Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 446. Evolved Digital Strategy Panel: How to Foster Connections and Drive Impact Using Digital Strategies - Carolina Garcia Jayaram, Eric Ressler, Nick Lynch and Sarah Adolphson

Transcript

446. Evolved Digital Strategy Panel: How to Foster Connections and Drive Impact Using Digital Strategies - Carolina Garcia Jayaram, Eric Ressler, Nick Lynch and Sarah Adolphson · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It may not feel like it, but it's never been a better time to be a mission driven organization.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You know, massive demographic shifts, massive consumer shifts is happening not only in the nonprofit space, but everywhere, right, and so we're all trying to figure out how to sort of ride the train the different direction right now, and the shift is happening where people are more philanthropic, people are more empathetic, which is huge, and it's really making missions, the requirement for missions to be more tangible, more human connection, and they just need to matter, and ultimately, this makes stories telling essential.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm Becky.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: So welcome to the good community.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabbit fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: So let's get started.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Hey Becky, what's happening?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Hey everybody, welcome back.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: It's the summer of evolution And we are talking all things evolve digital strategies.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: This week And today we are dropping an incredible panel that we're lifting from the Responsive Nonprofit Summit that was co-hosted by We Are For Good and Virtuous, And today this panel is modern impact thinkers who are exploring how to build those evolved methods to grow the digital influence of your organization.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: And let me just say buckle up, because these four individuals are bringing the power and the heart to how to leverage media to build digital community.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and these guests are not just one-timers on the podcast.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: You're going to recognize these names, but we get to have this incredible conversation with Sarah Adolphson She's the co-CEO at the Artemis Agency.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Carolina Garcia-Giaram She's the executive director of the Elevate Prize Foundation.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Eric Restler, founder and creative director over at Design by Cosmic.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And Nick Lynch, co-founder and CEO of Kaleidoscopeio.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: So can't wait for you to listen in.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: All right, so let's get into this.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, we are going to be talking about marketing and branding.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: We're going to be talking about how do you flex influencers for your mission, how are we going to leverage media, what we're doing right now to get your story out into the wild.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: And, eric, you are one of the first people to talk to us about the attention economy, and you talk about how do we create that content that you call scroll-stopping content, and so I would just love for you to talk about where have we been in the attention economy and where are we going now?
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: So the attention economy, i think, is something that everyone is familiar with, whether or not you understand the term more in a dictionary standpoint.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: So the way that I like to think about it is now information is so free and flowing through our digital channels, through social, through events like this, and, on the flip side, our capacity for attention as humans is limited.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: Our ability to micro-task and multitask is not something that actually pans out to be all that helpful, And what that means is that finding mind share and capturing attention and sustaining attention is becoming harder and harder and harder, and it's also a marketplace.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: Our attention is being bought and sold by large corporations, by advertisers, and, as social impact organizations, we need to figure out, from an ethical standpoint, how can we tap into that attention economy to move our missions forward.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Where is it going?
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: I think is a really interesting question.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I think we're all starting to feel the negative impacts of the attention economy and the information overload and the inability for us to focus and to stay true to course for our missions, and I think something that nonprofit organizations and social impact organizations need to think about is, from a framework of empathy how are their supporters, how are their community feeling, and how are you generating authentic connection with them?
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: A lot of this happens through content, but if all we do is just bombard supporters with content but don't actually create meaningful connections, then we're not going to win in the attention economy.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, i love the way that you've said that, because I think there's a lot of scarcity that comes up when we look at how fast things are moving and we realize what's our place in this world.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: And it's that authentic connection And Carolina is doing this beautifully in real time through their foundation, through the Get Loud campaign that I see on Instagram, where they can just people talking.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: What matters to you in this moment.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: What organization do you want to lift?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And so I feel like you're sitting in the vortex of this, carolina.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So I want to pass you this question What shifts in philanthropy are you seeing as you lean more into storytelling and media, and why is now the moment to really invest in digital strategies at organizations?
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: Thank you for that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: Our vision and our tagline is to make good famous right.
