Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 462. It's Time to Decide. How to Reimagine Nonprofit Impact - Seth Godin

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462. It's Time to Decide. How to Reimagine Nonprofit Impact - Seth Godin · 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: Becky, can you believe it's here?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, season eight y'all and we are shooting straight out of the gate with an un-gettable get.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, we're so glad that you guys are here.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I know we're straight honored to share this impactful conversation that we had with a humanizing marketing legend, seth Godin, over at Community Boost Nonprofit Marketing Summit, alongside 25,000 changemakers.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for an aspirational glimpse into the future of work and possibilities, this is it, my friends.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, that Nonprofit Marketing Summit was on fire, and if you are someone who's interested in hearing any of the 75 plus high impact sessions that were kind of dropped at Community Boost I'm talking Donald Miller, I'm talking Seth Godin, I had Misty Copeland, all of it Grab your VIP pass now for an all access replay at nonprofittemarketingsummitorg.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And friends, buckle up, because this conversation with Seth is epic and, as John said, so aspirational.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: So we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We are here to talk to the man, that myth, the legend, seth Godin, today, and I can't wait because I know he's not just touched our lives.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: He's touched so many of you that have reached out to us about today, and that's in the chat, so please jump in there with your questions.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: We want to hear from you, and I got to give a little bit of background on Seth.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: His impact has not just been in being a global bestseller, in being somebody that has impacted millions of people.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: If you type the word Seth in Google, what are you going to get?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: You're going to get Seth blog.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, that is one of the most prolific websites on the planet, but he has been a mentor to us, even though we just met him in the green room.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He has helped us shape how we think about the world, how dream bigger, and I just am so delighted that we can share hope for the sector and hope for our marketing in the messaging that Seth is going to walk into this room for.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: So he's going to help us reimagine a lot of these things.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: We're going to plug this new book, the Song of Significance.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I know you can multitask, so go ahead and open up that cart.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Add that to your queue, because we need to reimagine the way we work, and Seth is here to help us do that today, and so, with sincere honor, it is such a privilege to have Seth Godin in the house.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Seth, can you tell we're a little excited to be chatting with you today.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Not as excited as I am.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: The two of you are such menches, such a delight to work with you.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Seeing the people in the chat, andy and Atore, and people that I've worked with through various nonprofits, the work everyone's doing I'm just a little overwhelmed.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so much gratitude.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I mean Seth.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: So many of us know about your work and have been a follower of your work, but I wonder if you would take us back to little Seth growing up.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, connect the dots for us.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Where did you come from?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: What were some of those formative moments that really defined how you show up in the world today, as we get started?
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I got to say first, this is a bit of a trap, and the reason it's a trap is that everyone's had a different upbringing and it's easy to point to someone who's done something and say, well, that's because this happened, because they won the privileged parenting lottery or they lost this and therefore they had to overcome.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Everyone's got a different thing.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I will tell you that my dad was the volunteer head of the United Way in Buffalo where I grew up, that my mom was the first woman on the board of the Art Museum, that it was normal for us to have 15 or 20 refugees over for dinner, that I just grew up understanding that if you had the chance to make a difference, you did, and I remember my parents every single day.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I think that question is always so poignant and we really like to start conversations there because it's a question for all of you listening right now, like where did you come from?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: What were those formative experiences that really awakened your heart, that created this connection for you to want to go and do good in the world?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: And I feel like we're all gathered here at this summit because we're seeking to create that radical impact and we're watching what's happening in the world right now and we see how noisy of a space it is and how negative a space it is, but, however, we're also seeing the content that's cutting through.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: The noise is authentic, it's vulnerable and it's wholly steeped in humanity.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: So my question for you, seth, is we have all these change makers out here in the audience today.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: What would you suggest to all of them in terms of how this is the moment for nonprofits, for social enterprise, to really capitalize on the fact that people are seeking more meaning in their lives right now.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: How do we harness that for good in our own movements?
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: What a great place to start.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Let's go a couple of steps back.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Why do nonprofits get the tax break that they get?
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Why are nonprofits treated differently?
