Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 333. You Are Not a Burden: The Story + Mission of TWLOHA - Lindsay Kolsch and Chad Moses

Transcript

333. You Are Not a Burden: The Story + Mission of TWLOHA - Lindsay Kolsch and Chad Moses · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Becky Endicott: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:15
  Jonathan McCoy: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:23
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community, we're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Becky, the full hearts
• 0:38
  Becky Endicott: Oh my gosh, before we dive into this, I need are here.
• 0:41
  Becky Endicott: to tell the story. So a couple months ago, we were working on our lineup for Mental Health Week. And this community is just so supportive. And all in on mental health we get as our most downloaded week of the year. And we're visiting with our friend Brian Funk over at Virtuous and we're unpacking you know, kind of the lineup and he says, Oh my gosh, if you guys want to do mental health week, right for the nonprofit sector for the world, you got to meet to TWLOHA. And I am embarrassed to say that I didn't know enough about them. And then when we found out the mission of TWLOHA and how they show up for the one human being, how they see the one human being and create a safe space of belonging and love. We were all in. So today, we are just going to sit back in our chairs, we are going to zen out because we have two of the most hardwired human beings in the house. We've got Lindsay Kolsh and Chad Moses, who are two incredible heart powered individuals who are really pouring into this amazing nonprofit and TWLOHA means To Write Love on Her Arms. This is a movement that began online, I'm not going to begin to tell the story. But I want to unpack a little bit about how this came to be because it is a nonprofit.
• 2:03
  Becky Endicott: And it's a movement, a digital movement, dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self injury and suicide. And TWLOHA exists just encourage and inform, inspire and invest directly into treatment and recovery. I want this to feel like a warm hug to every single one of you out there. Because we know how hard life is right now and we specifically know how heavy it is and nonprofit and social impact work and you need to feel respite today. You need to feel that you can sit back and be entirely yourself and feel loved. And Lindsay and Chad are gonna bring it for you today. So let me introduce Lindsay first and I love these bios, Lindsay while finishing her master's degree in art administration from SCAD. She helped found and lead a community art cooperative called Brick and Mortar and consulted for a local Symphony which you know Jon just moves my heart and at TWLOHA she spends her time working on all things admin and programming. She's known for her killer dance moves. And last year she helped bring an amazing small human August into the world. So congratulations, Mama.
• 3:16
  Becky Endicott: We are excited to meet you learn all about your passion for beehives, practicing yoga and keeping the plants in your yard alive. Chad, Chad Moses, incredible human being Director of Outreach and experience finds creative ways to get to aloha in front of as many people as possible. You're doing it today, Chad. And his goal is to translate TWLOHA has mission from screens into face to face interactions, which I can say every person that's working in nonprofit is probably working on that same goal. He's been serving the music and events efforts since he joined to TWLOHA in 2008. And he's also the host of the TWLOHA Podcast.
• 3:52
  Becky Endicott: Good humans get into our house.
• 3:56
  Becky Endicott: Welcome.
• 3:57
  Lindsay Kolsh: Thank you for that intro. Yeah, I might I don't know. You can't hear it on the podcast, obviously. So if you're watching, but it says I'm here now in good company, and I feel like that is true on my mug. So
• 4:10
  Becky Endicott: you guys are the queens and kings of merch and this story has a very large merch component. And before we dive into what TWLOHA is we want to know about you like just as human beings. So I want to start with Lindsay, I read a little bit of your bio. Just talk about growing up and what led you into this work.
• 4:29
  Lindsay Kolsh: Yeah, so actually, that bio is a little outdated. I now have to another human on this planet, but I haven't. Yeah, so I have an eight and a almost two year old he was a pandemic baby. So there's that. But what led me to this work, honestly, it was that one to one situation. It was the people I knew about in college kind of having my own mental health experience not being able to put words to it and then meeting people who were having a conversation, learning about this actually I wanted to Write Loves Move conferences. It was one of the first conferences we did in the spring break 2009.
