision of the future, and figuring out how to make it happen. And when we start to draw strengths from other people, and you know, a broad and diverse set of people, everyone can bring their own individual strengths to the issue, and then collectively, we can create action at a much greater scale than we'd be able to otherwise. So the way that we think about vision statements and mission statements is maybe a little different than some organizations do. And I think those those two concepts, and it's really more than just the statement, right, the statement is just the distillation of the idea. But I think oftentimes, those are used interchangeably or differently or incorrectly.
• 26:49
  Eric Ressler: And here's the way that we like to use them. We like a mission statement to be something that you can actually do in three years. And that you can track against, and that you can actually measure, and that at the end of those three years, you either met your mission or you didn't. And oftentimes, mission statements are much loftier and you know much more about values and ideas. And those things are important too.
• 27:11
  Eric Ressler: But to us, that's your vision statement. That's your vision for the better future. That is much last year where you are aiming really high, where you are trying to kind of forge a new path and reset kind of the metrics of success at a much higher level. But if you don't have both in place, it's like the metaphor that we use in the manifesto is like climbing a sheer granite cliff, you look at the top from the bottom, and it looks impossible. If your mission statement is the top and you don't have a plan to get there, you know, how are you going to do it? And so maybe your mission statement is, what am I going to do in the first three miles getting up to the top. And Okay, it looks like here's the barriers, here's this one kind of Craxi area, that's going to be really difficult to get through. And then that's going to be our base camp. And then once we reach that, we're going to chart out the next three miles, right. And so that's the way at a high level that we think about using mission statements and vision statements. And again, the statements are just the distillation of the ideas and the strategies,
• 28:06
  Becky Endicott: you could tell Eric is a creative because like the way that he can just talk and make you visualize. That's what I'm talking about the metaphors like starting with the seeds the planting until you're climbing to the top. It's just, I mean, I feel like I could visualize exactly what you're saying.
• 28:22
  Jonathan McCoy: And I think, you know, it always comes back to like engagement too. And obviously, we talked a lot about external engagement and building communities. But I think there is nothing more that lights a fire in a team than what you described, if you have a mission, that not only is it aspirational, but there's a plan and everyone feels plugged in that their particular role connects to that plan. That's how you have a team that's lit up, that you don't, that you have don't have retention issues, that people love coming to work and feel like they're really pulled into doing something. So just feeling this combo, who I am
• 28:55
  Becky Endicott: really curious about this engagement hierarchy that you talked about. Can you talk about that a little bit?
• 29:03
  Eric Ressler: Oh, yeah, the engagement pyramid, we call it.
• 29:05
  Eric Ressler: So this is kind of the reverse of a marketing funnel in the business world, right. So in a marketing funnel, you're trying to get as many people as possible into this funnel, and then you're kind of qualifying them against, you know, their engagement metrics. And then eventually, you're trying to get them to the sales team to close deals or sell products, or whatever it is. And in the nonprofit space, we think of it more as a pyramid because we're trying to build up and it this is really about the very first layer of of engagement is awareness, right. And this comes back to the concept of the attention economy, but you're not going to get people up the pyramid if they don't have the pyramid exists. And so the first thing is to actually just capture people's attention and inform them and create awareness around your issue. And if not your issue, and especially beyond just your issue, your organization and how your organization is helping to create a better future around that issue. And then even more importantly, how people can get involved. And the goal is to move people up this pyramid from being unaware to aware and then from being aware to engaged and activated and then ultimately, kind of the top of the pyramid is leadership. And this means bringing people up that pyramid all the way to a leadership position, either within the organization, or as an activist or a thought leader or a prominent voice in the community that can really spread these ideas. And so there's a bunch of different elements that kind of move people from the bottom up to the top. But this is kind of, you know, what people talk about when they talk about donor engagement and donor attention.
• 30:30
  Eric Ressler: And I think that that's important, certainly because donations are awesome.