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: So inspiring and motivating other people not just to get involved but to really drive progress themselves and not be bystanders of the good that's being done in the world, but actually start to participate.
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: So, if you think about it, social media is democratizing impact, and that includes the ability for social impact leaders and nonprofits to amplify their own stories And, as Eric was saying, as authentic as possible, and you get to control the story and tell as many stories as often as you want.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: You don't have to rely on journalists and other people and gatekeepers to tell that story for you.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: So examples like the Black Lives Matter movement or the Me Too movement that affected economies, affected global structures, affected corporate bottom lines and strategies These are movements that were largely built and fought and led on social media.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: So they've shown us that social media can be a complete game changer and how storytelling can drive the mission.
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: So think at that at the same time, about thinking about how personal social media is, and people who are connected to your mission on an emotional level are far more likely to follow through with action right.
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: So if you think about democratizing, you think about the personal nature of it.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: You don't get caught up in just numbers and thinking about what really matters and what is your objective in trying to connect to people.
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: So the shifts that we're seeing is how social media can be used to drive an organization's mission And I think for nonprofits it can be really overwhelming because the field is so big.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: So one thing to keep in mind that we often think about and scale and reach that scale and reach are the best metrics to reach and measure our impact.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: But really it's about, like Eric was saying, that authentic connection and engagement, no matter what the scale is of your organization.
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: So we have two quick examples.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: We have a winner, cynthia fast, who runs an organization in Africa called the popo, and they work with hero rats who detect landmines, and a popo has now almost 40,000 followers on social media, which is a lot of followers, but what's really important is that they're really engaged.
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: They sponsor rats, you know they can amplify their story.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: They found partners through social media And that's a big number.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: But then we have another winner in Kenya called teach lit Africa, nellie Chaboy, and she has 2000 followers.
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: But those followers are so engaged with her every single day that when she had to go out and get votes to become a CNN hero award winner, she was able to quickly galvanize those 2000 people behind her.
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: So it's just, you know, thinking about how to reach the personal story that you have and not get too caught up in the big numbers of people that are following you, but how they're following you.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: That's.
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: I see that as being a really big shift.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: That was amazing, and I was today years old when I figured out you could sponsor a rat, which I think is amazing, because I love this organization and what they're doing to transform their part of the world.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: But I do think that that vanity metrics you pointed this out can be very deceiving, and I know, nick, you're probably going to talk about this in a little bit, because how many times have we had a board member come to us and say how many followers do we have on our Facebook or our Instagram account?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: And the reality is it doesn't matter.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: What matters is how they engage with you, how they share their story with you, how they engage with the mission, and I think those are such critical elements And it's really making me think.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: We've had a trend this year called marketing is mission, and we think this is such a tremendous opportunity where marketing is no longer a part of, or a facet of your mission.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: It is your mission manifested And, sarah, you at the Artemis Agency have just done the most amazing job with this, and I want to know just how have you seen organizations, companies, influencers really take that power of marketing and turn it into action, because we'd love to learn that through the lens of the entertainment industry and the strategy that you use.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: What have you seen?
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: I mean, i've seen a lot of great campaigns happen in this sort of intersection of marketing and philanthropy And I think primarily and I'll get to this in a minute, but primarily the whole mission of using marketing is to raise awareness.
• 9:12
  Speaker 6: But I think right now we're having this conversation And I've kind of heard my fellow panelists touch on this already which is, what does it mean to raise awareness if there's no clear call to action, if it's not driving change?
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: If you're, you can say, oh, we had a billion media impressions, but did it move anybody to do anything, right?
• 9:29
  Speaker 6: So I think that's just kind of the one thing that at least we at Artemis are always thinking about is that's a great idea.
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: But so what, right?
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: What does it drive from a change perspective?
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: I mean, i think right now one campaign that's out that's that I, you know, someone on my team drew our attention to yesterday is the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism And these commercials that they're running and they're using traditional media, they're using earned media, they're using I've seen them I love them.
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: They're really, really powerful.
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: And while there's not like a go sign up here or go do this, the call to action is is that we can all be allies, we can all be heroes, we can all be there for our own, for for other communities that might not be our own, and I think that's a really powerful message.