• 5:07
  Lindsay Kolsh: And I was learning about what mental health meant, what it looked like in a life what what kind of the impact was and, and I had never had those conversations. And so I was finishing up my undergraduate career and said, like, this is making everything in my story, click, this is making all of my interactions with my family members, my dad, my brother, my sister, like it's all clicking right now. And it was just stirred in me this beautiful vision of sort of what a community could look like if we could have these conversations all over and at every different level. And so I joined the organization shortly after Chad, but in that 2009 period, and honestly, I never let go of the ability to see how the art of conversation but also the artistic expression. So whether it's clothing, or working with musicians, or just being creative, it allowed us to bring a conversation where normally you would walk away, you'd kind of shy away from that you wouldn't feel like you had an entry point into the conversation. And I kept seeing this team do it over and over again in a way that just kept my passion going and kept me around. For many, I guess it's almost 13, 14 years later. So yeah.
• 6:18
  Becky Endicott: Because you truly believe and I mean, we can just feel your passion so deeply. So Chad, what about you?
• 6:23
  Becky Endicott: How did you get involved and bring us back into your story?
• 6:27
  Chad Moses: Yeah, I reckon my first introduction to the organization is not altogether unfamiliar to anyone else listening, I thought that we were a band, and we're not, we never had been, and I can only hope and pray that we will be.
• 6:45
  Chad Moses: But originally, the context that I was exposed To Write Love was through music. Now, I thought that it was just, you know, bands wearing other bands, merch on stage, and I grew up in kind of the the punk and hardcore scene that really latched on to To Write Love in its earliest days. And I really never thought much of it other than wow, that's really rad branding. In the midst of me finding out about this organization, I was taking my first baby steps and recovery from all of these touch points in our mission statement.
• 7:15
  Chad Moses: So a huge piece of my story is my depression. A huge piece of my story is my journey with self injury and substance use disorder and thoughts of suicide. And it wasn't until I had already started taking steps towards living a healthier life that I learned about the organization. And it was actually one of my residents. I was an RA at the time, who knew nothing about my story. But said, Hey, you should really check this out this, this is really cool. So I go back to my room, he sends me an AOL instant message to a MySpace page. And and I check out what this is all about. And, and I felt seen, I felt understood I felt cared for. And I felt believed in. I felt like the journey that I was on, didn't devalue my future, and maybe didn't even devalue my present. And perhaps didn't even devalue my past. But maybe even the crappy parts of my story, that darker parts of it were things that were worth sharing.
• 8:17
  Chad Moses: So I sent a cold call email to this burgeoning nonprofit that I thought was enormous. That's another story for another day.
• 8:26
  Chad Moses: Yeah, I, I, again, I don't think this is altogether unique, either. But I was approaching graduation from my university and realize if I was going to be working for the rest of my life, then I think I want to feel like I made a difference at some point. Like, I don't want to just work for the proverbial man, I don't want to just punch the clock. I don't want to be a cubicle guy all of my life. But if I can dedicate a piece of it to something that matters then and like that, that'd be awesome. So I moved down to Florida very, very, very late May of 2008 to volunteer as an intern, and I never left so it's yeah, it's been over 14 years now that I've been able to serve the organization.
• 9:14
  Jonathan McCoy: Wow. Longest internship of all time. What a story. I mean,
• 9:20
  Chad Moses: I definitely like Milton from from the office where they just looking at and just rolling it over.
• 9:27
  Becky Endicott: Totally, with your red stapler. Amazing.
• 9:31
  Jonathan McCoy: I just like our hearts feel connected to your story. Thank you for taking us back to part of your journey because I love like we talk a lot about culture and how it can be a magnet in our organizations when you live that out. And it's like, your story speaks to TWLOHA how being this evolved group even from the beginning that was just a magnet to like minded like valued people. And the thought that y'all are coming in so young in your career journey with all of your passion, all of your heart, all of your creativity, like A good on, on the founder to to have this vision to bring in that type of energy, because I want to talk about the founding of it because I think this is like a really interesting story. And I want to give space to just sharing the story. I mean, when my when Myspace converges in such a powerful way, like, take us back, I don't know which one of you wants to take us there, but just kind of give some color to how the movement really took shape.