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: And my thesis is it's because there's an important problem to be solved and we don't know how to solve it yet.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: That if we knew how to solve it, the problem would be gone.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: That you have signed up to do work to make a change happen.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: That what you make is not enough money, but what you make is a difference.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: What you make is change and what you make is decisions.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: And if we approach this work as if you're on the widget factory line, if we approach this work as please tell me the best practices and the rules of thumb and I'll just do the same thing over and over and over again, you're acting like we already know the solution.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: We know how to make a slinky, we know how to make a thing of silly putty, but we don't know how to solve the problem your nonprofit is trying to solve.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: And so the work is to embrace the fact that you are now trusted to explore on the frontier.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: You are trusted to show up as the person you are, to do things that might not work in service of making something better.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: And if you signed up to be in this industry because it's an industry and because it's a sinecure and because you get to talk about it over dinner and people hold you in esteem, but you don't want to take anything that feels risky, any of those choices, you're going to be frustrated every day.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: This is the moment, the best moment there has ever been to be in this space, because the cost of being wrong is tiny and the benefit of showing up as a person, making a connection, turning on lights, is huge.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I already have my prop out.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: How good was that?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I don't have a place to drop.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: So I'm dropping the popper.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, I feel like this is the perfect segue, because I've already alluded to your book that I feel like is this just manifesto for this moment, that work is broken.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: You've spoken already about industrialism and kind of how you keep trying to refine the widgets and we're all cogs in that machine.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: But I want you to take us back to kind of one of the surveys that inform this work.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: You asked 10,000 people across 90 countries to describe the conditions of the best jobs they ever had.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: What did you find?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Well, the cool thing is, if you ask somebody what's the best job you ever had, everyone has an answer.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: It's like what was your first date Everyone has an answer, and, in fact, more detail comes out about the job, so we know what makes it the best job you ever had.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: You already decided that, so I gave people 14 choices.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I picked the three that most bosses would pick.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: I didn't get fired.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: I got to tell people what to do.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: I got paid a lot that, if you are looking for a job or thinking of leaving a job, those are the three things the boss rolls out, but then I picked a whole bunch of other things, and what I found is that, across the entire world, the same answers came in.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Far and away the biggest answers were I accomplished more than I thought I could.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: I worked with people who I respected and who respected me, and I was proud of the work I did.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: Well, that is what this work can be, if you let it be that.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: The thing that it comes with, though, is you have more agency, more freedom than you believe, and you want to acknowledge and you are afraid to use that freedom that you'd rather follow a script that you're setting yourself up to be replaced by an AI that you're churning it out, copying the other stuff, listening to the consultants, when in fact, that's not making it the best job you ever had.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: That's just phoning it in.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: What we need to do is not seek more authority, but take more responsibility.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, I've got to like hit pause because we need to dig into that just a little bit, because I think you're extending an opportunity to this sector.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: It's one that I think you're right is like right for the taking.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: It's going beyond being this impact professional or this cog and it's stepping into this role of being a change agent.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I think there's immense power and responsibility in it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: But I have to say, we've really dove into this in our community and, on the back end, the joy and the fulfillment that comes from that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I have heard from a lot of you out in this community right in this week about how tired you are, how burned out you are, how much you are striving to find that original joy.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I really think that there is something to this.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And, John, we had a conversation in our podcast with a really big philanthropist who had given tens of millions of dollars.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: When we asked him what his definition of success was and I love the juxtaposition of Sess's book with this, and this is Ross McKnight he said success is not important.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Success is defined by what you do for yourself.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Significance is what you do for others, and we can all be significant, and so I just can't help but see those parallels and the opportunity sitting before us now.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: And I just wonder, Seth, how can nonprofits step into that significance?
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: How can the one independent voice, the person who is the chief everything officer right now because we're understanding that so many in nonprofit they're limited in resources, in time, they're doing the marketing, they're doing the donor relations, some of them are executive directors talk about how they should be cultivating the song of significance within themselves, within their teams?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: How does that ripple into their believers and into their community?
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: So the indoctrination is real.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: The indoctrination started when we were three years old, not just about caste and the things that lead to social injustice, but the indoctrination of obedience.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: And how do I get an A?
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Will this be on the test?
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: How do I get picked?
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: And that is what the industrial system needed people to do to be compliant cogs.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: So in your question, subconsciously you buried that because you said what can nonprofits do?