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: You know another, another example that we did recently was with the ACE resource network.
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: Ace is our Adverstion Adverse Childhood Experiences, and these are the traumatic things that you experience in your childhood up until age 18.
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: And they have initiative called number story, which is again to raise awareness.
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: But really that call to action is to learn about ACEs, learn what they are, learn the connection of your childhood trauma to your physical health and mental health as an adult.
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: Go go find out, go go learn more about it.
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: And there's actually a quiz so you can find out what your ACE score is, so you can have a real honest conversation with your doctor or therapist.
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: And we needed to get that message out, get people to go and take the test and know what their score was.
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: And we did a really exciting campaign with artists.
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: A lot of art is born out of trauma.
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: I would go.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: I would go ahead and argue that almost all art is born out of trauma, and so we worked with a number of of well known artists and lesser known artists to create a content series that lived on YouTube.
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: And we use three, three influencers, celebrities, if you will young Bay from one of those tattoo shows which I can't believe I forgot the name of a meal a famous, well respected music video director, and Laura Jane Grace, who is a punk rocker, and they went and they told they were very vulnerable on camera And they told their personal stories.
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: And then we use social media to invite other artists to use the hashtag my art story and share their art, share their song, share their song, share their poetry, share their paintings, share their dance, share their floral arrangements.
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: We had a florist participate in the campaign and and and talk about.
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: You know their, their own experience and how art is a really great tool for healing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, what a cool example.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: We need to see the link to that.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: And you know, last time Sarah came on the podcast.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I just want to lift this because if you're watching this at your organization and you're like I don't have the connections to get these incredible artists to do this, start with who you do have, who are those rabid fans, who are those believers, because so many people, everybody around us, has something to bring to the table.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: It's unlocking and understanding what that is, and so all of us are in a position of power with that.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And so I've heard all of y'all talk about impact already, and so I want to camp out on this idea of how can marketing drive impact.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: And, eric, i want to kick it to you, but I know others may want to jump in here What have you seen works and what's you know in the moment?
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: So I think about this question as really a design question.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: Maybe that's biased because of my background in design.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of times organizations really kind of jump ahead and start to look at campaigns and start to look at tactics And those things are really important.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: But in my opinion, in our experience, if you don't have your foundational house in order, you're not going to be able to maximize the benefits of that work.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: What do I see is that foundational house?
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I see it as having a very clear theory of change, having a very clear sense of purpose, understanding your niche in the broader social impact ecosystem, brand building, having a strong impact story.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: All of that needs to be in order before you can do any of the rest of the work effectively.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: So we usually start there.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: Then, once we have a clear sense of once that's in order, essentially we can start to look at who's your audience, what are the actions you're actually trying to drive that audience to take, and then how can we kind of reverse engineer campaigns from there.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: It looks different for different organizations And I think that that's something that takes experimentation, curiosity, a willingness to try things and fail, and also a willingness to trust the process to some degree and know that you're not necessarily going to get results back within a week or even a month, or sometimes even a year on some of these longer tactics and strategies.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: So that's really how we start is looking at the foundation, getting that in order, and once that's in order, we can start to experiment with different tactics, campaigns and channels and see what resonates with your individual audience.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Eric, what I heard there was one you reflected our second core value of our company back to us, which is play the long game.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: And I also heard, if you don't have baked into your culture innovation, risk trying stuff.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: That's the really technical term we have and we are for good for innovation just try some stuff.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: We need that ability to do that.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Fail forward.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: We do need to test, we need to see what's working.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: And I want to come to you on this next question, because We're seeing this evolution where nonprofits are not just mission delivers anymore.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: They're becoming media platforms.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: People are coming to their websites, to their social channels, to glean information.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Talk about why you're seeing the ship where they're trying to consume this information from nonprofits, because there's a real power dynamic shift here that I think is for good, where the nonprofits Are owning their own narrative.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: They're owning their own story.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: They're choosing what to put out there and the vulnerability and the authenticity are key.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: But I would love to get your inside on what you're saying, because you have such a bent On the corporate social responsibility and social impact side to track this.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: What are you saying and how's it playing out?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: No, i love that you said it, because it may not feel like it, but it's never been A better time to be a mission driven organization.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: You know that massive demographic shifts, massive consumers shifts, is happening not only in the nonprofit space but everywhere, right?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and so we're all trying to figure out How to sort of ride the train.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: That the different direction right now, and the shift is happening where people are more philanthropic, people are more empathetic, which is huge It's really making missions, the requirement for missions to be more tangible, more human connection, and they just need to matter, and ultimately, this makes stories telling essential, right?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: how do you create those connections, those authentic connections, like everybody's?
