Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 514. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: Tap creators. Grow influence. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, and Nick Lynch

Transcript

514. 9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: Tap creators. Grow influence. - Jon McCoy, Becky Endicott, and Nick Lynch · 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 rabbit 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 Becky, what's happening?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Y'all.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We are talking about creators.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: We are talking about how do you tap creators and grow influence.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: This is one of our most prominent trends of 2024.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: And we're going to get you hyped and ready to understand that these are relationships that only not only need to be nurtured, but they can unlock so much potential for your mission in this brave new world that we're standing in.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: If you're just listening to the podcast today and you're kind of coming in mid to our series, I just want to give you a little bit of context.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: So we love to start the beginning of the year with fresh ideas of what we're seeing trending across a lot of different conversations on the podcast and really try to give you the playbook to say we want to do this in community.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: There's other people that are already doing this well, and so this conversation is designed to not only just share with you the trend that's happening, but really kind of give you the behind the scenes story, and we always are bringing in a surprise podcast guest to really take it to a deeper level, and that's all going to happen on today's episode.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So our guest is so good.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: So, john, I'm going to get up on my soapbox a little bit because you know I am so excited about this trend, because y'all it's here.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: The creator economy is upon us and I know so many of you are like what is it?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: What does it mean?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And I really want to break this down and true, like Michael Scott explained it to me, like I'm five years old mentality, because I really want our audience to understand the immense opportunity that is sitting before us.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: And this creator economy is a movement where creators, influencers, they're generating income by producing and sharing their own content and things like videos, blog posts, podcasts, art, music, like the potential for all those mediums is just so diversified and wonderful.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: And it's entirely disrupted traditional media and the way that people consume media, the way that they trust people, and so nonprofits can absolutely benefit from partnering with influencers, because it's going to help you amplify your message, it's going to help you reach a wider audience that's already so trusting and it's going to enhance your impact across all of these channels that maybe we don't have the resources or the bandwidth to be in those channels at all time.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: And once that strategy is developed, once you've handed your tools over to an influencer, to a creator.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: It's really about releasing control and allowing influencers to put their stamp and their vulnerability and their testimony directly on our mission, and this is such a good thing.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just love this audience that you know we're talking about, because it's not like the creator economy is new, it's just the nonprofit space really embracing this and recognizing that our only mission isn't just about money.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It's also about changing people's opinions and thoughts about the issues, to get people more activated.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And so we had to drop this stat that you ran across, becky, because this is so nuts.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: But the creator economy as a whole it's projected to grow to a half a trillion dollars by 2027.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Y'all that's just a couple of years away from right now, and I mean this movement is growing massively.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Corporations and brands are already on board with this, so it's really a time for nonprofits to say how do we do this meaningfully too?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And so one of our favorite organizations is the Elevate Prize Foundation.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, friends, over there, their mission is in their vision is to make good famous, and they're doing that, of course, by partnering with creators to spread good, spread the joy that we talk about.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And so I want to lift a quote that Carolina Garcia-Giaran, their founding executive director CEO, shared.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: She said we recently got involved this past year with the Streamy Awards.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: You don't know what that is.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: That is like YouTube's celebration of like the best creators on their property.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: It's like the Oscars for YouTube, don't you think?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But like so much cooler and much more hip.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Definitely, and fun it's so, so fun.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So they partner with the Streamy Awards celebrating online creators.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: They met all of these content creators and influencers who are like at the top of their game over 10 million followers, some of them right and in this space.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: This is what carolina said.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: She said time and time again.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: We found out talking to them that most of them were desperate to have more meaningful content, more purpose driven campaigns, and they really didn't even know how to do it.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: They didn't know how to make those partnerships is not in their background, or maybe they don't know how to connect to organizations.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: So this is a rife opportunity to make the connections for them, and that's why we're not saying dump your major gift portfolio, please don't get the wrong idea here.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: We're saying, look at it through the lens of, like, what are you trying to accomplish and how could you maybe partner with a creator to help you make marketing as your mission this next year?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So I think that's the opportunity here and we love seeing people like elevate prize really stepping into this.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: So we want to help you get tactical, like what do we do?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: How do you put this into practice?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's hit a couple of these key points, and you know.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Number one is we're going to start with mindset work and we need to begin to understand that this is a key, major gift and partnership relationship and should be treated as such.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So we need to create time, space strategy, you know, to stewardship, hello, donor relations, to nurture these relationships and we don't want to overwhelm them.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: But it's like, once we figure out who they are, it's like how do you want to communicate?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: How can I best help you?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Who's your contact?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: When do you want to post?