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: There's no such thing as a nonprofit.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: There's just a group of people who are connected to each other with a structure, right.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I love it when someone talks me out.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: How can a person not calling you out?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: but calling out this is so good though.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: How can a person make it in?
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to give you some really specific, tiny examples.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: My friend, scott Harrison, has raised a quarter of a billion dollars at Charity Water.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: He did that in a way that was not in anybody's playbook when he started.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: My friend, jacqueline Novigratz, has raised almost a quarter of a billion dollars for the Acumen fund Acumen, how did she do that?
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: She did it in a way that everyone said wasn't going to work.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Now those two people are in charge, but let's think about someone who isn't in charge.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: So I got an email I don't mind calling them out by the New York Public Library, of which I've been a member for a very long time, a few weeks ago, and the subject line sure made it sound like my library card was about to be suspended.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: And as I read it, formatted in that standard fundraising HTML thing, it became clear that that wasn't what was actually being discussed.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: It was would I pay some money to join this thing to support the library?
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: And it was signed by somebody who worked somewhere there deep in the institution.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: So I sent her a note and I said this is five things.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: I might have tried to do a little bit differently, but the problem is when you say we are this institution and I have 40,000 people on my email list and I got this consultant and I need to make my yield numbers go up because I'm under all this pressure from this and this and this.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Well, of course you're going to do that, but what you could do is you could realize that you could write 30 emails a day by hand and figure out when you write to someone, one person at a time, and tell them your story and what you're up to and see them and they feel seen.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: You could figure out what might work when you multiply it times 10,000.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Because I guarantee you that treating 10,000 people like they're all the same is not nearly as effective.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: In the old days, with direct mail, you had no choice, but with email, that's the way it's supposed to be and if we can see each other, we have a chance to change them.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Now this person did it and it failed.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: She could go to her boss and say 50 people didn't work With responsibility.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: And if it succeeded, she could go to a boss and say you want to take credit for this one, because then we get to do it again and again and again, and so the shift I'm talking about as a marketer is one that says we have all these dials and all these tools and instead of doing it in a deniable way, how do we do it in a personal way?
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: But it's a bigger thing when we talk about our teams right, and I'm watching things fly by in the chat.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: What's the deal with our teams?
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Did we sign up To get real or let's not play?
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Are we in an organization where we criticize the work but never the worker?
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Do we have a mindset that says what we are here to do is find a new way to solve the problem, acknowledging that some of the things we're going to do aren't going to work?
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Or are we here to just run around like chickens with our head cut off in crisis mode, doing what we did yesterday, but faster and cheaper, and having the honest conversation?
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: That is the first step.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, I love that you brought up Scott Harrison, because you know he came on to our show and schooled us in a moment.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: It was so great, it was a brilliant moment because we said you know what are you thinking about, the trends that are happening across the sector?
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And he said guys, I hate to disappoint you, but I spend zero percent of my time thinking about the sector and I think that's what you're speaking to.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Is that there's a different playbook that no one's looking at?
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And even these one off that don't really cost us anything to try, but it could really make the difference in finding a new believer for our mission.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: So I want to get a little tactical, because I know people like want to start implementing this.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So the marketing landscapes really evolve with the rise of social media.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Obviously, technology post covid what principles do you believe are true, regardless of the tools and platforms and whatever Twitter's name today?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I refuse to talk about that.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: The last part of it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yay, you are our people.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: When you buy something, you are making a decision and I think we all understand that.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: We understand that if you go to Walmart or wherever and there's five kinds of pickles, a decision is about to be made.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: But I also think it's worth flipping it upside down and realize that every time we make a decision of any kind, we are buying something because we are taking our time, we are spending our time, we are making a commitment and we are buying something.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: When we think about fundraising, it's essential to understand that the only reason, the only reason, someone donates $500 to your cause is because it's worth $600 to them.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: It's a bargain.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: If it's not worth $600 for the feeling, for the story, for the status, for the affiliation, then why would they do it?