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: been saying, so that.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: You can find those deeper opportunities to connect, to create deeper integrations, not only with your stewards and your donors and your staff, but influencers, with your community, with a broader global world, so that you can really build momentum over a long period of time to really make things happen.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and so I've never been more excited In the work that we're all doing collectively, given that the timing is happening now and this massive shift is happening now and there's so many tools available to harness, to use to really capture that momentum.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I mean you're speaking to this moment.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: I look at Carolina on the screen and I'm like not only is are they living this out, but they're also funding I mean having the evolve mindset to fund this kind of media and storytelling for nonprofits that Otherwise may not have had access.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I just want to give you the platform.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, how did what's the buy in look like behind the scenes to just say this is where investment matters.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: It's a long game, but it's a beautiful long game because we're seeing it as a bigger than just an overhead expense, like many people view digital strategy.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: So much of everyone.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: What everyone is saying is so right on.
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: I'm also looking at this really active chat going on.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: I love that the audience participation happening here, but I know that people want really practical advice like tools that they can use, and hopefully we'll get to that too.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: But from a more kind of meta perspective and a thought leadership perspective, this has to happen within the nonprofit Space, meeting the nonprofit organizations themselves, but it also really needs to happen in how philanthropy is thinking about this.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: And back to your point about failing fast and, you know, being able to take risks.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: This is not how philanthropy typically works and it's very difficult for philanthropy to do it that way.
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: So I think this is created a fear or scarcity mindset, whatever you want to call it within nonprofits of saying we can't take a risk on social media until we have a full on strategy and build and all these things, when what Eric was describing is actually what you really need and typically don't get in the nonprofit space because there's no funding for any of that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: You know, and when I built this foundation four years ago, it was the first time because we were built on this premise of make good famous and Marketing and storytelling that I invested in a real CMO who had this kind of background of branding.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: I really I learned so much.
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: I've been in this space for 25 years and worked in the art world and still didn't understand what it means to be a nonprofit, understand what it took to stand up an organization this way, because nonprofits aren't supported to do that.
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: So you know, i think this idea of how You know, we see it in our winners and the people that we work with.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: Many of them are already adept at marketing, but where they get really interesting is when marketing Becomes the mission right.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: So we have an example One of our winners, crystal echo Hawk, who runs an organization called illuminative and Sarah's I am sure.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: She's pretty incredible and she's Using storytelling to change the narrative right, the narrative of what we know about native communities, what we know about the history of native communities in this country, and she's adept enough at understanding the story that this is how she's going to win hearts and minds, you know.
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: So she just launched an incredible podcast for anyone interested in that topic And she's placed over a thousand stories in the last year in the media.
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: So this is massive.
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: But it's also like a machine, right that she's constantly feeding resources into on a rather slim budget.
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: So we're investing directly into organizations and leaders who are ready to tell their stories.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: And there's a lot and I could get into this in another time but there's a lot of barriers to that for leaders and organizations, and The biggest one, i think, being the way that philanthropy invests, but there's a lot of other ones that we need to think about.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: So it's telling stories, not just about how.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: You know, isn't just how we talk about changing the world, it's actually how we're changing the world.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: We want to take a quick pause from today's episode to thank our sponsor, who happens to be one of our favorite companies, foster Avenue.