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I mean finding out all of those things.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: It is just a different way to look at your portfolio management.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Point number two and if you hear nothing I say on this episode, please hear this value alignment is absolutely key.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: We've had a couple people in our community reach out and say I want to do this and I don't know how do I find influencers?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: And I would say start with your value alignment.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Why are you here, why are you showing up?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And it's not just the cause, but it's why we're motivated to support and perpetuate that cause, because authenticity and a genuine connection between the influence and the cause Are going to be keys to maximizing this relationship and the effect that it can have on your mission.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: The other thing I want you to think about is that niche communities and micro influencers are really gaining momentum right now.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Like John, I mentioned this in our presentation.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I want anybody to miss it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Did you see the influencer?
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Endorse cosmetics?
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Have passed influence from celebrity.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Endorse cosmetics like it just lit interesting right in the last year and I have to tell you, I get it.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: My daughter, you know shops based on YouTube shorts for her makeup and it's like this is the way the world is moving into consuming short form content.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So platforms that really cater and causes that cater to specific interest and foster this sense of close knit communities are becoming more popular and they're really enabling creators to connect with audiences who share those passions.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And they need your heart, they need your stories.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: So get in there and really drill down on that niche community.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So good and I think, like when you find value aligned partners, it really enables you to open your hand to their work because, look, you're working with people who are creative and there's one thing that I know about creators is you don't want to try to control the creativity.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Flexibility and creativity is like key and allowing them to really move fast, because they're probably not going to move at the pace of some of our organizations.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: They're going to move along their own content calendar and how their community expects them to show up.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So, just being adaptable and really having that mindset that we're not going to be able to control this messaging and that's the absolute beauty of it.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But the things that you can control.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Like, one pro tip for your organization is do you have a landing place on your site that's really like a media kit, like is there a really easy place where people can go find the high quality videos and photos and Maybe bios or whatever the pieces are that make it relevant, the stats that really are hallmarks of your organization?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Making that really accessible on your website is going to really help the more traditional, like journalists and people that are more of a media platform be able to talk really well about your organization and not be waiting on getting a logo approved or something like that.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: We're going to drop some samples of this.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: The Special Olympics does this really brilliantly will link up their media kit, kind of their press room, on their website in the show notes so you can check it out.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: But look, you know, we love when all of our trends that we're unpacking this season stack together and this is one that you really need to lean into.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So, as you kind of partner with creators and you see this influence, that can happen.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Also, think about what we're talking about, that media scales, impact.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: What we mean by that is just man when they create these pieces of content or these engagements with their community.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: This is literally watching your marketing is mission expand into communities and into areas and into hearts and minds of people that you never would have had access to.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So really stacking these ideas and really coming at it with a growth mindset is going to completely change the trajectory, at least if you're marketing and your storytelling aspects this year.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So what are other benefits, as you kind of lean into this?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I just talked about the extent to reach and visibility that you get, but here's maybe the biggest hallmark You're going to build credibility and trust.