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Everything non-profits do when they're fundraising is on sale.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: It's a bargain.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: You are doing someone a favor, an opportunity, opening a door for them, offering them something, not hassling them and taking something from them, because in a fairly free society you don't have the power to do that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: All you have the power to do is create the conditions for someone to make the decision that engaging with you, spending this money to do get that story, is a bargain.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: That's why it's so hard for a college fundraiser to go to a billionaire and say I want you to put a $5 million to put your name on this door Because in their head they're like if I was a billionaire, I'd never spend $5 million for my name on a door, because their story of money is you don't put $5 million into that kind of vanity project, but if you're a billionaire, that's like one of the only fields you've got left today is this status that you're going to buy, because you've already bought everything you can buy.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: And so what we get when we show up in social media, what we get, even when we're flying by putting our links in the chat, is a chance to create the conditions for other people to either see status or affiliation.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Status is this will move me up, this will make me feel better about myself, or other people will feel better about me, and affiliation is I'm with the other people.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: People like us do things like this, so I don't care what the medium is.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I haven't used Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn actively for a very, very long time because I don't want to be the product.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to be the person who's a customer, who's showing up to do their thing, and if other people spread my ideas online, that's for them to decide.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: If I can give you something that you spread that makes your life better, you will spread it in whatever medium you choose.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: But saying oh, tuesday afternoons at three o'clock is the best time to do a this kind of pitch.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I'm not interested.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Seth is literally rejecting widgets, and I am here for it.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And I actually agree with Jordana, dear friend.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Hi, jordana, you know, with this quote of people like us do things like this, and we're all gathered in community right now, we're all pulling towards something bigger and and it's making me think about, like, how even the mindset shifts that we need to go through, about how we look at our community and you'll notice, I didn't say donors there, we're looking at our community and we have a fourth core value that we are for good, that we don't believe in the donor.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: We want to equip the believer, because a believer is going to show up with way more than money.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: They're going to show up with story, with network, with sharing, with social capital, with volunteering.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: They have so many assets to bring and when we start looking at it in that way, it just shifts the way that we interact and engage with community.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And so I want to double-click on community just a little bit, because you've spoken about this idea of people like us do Things like this when you refer to community, and I want to know what advice you would give to this community about how to build and nurture these authentic communities in a time such as this how can they unpack their brand and what is it going to unlock for them?
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: That is currently closed.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is brilliant, becky, and you're highlighting something really important, which is the smallest viable audience.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: There are so many important causes and they are not unimportant.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: They are vital and urgent and they matter, and there's zero chance everyone in the world is going to care.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: So, if it's not everyone, it's someone.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: How many someone's do you need?
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: My guess is fewer than you think.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Right, that a thousand people sending you a thousand dollars is a million dollars.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: That's a thousand people that, on a rounding error, is zero percent of the population of Chicago.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Right, that we're talking about none?
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is so empowering because you get to say people like us, these are the people like us, everybody else we're ignoring right now.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: These people, the people like us, this is who it's for, and and what we know is that folks who are fortunate enough to have a roof over their head, clean water and health care, they don't do anything that they need anymore.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: They do things that they want.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: When people go to a clothing store to buy clothes, they're not naked.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: They already have clothes on.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: They went Because they want new clothes, not because they need them, and what we want more than anything else is to belong, to be seen, to matter, to lean into a problem where we think we can make at least a small contribution to solving Whatever that thing is.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: And so, when we can weave together a community and there's so many ways to do it what do people wear to the Philharmonic?
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Why does it make the music sound different when you dress like that?
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Well, actually, yes, it does.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: It does, because when we are sitting next to each other in the uniform, we've established that we are people like us.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: And when the Albright Knox, the museum in Buffalo, started to do its evening events, where they would invite a very select not elite, but select group of people to come, and Just to a cocktail party, the people who walked into that room were surrounded by the same Paintings they saw all the time, but it felt different because they got status and affiliation in that same moment, and your job Isn't to be a party planner.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: I hate gallows.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: I think there's a ridiculous waste of time and money.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Basically, you are running a gala every day, a good kind, an efficient one, one that says Am I in the right room?
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Are the people in this room seeing me?