• 20:27
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• 20:35
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• 20:40
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• 20:44
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• 20:53
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• 21:00
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• 21:09
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• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Hard stop on that, because that was so powerful.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I want to thank you on behalf of the entire nonprofit and social impact sector for investing in that.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: I give just a quick shout out.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: We just finished on the podcast of funders mindset series and we literally talked with Sean couch over at the JW couch foundation, who is now funding media for nonprofits And I think, nick, that a lot of people are probably saying, ok, but how can I make the case for this?
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: how do I track this impact?
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and you are the first one that really educated us about the double ROI.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: I want you to talk about that, and I want you to talk about how listeners and individuals and nonprofits can set up these simple metrics for the rabbit fans to start tracking some of that impact.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: So I mean, the our origin story of kaleidoscope was really around making sure that we could bring more corporate participation into the direct relationships with nonprofits.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I mean we.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: In my background of advertising, i knew that corporations and brands were spending billions of dollars in social impact and cause marketing And at the beginning of the covid, if I could bring in more of those dollars to these nonprofits when they couldn't do in person events and all the sort of the standard pieces that they were typically doing to drive revenue were Changing, that it would make a big impact.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But one of the biggest barriers in terms of these relationships or these partnerships is really around Transparency and reporting, and so a lot of CSR teams, cause marketing teams on the brand side, really look at it purely as a marketing exercise.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Did I get reach awareness, engagement clicks like what are the what's the marketing report Of our partnership?
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and that's really where we started to develop this idea around that double ROI, which is return on investment for the corporate partner and return on impact for the nonprofit, and creating this holistic reporting sort of view so that we could really measure tactics and outcomes So not only the partner knew exactly what they were getting from a business standpoint, but also really understanding what is our business partnership doing to create broader and larger impact in a transparent way.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And that's a conversation that really hadn't been taking place really until now, when all of us are now deeper collaborating on a digital level.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So it really creates and affords an opportunity for us to use all of the tools available to really look at both sides of the equation so that we're building and scaling mutually beneficial partnerships and opportunities around that.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: And so that's for us that was paramount And that's really where we focused all of our time at the beginning is really trying to understand how we connect those dots.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And for us and I think, eric, you broke it down really, really well from a design perspective And we always think about sort of what buckets of partnership, particularly on the marketing side, are we really focusing on?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, is this sort of this long awareness play?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: But we're really just want people to know who we are, what we're doing and create some of that emotional, tangible connection, right, so is that an awareness?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And so that's more around the broader metrics that we talked about earlier, around reach, impressions, sort of some of those vanity pieces, but they're important to help validate.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Are we actually getting in front of the right people to do the things.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: If it's not awareness, is it engagement?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Do we want people to do something?
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Do we want people to follow us more?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Do we want people to contribute where they think that they could be important?
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Do we want them to click on something?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: What are?
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: what is the engagement goal around that and really build metrics to support that right, like shares, comments it could be clicked through those sorts of things.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And then the other bucket that we really focus on when we think about measurement is that action.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: What is that called the action?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Do we want, now that people know who we are and people that are liking our stuff on social media, do we want them to sign a petition?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Do we want them to volunteer?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Do we want them to get our newsletter?
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Do we want them to donate?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: right?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: All of those various action items or those calls of actions that we could do.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: We really want to make sure we have something in place to measure that, depending on what the action goal is.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Again, it can be really straightforward in terms of donations or registrations or something like that, but ultimately we want to measure both sides of that so we can really clearly see.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Did those tactics actually drive the mission outcomes or the impact outcomes that we ultimately designed at the beginning of this conversation?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: right?