• 30:32
  Eric Ressler: Oftentimes the lifeblood of these organizations, but it's not all that there is. And I think that when we think about engagement, donations is an important one. But there's other really important elements or attributes to engagement as well, in terms of just like engaging with your content actually, like showing up to events that you guys are putting on as an organization, whether those are in person, at some point, again, are digital, actually coming in and wanting to volunteer sharing and spreading the word about the issues, engaging their peers in the issue. So there's all kinds of non financial engagement opportunities. And what we know is that people are much, much, much more likely to donate to causes that they're actually fully engaged in. People don't just throw money at stuff, typically. But they understand they don't feel anything about, even if the issue is worthwhile.
• 31:17
  Eric Ressler: If they don't feel engaged, they haven't given something beyond money. They're not going to be as strong or engaged as a donor in the long run.
• 31:26
  Jonathan McCoy: so brilliant.
• 31:26
  Jonathan McCoy: Well, we ask everybody, you know, I completely agree, by the way on all of that story is a huge part of how y'all serve and how you move people. And I'm just curious, what's a story that's happened via philanthropy, or maybe some kind of connection to a cause that you've been part of that's really stuck with you after working with so many different amazing brands over the years?
• 31:46
  Eric Ressler: Man? It's such a good question. We were really lucky in that we get to work with some of the most interesting and smart and intelligent and compassionate, compassionate people working on some, like the most important issues. So it's like, when people ask me this question, it almost feels like who's your favorite, you know, son, or daughter, musician,
• 32:05
  Becky Endicott: you're gonna have to pick
• 32:06
  Eric Ressler: right now speak to one that's, that's recent. And we've been working with a longtime client to launch a new campaign, that's a California based campaign for climate action. And there's so many things about this project that's just been such a homerun and a bull's eye for us. And it really started with wanting to do a campaign around climate climate action that was hopeful and not pessimistic. And really kind of tap into that feel good California vibe, and use that as a way to activate people in California to feel like there's something that they can actually do to make a difference. And really, the goal is to Crusher, California to become even more of a climate leader, and serve as a model for the rest of the states and ultimately, the rest of the world to follow. And this is how big legislation happens.
• 32:52
  Eric Ressler: And big change happens often, you know, we look back at the New Deal originally, FDR, and that started as a statewide initiative and then grew from there. And so that's kind of the idea behind this campaign. It's called let's green California.
• 33:06
  Eric Ressler: And the URL is green cal.org.
• 33:10
  Eric Ressler: And it was just such a pleasure to work. Because on this project, because it's a longtime client, we've done a number of different campaigns. And this one just really spoke to me personally, because I care passionately about climate action and protecting our environment. And because it's the most important thing any of us are ever going to do in this next generation. And to feel like it was something that actually has potential to make a real difference. I think that's the idea behind the whole campaign. Oftentimes, I think about climate is this, like huge iceberg, and you're just an ant trying to make a difference across this issue, because it's so vast, it's a global issue.
• 33:43
  Eric Ressler: But really, as you start to see how the systems work together, and you realize it just needs to be a shift in political will and cultural will to make it happen.
• 33:54
  Eric Ressler: And really trying to tap into that hopefulness instead of the scare tactic language around how many years we have, or how many degrees Celsius we have left was kind of this impetus for this campaign. And from there, we're able to build this really fun, interesting, engaging brand and story around that and that one has just been so fun to work on.
• 34:14
  Becky Endicott: Okay, I love that you did the reverse. ASPCA, Sarah McLaughlin, you know what I'm talking about, like kids. I mean, the sad pictures of dogs and puppies that need rescuing.
• 34:27
  Becky Endicott: It's like that those commercials. And I love the ASPCA. But it's like those commercials made us all depressed. And it, it poured into our ability to like, feel terrible. And we wanted to do something because we didn't want to feel terrible anymore. And to flip it on its head completely and say, yeah, you know, climate climate change is such a huge issue. And right now, I am so excited about all the attention that it's getting. Because you're right, the way to approach it is to get somebody excited about the potential of what we can do to change the trajectory of it. And to add a hopeful and joyful climate campaign. Like when I think about millennials, or Gen Z years, I mean, I'm a Gen X er, and I would totally buy into something like that, because I do care about the environment that is totally flipping the script. And by starting there, and growing a community. You can get such a mobilized passionate group of people who to your point could influence legislation, they could influence I mean, they could It influence everything. So, oh, man, that was a really good story. So I know it's natural for me to go into the one good thing. But I have to ask another question because I love having a musician on, I want to know if you had to pick three concerts that you could go to, I need to know what these are. Because I honestly think the answer to this will tell us where your creative brain is coming from.