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Am I seeing them?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: Am I part of something that matters that I will talk about to my kids years from now.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: And that is how Nathan Winograd built the no-kill shelter movement right now, in more than 500 cities Since he started at, hundreds of millions of dogs and cats haven't been killed because one person.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: He didn't save every dog and cat.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: He showed up to create the conditions For people who wanted to be part of that journey to go on it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: So back to your original point.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Becky, you're the bus driver.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You should announce where the bus is going, you should help people find a comfortable seat on the bus and then you should take them there.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: That's the work.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just like this open-handedness, that money is probably the lowest common denominator of engagement.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, the things that you talked about, the things that will tell our grandkids, is not the stories of money, it's about these significant moments.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: It's making me think of the illustration you used about the community orchestra.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you would share kind of that dichotomy of a paid orchestra member with the community orchestra.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: It's such a beautiful picture so our friend Alan is in the community orchestra here and we went to hear their performance and the only person in the room who is paid was the conductor and he was paid by the members of the orchestra and it was beautiful to listen to.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And you think about what motivates the violin player, because violin can be a job.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: You can get paid to do that just down the street at the other orchestra, but this orchestra sounded beautiful and people were paying to be in it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so when we think about that shift in mindset, you, all of your community, is paying to be in the community and the conductor is a paid staff, right?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: What are they getting when they make that choice?
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Well, for the people I saw in that room, it was the best part of their year to be part of something, to be playing Brahms in sync, surrounded by the others.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Maybe you've never been to their house for dinner, but this is better than that, because this is what it means to be alive.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, john knows how much I love the symphony and all of the sympathy talk is giving me life and I want to create some space for the small nonprofit and that is the largest of the sector right now.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: We did a series on our podcast called small but mighty.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you, get better for the sponsorship.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Oh and we're focusing on small organizations for making a really massive impact, and I want you to sort of lift up for them and talk about the unique advantages of being a small organization with limited resources and what are some opportunities they could seize today.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: So if if you've ever been on Kickstarter, you may have seen the hustle of how do we make our Kickstarter work.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: We only have two weeks left.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: It needs to be called kick finisher, not kick.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, I love that if you spend nine months or a year building, connecting, being part of a community, then when you actually launch your Kickstarter, it's easier, gets funded in a day and a half because you gave them the opportunity to show up.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Well, this is part of the mindset of the small nonprofit.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: I'm lucky enough to work with the folks at the Grayston Foundation that make all the brownies and Ben and Jerry's and and thank you pioneered open hiring.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And If they're gonna send an email for a fundraising thing, if that's their Act of raising money, it's not gonna work.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: It'll get open because the people that are sending it to trust them, but it's not gonna work because it's an event, it's not a process.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: What they need is a process so that by the time you get to the point where you're saying today is the day we really need to raise the money for our annual budget, it's gonna go boom in one minute because it's kick finishing, it's not kick starting.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: And If you're a small nonprofit two, three, four, five people in the room and I'm lucky enough to work with some of those what you end up with is the flexibility to look people in the eye, learn how it works with one people or three people or five people, and then Do it again.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And so part of the reason I don't do any consulting is, if you have a consultant show up and tell you what to do, it's not going to teach you what you need to learn.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And what you need to learn is that this work You're doing is generous, not just generous to the victims of whatever Plight you're trying to help, but it's generous to the people who are donating because it's causing community to happen Patently and with a human insight.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: And my interactions with the two of you have been the same way that sometimes I'll show up on a podcast or something and there's a form, and then there's this other thing, and I've never even engaged with folks.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: You're showing up as humans and that's why people want to listen to you.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, I got to share something human like because it relates to this in a way.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I put this in a LinkedIn post earlier last week, but when I was 23, I was working at the Science Museum, oklahoma, and I got and I want to know if anybody can relate to this in the chat and I was tasked with writing my first direct mail piece and I've never done it before and I'm sitting there googling it and it's the most Uninspiring thing and I'm literally looking at these examples saying is this what I'm supposed to put out?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Do people translate to this?