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad Kaleidoscope is in the world now helping us track these things, because it does matter, and sometimes the data is the thing that will speak to people in power, those donors who want to invest in radical innovation.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: So love that, nick.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I just think we're going to add to that.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: One thing that I think is super important about measurement is that it's not only just sort of like reporting back to see what we did, but it also allows us as organizations to figure out what didn't work so we can cut out the things that didn't work and optimize and scale up the things that did.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, we worked with the American Lung Association at the very beginning of COVID to help them build their first ever sort of digital event And 115 years they had never once really measured some of the digital stuff that they did and we just measured very simple things and found where we thought there would be impact There wasn't, and when where we didn't think there was impact there was, and so we really quickly were able to shift attention, resources and budgets to focus where it was was valuable.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: when we crushed the goal.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I think it was like 250%.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So it's not just like reporting back to see how well we did, but it's like what we didn't do right and how can we cut that out for next time or now.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: So I mean, i love that you're breaking that down, because I'm thinking of it through the leader perspective.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: It's creating the psychological safety to have that conversation.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: This is not working.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: It's time to change this.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And leaning on transparency.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: You know, we just came out of a leadership panel.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: If you didn't catch it, go back and watch it, because we talked about the power of transparency, just for getting your team around you in this moment, you know too.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: So I think all this stuff is stacking together and I look around the room.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Y'all work with a lot of influencers and I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what do we do with influencers.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: What do we do with people that are perceived to have more social capital out there?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And I want to, you know, talk about how can we flex people that have different, you know, positions of power or influence in alignment with our mission, and so I know Nick, sarah, carolee and the all work with people in these positions.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: So who wants to hop in there first, sarah?
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I want to hear from you, sure.
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: Sure, i'll start.
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: I mean, i just I have so many reactions to so many of the great things that people have already said, but I feel like that's maybe an offline conversation, because there's so much brilliance on this panel.
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: I think, you know, authenticity is something that we keep talking about on here And I think that is that is number one.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: When you're working with an influencer or approaching an influencer, make sure that what you're asking them or their team to do is aligned with what you already know and have seen that they care about.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: Don't, don't, don't ask somebody to get into puppies if it's very clear that that they're, you know, focused right now on Ukraine.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And their names.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: if they're not in, the puppies Come on.
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, listen, we only work with people into puppies.
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: But I think another thing to to think about is partnership.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: A lot of influencers, a lot of celebrities, whatever I mean.
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: an influencer now can mean anything.
• 28:28
  Speaker 6: I mean there's influencers on this panel, right?
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: Influencers are not necessarily Lady Gaga or Pharrell Williams.
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: They can.
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: they can be somebody who's influencing the community or in a church.
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: But I think I think trying to identify win-win partnerships.
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: everybody's got their own cause.
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: Everybody's either got a nonprofit they've associated with because of family members involved, or or they found it a long time ago when they were young.
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: Try to see if there is some sort of win-win.
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: For example, we're working right now with an organization that was a former client and we have a celebrity who's starting to launch something, and the celebrity is looking for an audience, is looking for some gravitas to show that what they're building is actually rooted in in some kind of reality and and that it can move the needle.
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: And then this organization is trying to reach a whole new audience, and so we're talking right now about bringing the two together so that the celebrity has this great backing and access to potential donors that they normally wouldn't have had And this organization can actually move the needle on their mission by getting in front of new people.
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: So you know, finding those kinds of win-wins I think are are sort of the new strategy versus let me go out and throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and hope that one celebrity or influencer says that's a great idea.
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: I'm in.
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: Go and be really intentional.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: I mean really strategic.
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: Listen.
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: and, by the way, strategic sometimes might just mean can you pay the celebrity to do the thing Right?
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: I, we need people to participate.
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: I need a voiceover artist to be a part of this campaign that we're doing.
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: We don't have a lot of money, we're a nonprofit, but we can pay you $2,000 for an hour of your time.
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: Sometimes it's worth it just to get it over the over that hurdle.
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I can just add a couple of things to that.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: We recently got involved this past year with the Streamy Awards, which is a celebrating online creators and it's an LA.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: So I was there for the Streamy Awards and we met a lot of these content creators and influencers who some of them have, you know, over 10 million followers.
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: These are major, major content creators And what I found time and time again because I met most of them after the show was that most of them were really desperate to have more meaningful content and purpose driven campaigns, but they really didn't know how to do it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: It's not their background.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: They don't know how to connect to organizations.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: I know that I am in a very privileged position, that I was in that room with those people and that's hard to get access to.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: Is it normal nonprofit in Oklahoma?