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You know trust is such a bedrock, I mean, it's something that we all need.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: It's something that is declining.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: When you look at the national benchmarks from Edelman barometer, trust, nonprofit trust continues to decline.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: How do we build trust?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Well, what if we lock arms with people that have the trust of other people and their endorsement is going to help lift our endorsement right.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And so, thinking about it creatively, there are ways that we can kind of plug this in, but also amplifying our content.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You know they're going to be able to story tell, maybe pieces that we've lifted, or stories that we've uncovered, or stats that we've researched as an organization.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So it's just more greater amplification for the pieces that you're already pouring into.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And all of this, the more engagement you got, more activation.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Now you know I'm going to start back.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to start second all these trends together, because how do you start doing is with activating the one, so as you engage more, you can have more people to activate.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And the last one is that influencers are often the earliest of adopters to trends and so, truly, by partnering, it's allowing us to become more evolved, more in touch with the moment, more in touch with culture so we can better cut through to audiences.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And I think, if you've been listening to the Trend Series or hanging around this podcast, we want to be relevant, like we want to become part of our culture, part of our fabric, part of the conversations around dinner tables.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And the way you do that is you're staying in touch with communities as they evolve.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, so good.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: John and I can't have this conversation without wanting to pull in some voices from the we Are For Good community who are already doing this, and we want to give you some examples of it.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I think a brilliant one was Jeannie Barsam with Gifting Brand.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: During the holidays, they put together an online charity auction and if you aren't familiar with Gifting Brands, they take excess fashion and they give it away and they sell it and give the profits to charity, and so she partnered up with Forever 21, ceo Casual and the Boys and Girls Club of America and they did this online charity auction.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: What a brilliant idea of putting collaborations, partnerships and influencers together.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Caitlin Bond, who is an incredible podcast alum and a brilliant impact marketer, shared that she helped one of her clients work with an influencer and their social channels added 5,000 people overnight as a result of that, and then I just love the casual nature of Allison White over at SSM Health in St Louis.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Let's be honest, they'll stop the webinar.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And she goes casually.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we had Cedric the Entertainer on and it's like whoa, okay, there are some of you who are using really, really big names and influencers, but I appreciate the people who say, hey, we use our local athletes in our community who are sort of celebrity status, or maybe it's a news anchor or maybe it's somebody in your community has a blog.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: It's like, whatever it is, find the correct alignment.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love hearing the community's examples.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: It's so fun to be learning in real time and realize that it's not just the elite doing this, because we are going to curate some episodes in the playlist that drops with this episode today and we do.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: We talk to some people that are working with some of Hollywood's biggest stars of how to partner with celebrities and so much of this learnings for how to work with creators is from some of the strategy of working somewhat with the best minds out there.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking of, like Sarah Adolphson with the Artemis Agency that, on episode 316, talks about how to partner with celebrities to grow your impact.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But y'all, all of us don't have access to celebrities.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: We've said this 100 times.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: But I also just love the idea that it's like tapping people that use what they have.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: We talked to Stephen Hackett that used his podcast network that talks about, like tech, geek stuff.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Sorry, stephen for saying geek, but it's like they embrace that kind of mentality because they've created a community around technology.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Where's the connection to St Jude?