• 10:58
  Chad Moses: Yeah, no, thank you for setting that up, Jon. We came about in a really interesting time, like, I felt and maybe this is just in my own naivete, but that we were in this weird bubble of nonprofits that you had nonprofits that have been established for decades, if not close to, you know, century plus. And then you had this new wave that was coming up and there didn't feel like there was a ton of a middle ground. But for this new wave of nonprofits, I'm talking about Keep Abreast, I'm talking about Invisible Children, I'm talking
• 11:31
  about charity: water, they were starting something that felt new, something that felt fresh, that was more poetic than perhaps what we were used to seeing from, you know, the the old guard of SPCA, and Salvation Army and those those likes, not that they're doing bad work at all. In fact, we look up to many of those people. But we got to kind of write our own book. And this book started with well writing, with a story. So the name To Write Love on Her Arms was originally the name of a two page story that was published on MySpace. And when we say To Write Love on Her Arms, we know that that's gender specific, but we're not trying to imply that one gender struggles more with mental health challenges and any other but when this began, it was about a her it was about our friend Renee, and specifically about Renee's first five days in recovery from cocaine addiction and find you help with self injury, all through the context of community. It was a story that was written without a guarantee of a happy ending, it was a story that was way more focused on being present in this moment that we didn't need to have a guarantee, we didn't need to have a fully fleshed out business plan. I mean, this wasn't even a business to begin with. It was simply just trying to make sure that this one person got the care that a group of friends believed they deserved. So we really grew as a response to your response to a story. And from there, people latched on to to this story, much like me, people that said, look, if you replace Rene's name with mine, if, if you were to sub out, you know, just a couple of details here, then we have something that is radically similar. And lo and behold, like that, that was my experience that I couldn't believe that A that other people have felt the way that I did. Because as a society, we do a really poor job of talking about how we feel, especially when those are quote unquote, negative feelings. But beyond that, people are talking about this in a way that's brave. I grew up in a faith context where you can share the crap in your life, but it's always going to be in past tense, right? It's, this is where I was, but here I am now.
• 13:40
  about charity: And you know, how great of a story is this that I'm living out. But this was something that was yet unresolved. And that that wasn't scary, as much as it was hopeful that we get to determine what comes next. So to put this back in the context of what other nonprofits were emerging, we did not have, like I said, an original business plan. We never knew that this would outlive just Renee's story. But we just kind of kept pulling the thread to see where it led. And when I say we, I'm really interjecting my own story into the founder, Jamie Tworkowski, who wrote the original story, and to the story of David McKenna, who was instrumental in helping in that community, for so many people that had been there on day one, that have now trusted us with a legacy moving forward. But yeah, just kind of placing us in the context of other nonprofits. I remember when I first started working here, and it felt weird to tell my friends and family that this was a social justice initiative. And I think looking back, it's weird because we didn't have a goal that was driving us. There wasn't a war to end, there wasn't enough people that needed medication or water or cancer research. But this was something that was a touch point on so many of our lives that you know, you you can't outwit, you can't outpay, you can't outwork things like depression, addiction, thoughts of suicide, anxiety, you name it, because these are all part of the human experience. So many nonprofits exists to work themselves out of a job. And while I wish that that were possible for us, I think what's most important is a sense of consistency of showing up for people in the midst of their stories, whether that's something to celebrate or that something to retreat, you know, and recalibrate and, and reorganize our lives around. So we've, we've covered a lot of ground and 16 years now. And a lot of that ground we found has been common ground. And I think that that's what brings us to this point today that even though we may tell individual stories, this is a conversation that demands and deserves all of our voices.
• 16:08
  Becky Endicott: Holy smokes,
• 16:10
  Jonathan McCoy: Yeah, holy smokes.