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: I see a lot of Oklahoma in other parts of the country, So how do you, you know, bridge that divide?
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: I think it's something we have to think about as funders and to think about as people who are able to bring people together and gather people in that way.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: It's something we hope to do through our own Make Good Famous Summit in the future.
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: But I love everything you know that Sarah was listing and I echo all of it And I think an important thing, when I was even thinking.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: You know, meeting all these different influencers is do your research.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: That puppy example is really important, but it's also expand your idea of what it can be.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: So if you're into climate or environmental change, it may be.
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: Don't only look at people who are in that space, but maybe people who are in fitness.
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: You know people who are using the outdoors for their livelihood or for their habits, and start to find, you know, influencers or people who have some following, and I think what Sarah said is also so important It's not just people with millions of followers, but the kinds that are really speaking to you, the values that you want to have.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: I'd also say be really clear about your ask.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: What is it that you want your audience to do?
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: That example earlier about anti-Semitism.
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: Maybe that was just about getting people to think and be inspired.
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: I need to circle back with Nick later on because we're trying to understand how to measure inspiration and it's really difficult to do.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: But if that's the ask, be inspired, be clear.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: That's the ask.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: You may not see on the other side numbers or traditional metrics to tell you people have been inspired.
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: So how is it that you're going to know you're doing well.
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: And then the last thing I would just quickly say, because I work with artists so much of my career if you're going to be working with creatives, let them do the work, trust the creative process and trust the artist and get out of the way.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: You may not love what happened at the other end.
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: You may even decide that wasn't a great partnership for you, but artists work in a very particular way and many of these content creators really have created.
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: They are creative people.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: So it's not going to be your typical partnership.
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: So listen to them and take their advice when it comes to crafting your message.
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: If you want to reach the people, they're reaching Such good humans.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is such a good announcement.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Nick, please keep going with your thoughts.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: There isn't much to say.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: They absolutely nailed it.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: The feedback that you got from that influencer is literally the reason why we created Colitis ville, because we just knew that all of these sort of separate stakeholders wanted to work together There's no real connectivity around any of that right And really bring people where there's vision and value, alignment and creating a scalable opportunity to make an impact.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I think the one thing I want to like double and triple down on is the specific ask.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: That, to me, is probably what separates our DMs and phone calls and texts and emails from everybody else.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: That hits all of these influencers up for ask.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: It's like, hey, you have a big following and can you say something?
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: That's not really an effective ask, but what is an effective ask is Hi, my name is Nick up from the Make a Wish Foundation.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I noticed that you really involved with your community and particularly around making sure that kids get to achieve certain things when they're sick.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I also understand that I would love to work with you.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: If you could maybe share this one piece of information about Make a Wish next week, that would be awesome.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Right, it can be that simple, but it has to be specific or else it gets lost and sort of like.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: You are, just like everybody else, asking me for something.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: You've done your research.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: You can ask them that specific type of ask.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Then there's a little bit of connection between what you are trying to achieve and what they can provide.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: You all are all we are for good podcast alums.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: We have loved having you on the podcast, so you know that we end all of our conversations with a one good thing.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: I want to hear your one good thing And, eric, i want to start with you.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Mr Design Thinking and, by the way, i got to give a little plug You have not read Cosmics Manifesto on their website.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Please go to DesignByCosmiccom.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: It is amazing and life changing.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: So, eric, please go with your one good thing.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: So I think usually I answer this with the word curiosity, because I think that that is such an important element of doing this work.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: One thing that I actually want to double down on today, though, is to echo some of the good work and the advice from Carolina, which is we need to fund this work, and this work needs to be part of our core strategy for the organization, because if it's always work that happens when the real work is done or when there's extra budget laying around, which never happens this is never going to be done.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: I also want to advise organizations in the social impact space that you do not need to do this work alone.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: You need to find experts to partner with or build in-house expertise.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: We think about the kind of poster child example of Charity Water that literally built an agency within the organization.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: That's a very extreme position to take.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's necessarily required, but if you're trying to get people to do this work as your second or third job, it's never going to be effective.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: You don't have to.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: There are so many good consultants and agencies and professionals out there that are eager to help organizations like yours.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: I would just recommend really reaching out to your network and bringing experts on to help with this work and, on the flip side, making sure that you fight for funding for it and value it and prioritize it as core to the work and not something that happens when the real work is done.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, when panelists are quoting panelists, i just have all the warm fuzzies.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: So, carly, and I'll kick it to you next.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: One good thing.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: Well, one good thing is, I think, don't focus so much on the media part of this.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: Focus more, i think, on developing your story and getting really clear about the story and the why of your story, and then I would say, tell that story over and over and over again to as many people around you who care about you and your story, because we always think it's so clear.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: I mean our founder, joe.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: He thinks everything is so clear And I make him say it a million times until it's truly, truly clear, because I find that the more people you collaborate with and who understand your story really clearly, it's going to unlock these opportunities and these ways of reaching many more people.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: So start with really honing in on your story.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: That probably would have been my one good thing if I'd had one.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: And I would also say syndicate that story Wherever you're saying it, say it everywhere.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: We don't all consume information in the same way and in the same place.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Are you breaking up Joe's comments?