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's just personal passion, you know, and it's like they use what they have to story, tell, to influence the people that follow them and y'all, they have raised $2.2 million for St Jude, but St Jude had a really open hand for how that partnership took, took stock.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So go listen to episode 469 if you want to see how a big organization is just harnessing the everyday person through their own passion and their work.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And so this is for everybody.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I guess is what we're going to say is that everybody can plug in here and it's a more inclusive voices for your organization.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe what you have right now, which is a really great benefit, but you know you don't have to take our word for it, even though we've taken the first part of today's episode to really make the case for why we think this is a trend to pay attention to this year.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: But you know we got to tap some of the most expert folks that are living this out day to day, and so I'm really excited for this next part.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: You know and love him.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: He's been on the podcast many times.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Nick Lynch is in the house today.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: He is a passionate nonprofit advocate and founder of Kaleidoscopeio, which is this incredible social media analytics and measurement software as a service platform.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: It's allowing global causes and influencers and organizations to all come together and collaborate and measure their cumulative influence and impact.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Are y'all measuring impact and influence?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Nick is about to bring the heat of how you can get into this creator economy, start working with influencers to amplify everything that you're doing in such a larger digital community space.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: He is our go to expert when talking about engaging with creators and growing influence.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Nick, welcome to the we Are For Good podcast.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: For about what?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: The third, fourth time?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: We're so glad you're back.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: I love being here.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: I love bringing the heat.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: You know, that's like that's really just figure it out because it's on.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: 2024 is here.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: It is here and we've said, like, the creator economy is here and if you are not tapped into it, you will be left behind.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: So kind of set the scene for us Talk about the creator economy, how the world's media is working today, and just double click on some of those things that we can laser in and focus on this year.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of been really fun to be just an almost a bystander and just a student of really the last decade, of what creators are and who they've become and where they started.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it was at least 10 years ago where we were first starting to talk to it was mostly celebrities, but there were some people that were starting to use this thing called YouTube to create their own content and do really cool stuff this little website that actually was started as a dating app, but we can talk about that at another time.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Crazy story, yeah, but it you know it started as, like, this idea of like okay, let's create this thing called branded content where, like, people are coming to be entertained by our content, but maybe let's figure out how we include a car in our you know, trick shots of basketball or whatever and now it's become this full fledged, like massive marketplace of anybody can turn on a camera, be a creator, really do what they're passionate about and have influence.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: And influence can be 10 people, it can be 10 million people, but it's really become just this massive thing.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I was just reading, actually yesterday, our friends at Goldman Sachs, like these, these guys are legit old school, you know people used to be buttoned up and but now it's like they're everything's really looking at everything and a half a billion dollars.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: They're looking at the creator economy as bringing in a half a billion dollars.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Excuse me, excuse me, sorry half a trillion with a T half a trillion dollars.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: So that's $500 billion by 2020, 2027, a half a trillion, a trillion dollars.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: It's nuts.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: So this thing is real and it's it's only going to get bigger and it's really exciting to see where the impact space can really leverage this opportunity to ultimately reach new people, tell stories and really create movement for what they're trying to accomplish.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a reason why we're attracted to it as a company of.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: We are for good and just like is entrepreneurially wired humans.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: To that.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: We see the trends that trust is slowly just diminishing across the sector.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: It's something we're vying for and when you look at how do you build trust at scale now you have to like look into new ways that you know these branded messages aren't the trusted messages anymore.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: It's like who do you follow, who do you connect with, who do you value, align with?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So it makes so much sense to work through innovators like that to make new connections and build the trust at scale.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So you know, when we first came to you, nick, I mean we love this time, kind of like it's the end of the year and we're starting to like thread conversations together to put together what are the trends that we really see that we want to lift and talk about and we're calling this.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: When you know tap creators grow influence.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: What did you think when we lobbed that over the fence to you?
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: What did what you know kind of came to your mind when we first presented that to you is something we saw.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: I like the thought.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: I think it makes a ton of sense.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: When I saw it I thought tap alliance, grow impact because, ultimately, when when you're, when you're tapping the sort of the creator economy, you're really trying to find aligned partners to communicate in a way that you can't communicate or you don't have the ability to, or you need amplification of, and so by tapping that group of people, you're really growing impact because it's amplifying it, it's multiplying it or it's creating it in a way that you couldn't.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: So I kind of look at it as a different way.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I think, and especially what's weird is that influences kind of become like this weird word where, like, people don't want to be considered influencers, which I kind of get.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I'm dealing with that, with my own scarcity issues, but please keep going.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: No, but ultimately right, like we use, we work with partners to amplify and to read places that we couldn't or that we need help in, and so that to me, like that's.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: When I saw that, I was like I think that's starting in the right place, but we really got to think about how do we find alliances and new places that we weren't before or that we need so that we can really grow the impact that we're hoping to achieve?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I think that's really really smart, because an influencer is just another partner.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So when you're looking at your partnership strategy, why go simply to just a corporation, to a foundation?