• 35:57
  Becky Endicott: And I'm really excited to hear what they are
• 35:59
  Eric Ressler: Rage Against the Machine, a concert that I am so mad to have missed, and I think they might actually be going on tour again. So that's one and then I'm going to flip it completely on its head and say, Miles Davis, oh my gosh, that is. So like, I have a pretty broad repertoire of music. So those are two or two that like really come to mind for me. And then a third, I've been really into this band called parcels lately. I don't know if you guys have heard of them. Oh, they're like a narrow, kind of like disco band. But they're really good john. And they've just read up my alley, actually, a couple weeks, actually, one of our designers at my team turned me on to them a couple weeks ago.
• 36:34
  Eric Ressler: And so they just seemed like they'd be super fun to see you guys. Check them out.
• 36:39
  Becky Endicott: I love giving a little platform to artists.
• 36:41
  Becky Endicott: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Okay, let's get into the one good thing. Tell us what your one good thing that you would offer to our community today would be?
• 36:48
  Eric Ressler: So I interpret this question and tell me if I'm interpreting it wrong. But like one good quality that I think is really crucial in life, but especially for the sector is curiosity. Because I think that curiosity really, especially when you're looking at these difficult issues that can sometimes sometimes be depressing or demoralizing.
• 37:10
  Eric Ressler: Curiosity is kind of the antidote to apathy. And it keeps you moving forward, it keeps you learning and it keeps you kind of in a state of openness instead of closed. And that's really helped me a lot in my career. And I would kind of, I would encourage everyone in the space and even people outside of the space if you can really tap into curiosity and creativity.
• 37:33
  Eric Ressler: Those can be really interesting drivers for success,
• 37:37
  Jonathan McCoy: which we would agree is probably one of the most important things you can do in fundraising is just be curious about people's stories and getting to know them
• 37:45
  Becky Endicott: and I'm just sitting here thinking he just described you john like that is that is john to a tee Mr.
• 37:51
  Becky Endicott: Curiosity? Who, Sir 45 minutes on their website.
• 37:57
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, Eric, we're gonna link up you know, the manifesto yells website. But what's the best way for people to connect with you tell us a little about the insights blog.
• 38:04
  Jonathan McCoy: I think that's really powerful on your site, too.
• 38:06
  Eric Ressler: Yeah, I mean, definitely just check out the site, the manifestos there, we have an insights tab, where we publish a lot of free articles and white papers and resources.
• 38:15
  Eric Ressler: anyone's totally, I'm open to anyone emailing me, my email is Eric, designed by cosmic Comm.
• 38:19
  Eric Ressler: I'd be happy to connect and just, you know, do office hours with anyone who's just curious about these topics in the space.
• 38:26
  Eric Ressler: But really, the website is kind of, again, the home base. And from there, you can kind of find everything else about us.
• 38:33
  Becky Endicott: Well, I just want to applaud everything that your little Santa Cruz company is doing to show up in the nonprofit space to amplify these brands. And to do it in a way that just feels good. And it makes you want to link arms with these movements that you're creating. And I and I just think that it's really great work. And I I don't want to be presumptuous, but I have to say it probably makes your team feel so good about what they're pouring into and how they're showing up each day. And I can just feel your passion. So I really appreciate you coming and sharing all that with the community today.
• 39:08
  Eric Ressler: We appreciate it.
• 39:08
  Eric Ressler: Thank you. This has been such an awesome conversation and so glad to connect with you guys.
• 39:14
  Becky Endicott: Thanks for listening to today's conversation with Eric about the digital revolution and finding your nonprofits niche within it.
• 39:18
  Becky Endicott: 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. We'd love for you to come join our good community.
• 39:28
  Becky Endicott: It's free and you can think of it as the after party for each podcast episode. It's our own social network and you can sign up today we are for good, calm, backslash. Hello. One more thing. If you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It really does mean the world to us and Your support helps more people find our community. Thanks friends. Our production hero is the queen of production storytelling. Julie confort hello and our theme song is sunray by Rumi borsato.