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Are you putting them on a quote card and putting them on your Instagram reel?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Are you putting it in the annual reporter?
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Are you working it into your Gala comments?
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Wherever you can put those comments, put them in there, because even if somebody's heard them multiple times, it's going to reinforce that same elevator pitch and that why to them?
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: and then they start to own it And a magical thing happens when that occurs.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: So okay, Sarah, what about you?
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: You're one good thing.
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: I've got like several and most of them were said by other people and I'm stealing them.
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: I need to double click on what Carolina said about trusting the artist.
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: I cannot say that enough, and I saw everyone on this panel nod their heads, because I think we've all seen that when we bring in an amazing creative and the nonprofit goes, no, it's like this is this could be a game changer?
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: right?
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: This is what they do for a living.
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: They make lots of money off of it.
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: Trust them.
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: They've got the ideas And I think, to that same end, you have the celebrities already in your organization.
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: I've talked about this on the podcast that we did, but the people that you're serving have the amazing stories that are almost too good to be true, right?
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: They have these stories.
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: So, if you're going to, if you're going to tell the stories, go look within and see what you have.
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: And if you're going to bring on an influencer, just use the influencer to elevate that person's story.
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: They don't want to talk about themselves.
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: They want to talk about the real heroes within your own organization.
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: So find them, find a great creative, get a celebrity to promote it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, Less than one minute.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Nick Lynch, bring us home.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Man, they nailed it.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, i mean, i think that if you're starting at this, you have to start at the story and continually make sure that everybody is really knowing what the story is.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: And if you haven't thought about how you tell your story in 10, 15, 20 years, you probably should look at it again and really think about how are we telling the story now in this new world?
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And so we've sort of developed these three principles that feel like we wrote the book on, which will be out later, but essentially is how are you creating social moments with that story, how are you creating partnerships with that, with that new story or your story, and how are you making it connectable and human around your story?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And if you can create social moments, find partnerships to amplify those and make it human and real, you have something there And that's how you really double and triple down on your mission and how I know.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Where's the Oscar swell music?
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: because that was so good and we're going to lead you all offstage.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for this incredible work.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: I will just say, if you are someone who is ready to take this step into evolve digital strategies, consider starting with your story.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: How has the mission changed you?
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: Put it through your lens and how you've seen the impact.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Start there.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: Start with your values.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Please go, connect with these four incredible humans who are changing the world with their creativity, their heart and their curiosity.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Thank you all so much.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: We are so humbled by your incredible counsel.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you all for coming.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: Thanks for everybody, thank you.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: We hope you're loving the summer of evolution series and to learn more, you can head over to we are for goodcom.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Slash evolution all the playlists, resources and other ways to help you get inspired and activated this summer.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: We'd also love for you to join the conversation, share what you're learning on social media or join us at our free community at we are for good, communitycom.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Bonus points for snapping a picture and showing us where you're listening from.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Can't wait for the next conversation.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: See you soon, friends.