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: You know there are people who are value aligned with your organization, who can create unbelievable traction, awareness, and really that's what we call the movement building.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So I would love for you to just talk about why influencer marketing for nonprofit matters, this year specifically.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: So, john, you talked about trust.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think that's that's broadly.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I think nobody trusts anything anymore, but particularly in the impact space, I think there's a lot of pessimism around it.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of generational shifts that are just the opinions are changing, so there's a lot of things that are happening.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: When we look at the sort of the creator economy space and we survey it all the time, I can share these with you guys the sources.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: But 69% of people tell you will tell us that they are likely to trust a friend or an influencer recommendation over information coming directly from a brand.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Believe it so 70%.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: So that's the vast majority of people will believe somebody, and that's that's true influence, right, like if I were to tell you that I just read this great book about Michael Jordan and if you like Michael Jordan, you're aligned with Michael Jordan, you'll probably want to check that book out, right?
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: So like, it takes a ton of sense, like when you think about it anecdotally.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: The other interesting thing, which is even higher than the 70%, is that 81% of consumers are reporting that social media posts from influencers drove interest in an item or a service when that then passed a year.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: So like it is now, it is not only just to like some marketing speak, it's a full funnel partnership.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: It's an execution.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: You're creating awareness at the top of the funnel.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: You're creating engagement, sort of at that middle of the funnel and then, as people start to be aware of who you are and what you do and become engaged with those pieces, they're then created.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: There's an action moment and they're creating action.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: So you can partner with these creators to do all of those pieces of the, the marking funnel, some of the pieces in combination with multiple influencers to do those types of things.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: So it's like really looked at now as a medium that really drives really important metrics and really important KPIs for anything that you're doing on the mission side, the marketing side and, ultimately, like the storytelling side.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just something that's so now commonplace on the for profit, the business side that it wouldn't be under, you know, questioning.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So I love that we're having to like, actually, you know, hold your hand in the nonprofit space to say this is totally normal to be having this conversation.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: We should normalize it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Does a case study come to mind that you would think of?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I always love Colin Nick because he's got these fun stories happening in LA all the time, but like, what's a case study of you seeing this in practice with an organization working with an influencer?
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll keep.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I'll keep it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: We are for good.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Because I just listened to the St Jude's podcast.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Dr Lupo has raised so much money.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: If anybody who doesn't know who Dr Lupo is, google him.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: He is a YouTube and a streamer and just an all around amazing dude.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: He started partnering with St Jude like right at the beginning of the pandemic and did these like streaming charity events and they don't have the numbers from last year but like up through 2022.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: He raised over $13 million for St Jude's and I'm sure I'm sure last year because they do a partner, there's actually an event that he helps do, and I think they raised like 14 million together for this event.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: So I mean by the end of next or by the end of last year, he had probably, he had probably raised by himself like 20 or $25 million of the last three or four years, right, so that's a big, so that's a big influencer with a big organization that has raised big money.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: But that can be translated all the way down on influence at scale depend.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: No matter what, what size organization you are, no matter what size creator you partner with, you can start to piece together opportunities to create massive impact, whether it's dollars, whether it's awareness, whether it's people engaging with you.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Those are the types of things that you can leverage to make things happen.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I mean $14 million.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: John, do you remember our year in healthcare philanthropy, the year we raised $14 million for the entire year in it?
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It was our biggest year.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: It was like a top performer in the country.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: We were top performer in the country with that, and so I just say that as a juxtaposition, and I don't want to get focused on that number.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: I think the point is well made that if you can expand your team, if you can expand the way that you look at, the way you connect, the way you engage and you drive this awareness in action, these are so much your partners.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: These are people that can get into spaces that we could never get into and create this amplification to the tune of $14 million or to the tune of whatever you need signups for this petition, or going and buying this product, or coming to your event, or joining your monthly giving club, whatever it is.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: This is such a massive potential of what could be unlocked for nonprofits, and so I want to ask you, like for the person sitting right now, probably out jogging, doing their grocery shopping, having you in their podcast years, and they're like Nick, I'm a tiny nonprofit or we've never done this before Maybe we do have a sizable staff.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Where do I start?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: How can missions get activated around this trend today and tell us a couple of steps that they can start today?