• 16:11
  Becky Endicott: I want to thank you for how you just unpack that story. It is it is completely in alignment with how you will show up and how you see people. And I think something that's just resonating with me so much about your organization that we have discovered, here We Are For Good as a little baby pandemic company that's only two years old, is people gather around humanity and around authenticity and vulnerability, and they're craving it and you say you're not in a war. And we aren't. But I think the mental health crisis that everyone is experiencing right now, whether you're in nonprofit, or wherever you are in the world, is incredibly real. And talking about it in community. And in opening yourself up to the ability to be loved, to share your story with courage. And the way that you talk about is one of the most empowering things that can happen. And so I want to dive deeper into what TWLOHA has, like sort of morphed into, you've had this beautiful metamorphosis and I imagine it's going to keep continuing because of the way you listen to your community. So talk to us a little bit about your programs, your resources, and talk, I'm looking at your website, your impact is insane. And I want you to talk a little bit about how you measure that impact because it's very non traditional, but again, very human.
• 17:37
  Lindsay Kolsh: Yeah. So Chad's right, this all really began in the the kind of feeding grounds of what social media sort of became, you know, MySpace, when we say that now it you know, whether it's high schools or middle schools, people are still not even sure what that experience is like. So what I felt like really happened in that moment in time 2006, 2007 was, people started connecting with each other online in a really authentic way. And this story sort of represented that.
• 18:10
  Lindsay Kolsh: And I think today that's still at the very core of what we do.
• 18:14
  Lindsay Kolsh: I love that you guys keep talking about the way we show up for one person at a time. And that's really, that's really the goal. So everything we create every story we tell every podcast that gets put out or blog, short video, Tik Tok, whatever, whatever platform you're on, we really have in our mind's eye, like, we're holding that space for someone who needs a glimmer of hope, who needs to know that somebody has been exactly where they are right now. And not to devalue any unique experience on this planet. But the reason a lot of mental health challenges go unspoken, is because they isolate us, they do the exact opposite of what we need in that moment. They, instead of pushing us towards people, it actually pulls us away, it pulls us into sort of our internal space, it asks us to hide, it almost tells us hide that of you. And so everything we're doing online, is very true to what we were doing in 2006, which is being real about, hey, here's a story.
• 19:16
  Lindsay Kolsh: And now we have, you know, guest contributors on our blogs, who share their story from different lenses. There's so many different stories to tell, it happens on our podcast. But really, I think what we're trying to shape in our work is to shape how we have these conversations. We're not trying to control the narrative or anything, but we're trying to help people understand that it's like, it's actually okay to say at the beginning of a meeting or podcast, I'm a person who struggles with depression or I'm a person that has anxiety or I'm in a hard season right now. Like it's literally just okay to be human, and to show to show yourself sort of as human. And so meeting people online is still a huge piece of what we're doing. Our social media team, our comms team, we have a social care responding team. So we're literally putting stories out there engaging people asking them to interact and to have a conversation with us, and we're meeting them in those places digitally. What I love about what Chad gets to do is translate that experience from online seeing people and really put the flesh to it right like I'm a person and I'm standing in front of you and you'll almost get to practice this, this muscle memory of being authentic in front of somebody else, which is a really rare gift I actually say it a lot. I think what Chad in the events team does is magic, because it literally in my mind changes the metaphysical space of that booth because you're sharing something that it's this energy that we all carry. And it's so often, you know, kind of hidden. And when we share it with one another, I feel like there's such a magical space that is created where people truly feel seen, they truly feel heard. And the biggest thing that we want to accomplish, whether you're, you know, having a conversation with us online, or behind a booth, is when you say, Hey, I'm that person who's been struggling, we now get to point you to help, we get to point you to resources, and you don't have to walk that journey on your own. We have a Find Help team that will help you say, hey, what's in your area, let me understand what's important to you as far as what a safe space would be to start counseling. And so we can connect you to counselors, we can connect you to crisis services, right there, it's really making the the resources that do exist, making those available and accessible for everybody, like right on site.