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm following this script and something in my gut at 23 is like this this wouldn't do that for me, this would not, would not instigate me to want to activate, and so I think I just want to say to everybody out there Like your gut is telling you something.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I always tell my daughters there's a little woman sitting in your stomach and when she tells you something's wrong, like listen to her.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And it's like going against the grain and going in the road less traveled, and that is what I feel in this moment and that is what I feel with what you're saying right now and it's clearly getting me all amped up because I'm in my pulpit and I'm preaching, but it's like I want everyone out there to know that we are rooting for you.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: We are.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: You are not alone in being this change agent and going against the grain.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: In fact, not only is it gonna benefit your organization, but it's gonna benefit your soul.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: It's gonna benefit the human being that you are.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And if we're brave enough and we have the courageous Mindset that we can do things differently, the rewards are so deeply rich.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: And if you need a community like, come find me.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I will hug you.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I'm the best mom hugger virtual mom hugger ever.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: But come and find your community and know that you can do this.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, stepping off my soapbox.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I was brilliant.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: And now I got.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: The flip side of the smallest viable audience is this you're gonna need to fire some of your donors and the sooner you do this, the happier you will be.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about mostly your bigger donors.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: The status thing is real.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: We understand that.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: We don't want to talk about it, but it's real.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: But there's good kinds of status and bad kind of status.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Right that I was in a bike accident years ago in Central Park in New York City and I was gonna hit somebody, but instead I hit the pavement and scraped off some skin.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I'm fine, but Immediately this guy runs over and says can I help you?
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: I'm a doctor.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: And then immediately someone else runs over, moves.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Another way to say can I help you have an emergency room doctor?
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: All right, this was status on display, because they were good people, but they also lived for the ability to just show up on their run and say the point is, some people get status out of belittling the board or belittling the fundraiser.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Some people get status by putting on a show to show that they are significantly more important than you, and One thing I hope people will take away from this is.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: You deserve better than that, and it is completely Okay to look somebody in the eye and say to them it sounds like we're not serving your needs as much as we could.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: What do you need from this institution to be able to feel like you are part of what we are building together?
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: And then don't talk again and Figure out whether or not they're always being late, always undercutting you, always, nicola, and diving you, etc.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Etc.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Is worth it, because in the Sut time and emotion that you save, my guess is you can find other people who are better members of the smallest viable audience you seek to serve.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Seth, I mean thanks for saying that.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I think the chat is exploding for that discussion that permission almost you know.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's powerful.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about trying stuff.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: That's the technical term we use for innovation.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I mean leaning into risk, leaning into trying new approaches to things, and you're talking about quitting donors, you know.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I mean I'd love to talk about the moment, whether it's a program or that's that gala that we've already put on the shopping block.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: How do you know when to quit and when to persist, if maybe you're not seeing those results?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: What's your friend?
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Well, I should talk about gala for a minute.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Um, gala's are fraught with social risk and many not all, but many people who work in senior levels, particularly of midsize nonprofits, view that social risk is something that they can address by throwing a particularly specific kind of party, and it takes a lot of time from a lot of people.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: If your CEO is looking over the invitation for the gala, you know what I'm talking about.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: And cancelling the gala is a really important step in the right direction because it creates a hole, and it's a hole you need to fill with actually generative, productive, resilient, useful ways to serve your community as you serve the cause that you're trying to address.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: And if you are relying more and more on a gala, you're putting so much of this emotional energy into something that doesn't serve anybody, and I know I'm biased because I refuse to go to gala.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: But even the people who go to gala complain about the fact that they have to go to gala because no one looks forward to them the way they used to, because we've changed the way we interact.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: But I guess my point is the main reason to quit stuff is to create a hole so that you will find new things to take its place.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: That's why you have to quit before you find the thing that will take its place.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: You know, I've been a book package for many, many years.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: I used to make DVDs.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: I used to make games for online services.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: There are things I had to stop doing in order to be able to do the next thing.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: I haven't gotten on a plane to give a speech in two years.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I had to leave that hole in my life so I could build the next thing, and you need to take a hard look at what is actually yielding for your organization and yielding for you, your career, your day, and get rid of the 10% of the stuff that's causing you 80% of your adjuta.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: So that's dropping the wisdom bombs and we're starting to wind down a little bit.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: We know you all have questions.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: We're going to answer those in the lounge, but I really want to get back to humanity and I want to get back to storytelling, because I think that is one of the great superpowers that nonprofits have right now is authentic storytelling.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: But I want to put Seth on the hotspot for this, because we love centering story in our conversations and talking about the power of philanthropy, and I would love to know a moment or a story from you where philanthropy intersected in your life and it stayed with you and I wondered if you would share that story with our audience.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know if we have five hours, we'll take it offline, you know.