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Honestly, the easiest place to start is your existing supporters, whether you go and who's following you on Instagram, whether you look at your email list and make an all call like hey, who loves social media and is a content creator that is a follower of ours?
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: We'd love to figure out ways to partner.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: That's step one, and the anecdote that I can tell you right now is that six years ago, when I started working with the Young Professionals Council for Make a Wish, I had a 400 followers on Facebook I think it was like five, six years ago and I helped launch this Young Professionals Council and we were raising money for the walk that they were doing, and by myself telling my story to my 400 followers on Facebook, I was able to raise almost $10,000 by myself, just on social media, right?
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: So and I'm a big supporter of LA, I'm part of there, I follow them, I'm on their mailing list, so the I wouldn't even say like it's diamonds in the rough or like needles in a haystack, Like they're just there, right?
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: You already have supporters who already have some level of social media influence or some level of social media following and just ask who's out there who wants to partner with us.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Let's come up with some really creative ways to storytell and achieve the outcomes that we want and that's not always money, but let's figure out what are the outcomes that we want to achieve and let's work together to creatively storytell to achieve those outcomes.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: I literally just saw this at practice last night.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I gotta lift this up as an example.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Tammy Tibbetts, founder of she's the First, put this short.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I mean it was super short, it was probably four paragraphs.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Beautiful picture of all these girls convening.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: She talks about the funder who funded this convening and then says at the end great, simple invitation.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: One of my visions this year as CEO is that I wanna line up investment partners to bring this vision to a greater life.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Please DM me or drop the comment below if you wanna see it and you drop into her comments.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: People are saying hands raised and it's like we're watching it in real time play out.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: That was so simple.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Tammy has influence because she's a founder and she's a champion for girls, and so I wanna just dispel some of that myth that it doesn't have to be a celebrity.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Last time we talked to Nick he was like I gotta leave, I gotta go meet with Brad Pitt, and that is not normal for most people.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: But it's like there are and I'm using air quotes celebrities, there are people that have influenced in your midst and sometimes we just have to be brave enough to put our vision out there and ask for help.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I think that's awesome.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you're let's think about this Like you're a food, like I'm sure let's say you're a Nashville and you're a food pantry in Nashville and I'm sure there's some amazing barbecue and some amazing restaurants in Nashville, that there are food creators that are going to these places and creating amazing content for all of these restaurants and all these food, I would partner with those people and I would say how do we make our food pantry in Nashville great and then talk about that?
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Right, there's just alliances there and then you just have to figure out who they are and ask for it and then it'll make it happen, right.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just like paying attention, because signals look so many different ways.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: They may have showed up to volunteer somewhere.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Are we capturing information?
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Who is following you?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I think it's really funny to look back at just how this has impacted we are for good, how we've met some of our most incredible friends that just were a blind follower, not even reaching out, but we noticed and reached out, and so there's just that opportunity to get curious, be open-handed, that you probably don't know the path fully, but that's okay, we're gonna meet people that are gonna help you figure out the path to this.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: So, nick, we could talk to you for hours about this topic and we just love your wisdom here.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: But I wonder if you'd sum up today's convo what's a one good thing you could leave us with as we start to put this into action?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: What's on your mind today to leave with the community?
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: I think it should be like 2024 should be the season of ask.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Like really think about what we want to accomplish, and it's not just one thing, but like really be thoughtful about what the ask is and then find the people that can make that ask happen and ask in the places and the spaces that those asks can happen.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: And I think if we can do those things together, everything's gonna really line up.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: But it's all about like really thinking about what is that ask and how can I make sure that I articulate it in a way, in a place that can make it happen.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: And so I mean I think even me, like I think one of the first posts I did this year was like I'm just asking everybody to join in the milestones that we're all trying to accomplish this year and I ask like everybody should share the milestones that they want to achieve this year and ask their community how can we all help each other achieve these milestones?
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: And so it should just really just be the year ask, and I think we can all do it together, but we got to ask, which takes bravery.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: The just ask is like it's like the Nike version of impact right now, instead of just do it.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I just value so much your expertise.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I think you're just a hell of a good human and just a fantastic marketer.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: How can people connect with you?
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: How can they connect with your stories?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Where do you hang out?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Give us all the deeds.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I try to live on LinkedIn because that's kind of where I'm at.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: But you can always go to colitiscopeio.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: You can email me nick at colitiscopeio.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Actually, I think I have a website, it's nickblynchcom, but I'm just all over the place.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Just if you, actually if you, google influencer marketing for nonprofits, I think we are like the one that shows up every time.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: So just Google that, that's the bad signal and I'll be there.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: OK, Nick, you're being so dang humble.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, we got to talk about this incredible book that you have launching and tell us about kind of what it's going to share and walk us through what it would take.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I actually kind of always forget that this is happening, and then like I see something that's happening you forgot you wrote a book.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yes and so yeah.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: So our friends at Wiley, who have been great, are publishing my book in something May 7.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: It's on pre-order on Amazon.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: It's called Impact Redefined and essentially my history and my experience as a wish kid, my experience working directly with Make A Wish and other nonprofits, and then all the work that I've done over the last that's crazy to say four years, with Kaleidoscope and raising millions of dollars and reaching millions of people through all the different things that we put together, I've just found that there's like three core principles no-transcript Really define how we approach impact and it's really we call it the s ph model, which is social partnerships in human.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Essentially, the book talks about how do we create social moments, not just online but offline, like really find community and create social opportunities so that Everything happens organically and that all of it, all of that organic social activity, then becomes impact related right.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: The P for partnerships is like really thinking about what is a partnership mean?
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: It's that ask right, like really thinking about what are these new partnerships opportunities?
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Where can I find them?
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: How should I communicate to them?
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: How do we create mutually beneficial opportunities and position it that way?
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: So really thinking about like partnerships in a new way.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: And then the age is the human like.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: We're all humans doing human things and empathy needs to reign over everything.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Empathy as a leader of a nonprofit organization, empathy as a partner Of a potential in your partnerships that you're building, empathy in the missions that you're driving.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: But, like, real people run real organizations and I think we forget that All the time and we're consistently asked to do way more with way less, which squeezes the humanity into this jar of it's difficult, like it's a difficult thing to figure out, and so, like I'm asking everybody who is even remotely interested in impact to remember that there is a massive layer of humanity, not just on the receiving end of a mission, but also all of the pieces that put it together.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: And so that's kind of what we talk about in the book is really going through that SPH model and figuring out how we can look at impact in a new way and really scale it sustainably for the future.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: We may be having a little bit of inspiration for you about how to tap into influencers through a podcast.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: You want to talk a little bit about that, my friend?
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so over the over the last year or so, really thought about, like, what does it actually mean, almost like from a molecular level of like influence and creating impact.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: And so, when we started to think about the pieces that make that happen, said of the thing I thought through is like, oh, this is like an algorithm, like we're putting these things together in place and so how can we make an inspiration algorithm so that it's ultimately just math?
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: We can put some pieces together in a formula and make things great.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: And so we're, we're putting together a podcast that brings on these amazing creators we're doing amazing things and really dives deep into what they're doing, why they're doing it, how they're doing it, and really figure out, like, what is that inspiration algorithm that makes them and their audience want to be impactful?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: You're so excited for those conversations and, just honestly, all the ways you show up in the world.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Nick, thank you for your generosity of spirit and you just give us so much today, so appreciate you guys, appreciate you guys.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, nick.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 34:16
  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.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: We'd love for you to come join our good community.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Sign up today at we're for good dot com.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Backslash hello.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview?
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Can't wait for our next conversation.