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: I'll give you a couple short ones.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: I was in Kenya with Acumen helping Western seed market their seeds to farmers in the fertile valley there, and I spent the day with Lucy.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Lucy is a millionaire.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Under her bed she has a cigar box with a million Kenyan whooples what are those called Dollars but not in it.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: And she has nine kids.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: She sent them all to private school.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: She has tree farm and her farm was generating $3,000 a year in income.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Her next door neighbor with exactly the same plot of land was a subsistence farmer, and this happened because Western seed showed up, treated the customer with dignity and with respect and offered them the chance to buy seeds.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: That would change things.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: And when you see what happens when we invite people along instead of just giving them something, telling them that we are right and they are wrong, it was hugely inspirational Going back years before that, thinking about my dad's work at the United Way and with the local theater in Buffalo, watching what happens when the community comes together, watching what happened when my dad got ill and seeing how people came together.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Humanity, we've come to this weird spot where we think the purpose of culture is to enable capitalism, that we have to define what we do in terms of what money did it make.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: No, it's the opposite.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: The purpose of capitalism is so we can have a culture.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: The purpose of everything we do is so we can have an interaction with Lucy, so we can build something in the community that helps people who need something right now.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: And whenever I feel like I'm stuck, I try to shift to a different mode, the mode of being generous, because the mode of being generous helps us.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: The same way a lifeguard doesn't hesitate before she jumps in the water to save somebody.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: There's someone drowning.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: You're right there.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you're the most qualified lifeguard, whoever it was.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: You are the lifeguard right here, right now.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Let's go do something that matters.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: And the people who are on this call the ones who are spending their time when they could be watching Netflix.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Instead, they're the ones who care.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: And there's someone drowning.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: There's a donor who's drowning.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: There's a person you seek to help who's drowning.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: What could we do differently?
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Scarily differently, where we take responsibility.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: For me, that's what it means to be alive.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: How do you not get hyped up at this?
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Is everyone here ready to roll?
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Are we ready to try and be scarily different, scarily risk takers?
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I think the moment is here.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: It's just there for you to step out and take it.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you, seth.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I think we all need to see that remembrance of we get to sit in that sacred space of these moments.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: We don't want to take that for granted.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: And, seth, as we wind up, we always want to ask what's your one good thing, what is a piece of advice, what's a habit, what's a mantra, what's just on your mind today?
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: What's your one good thing today?
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Every time I'm answering a question, I'm trying to think of my one thing, because that's why I'm here.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: It's the question we most fear, honestly, when we ask people, that they'll ask us.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: The shortest blog post I ever wrote is you don't need more time, you just need to decide.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: And most people are in such a hurry on the Internet they didn't stop to think about what that means.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Because they're in such a hurry, they're looking for the next thing.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: They don't want to decide and you already know enough.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: You already have enough.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: You already have the tool.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: Whatever tool you're using is a fine tool.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Whatever platform you're on is a fine platform.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Whatever board you have is a fine board.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: If you can't tolerate any of it, you should leave today, because there's somebody who needs you.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: But if you're going to stay, you don't need more time.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: You don't need more research.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: You don't need more learning.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: You simply need to decide.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: And the decision is will you take responsibility for a very small, generous act serving the smallest viable audience in a way that you can learn something?
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: And if you do that and it works, tell everybody and then do it again.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: And if you do it and it doesn't work, tell the right people so they won't make the same mistake and then do something else.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: But we're experimenters, we're scientists, and effective scientists don't say I'm afraid of experiments because it might not work.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Effective scientists say the reason I'm here is to do experiments, and that is the reason your nonprofit is here.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: You haven't figured out the answer yet.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: We need the answer, we need community, we need connection.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: It's there for anybody who is willing to go find it.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: So we're winding down, we have 20 seconds left and I just want to say impact change makers, let's decide.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Let's decide to step forward as social scientists who are literally changing the world for good.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: We want to see you be a part of it.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: You are not alone, seth my gosh.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your wisdom.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Our hearts are so full of hope.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Our hearts are so full.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I feel fired up.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for this just inspiring and elevated conversation.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 40:49
  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.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: We'd love for you to come join our good community.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Sign up today at weareforgoodcom.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Backslash.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Hello.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to our next conversation.