• 21:39
  Lindsay Kolsh: And then in addition, if you're a person who said, I'm ready to take that step, but I really, I just financially, I can't do that. I could spend this whole podcast talking to you about why so many people who either have insurance or are underinsured or just can't afford simply, you know, the average rate in America is $125, $250 per session, an average person can't afford that. So if you already have insurance, it is still that you are I think it's like 70% of people with insurance still have to go out of network for mental health services. So nobody's, nobody's really covered the way that they need to in this country. And we find that across the globe as well, is true. So So basically, we have a scholarship program, and we are able to say, hey, actually, we'll meet you, we can help sponsor this, we are able to usually support somebody between three and six months, we know that it's not four sessions with a counselor and you're good to go. It's really having that safe space to sort of unpack to learn how to sort of manage and regulate and to unpack and then make sure that you're getting the care that you need. And so that's kind of the full spectrum. It's kind of like we can meet you online, we can meet you in person. But we really exist to make sure that the hope that you're feeling in that moment, when you feel seen, carries through with a practical kind of, hey, we can actually help with getting you to some support, we can make sure that your support network is a little bit broader than what it was when you came to us. And then we love that so many people are taking up this as their own personal mantle, right? Like, we exist as a grassroots movement, because it is going to require each person to feel comfortable to talk about mental health and to demand more for their mental health, you know, to demand more resources, we have a mental health crisis, a mental health shortage that was pre pandemic, it's actually only worse now.
• 23:33
  Lindsay Kolsh: But we know that a support network and healing is actually broader than just having a therapist. It's actually having people in your life that know what's going on, that can show up in small ways to say I see you, I hear you. We just finished Suicide Prevention Month. And that campaign was centered around this idea that you are not a burden. And I actually think that was the most beautiful picture of what every person listening, what every person watching could do with mental health is to let those in their life know, hey, if you're struggling, that does not make you a burden. That's one of the biggest risk factors we find with folks having suicidal crisis is that they feel that their pain makes them a burden.
• 24:15
  Lindsay Kolsh: And so there's so many ways that we can equip one another, feel comfortable practice these conversations showing up in small but tangible ways. And, and we know that that that saves lives that keeps people here and sees that their story can keep going kind of like what Chad said, like, we don't have to tell you, it's gonna be all right, and put rainbows and hearts on it. Like, we know that it's hard. And we're really realistic and honest about that.
• 24:40
  Lindsay Kolsh: But we also know that it can get better, because we've been there. And we've seen that and so many people in our movement and in our community online or in person, they to believe that and have experienced that. Like I just saw someone commented on our Facebook fundraiser, I've donated my birthday the past five years because I because I have seen this get better and I want other people to be able to stay. So that's that's sort of the shape of what we do these days. And like I said, it can be real tangible. Like we have a an awesome high school program called Between the Bells, where we've got I think this last year, we had about 70 high schools that brought a mental health week to their campus that's distributing resources that was entering is kind of the entry point to be able to say what's really going on and I can't think of a group right now that needs it more than our high school students, and even younger, so. So there's all of these things. Is that we kind of listen to what our community is asking for, and try to respond in kind for, for letting kind of fill in those gaps. Because, you know, we can't make mental health counselors fast enough, we can't, you know, we can't get enough people into therapists seats fast enough. So there's not that's not the only solution. It's a part of sort of what we see as the continuum of this shaping and reshaping lives, communities, families at that individual one on one
• 26:04
  Chad Moses: Yeah, it strikes me Linds that so much of our level.
• 26:07
  Chad Moses: programming is really just an exercise in proof of concept, that we're not really introducing conversations of mental health or mental challenges to so many communities, you're already aware that this stuff exists.
• 26:21
  Chad Moses: This is not an attempt to make you aware of depression, or self injury or suicide or anxiety or post traumatic stress, you name it, but it's really trying to say like, you can carry the conversation further, you can acknowledge that they exist. And then so what what, what's that that next step? And our hope would be that that next step would be other people? Yes, could be a therapist, like Lindsay said, it doesn't end there. It can be reaching out to a mentor, a friend, a family member, anyone that you can share your story with. And I get I think that's why it's so important that the name has stuck. The name is followed us this name that started with one story about helping one person.
• 27:00
  Chad Moses: Look, we're not going to change the numbers around mental health challenges unless we focus on the individuals that make up these big numbers. And the fact that our name still comes from that original story, look, every story has had two things, it's had a storyteller. And more importantly, it's had an audience. And our hope is that your life would be something that is also lived with an audience.
• 27:29
  Becky Endicott: Okay, you guys have built a digital ecosystem of love and safety. And I just, I'm going to try to get through this but I'm feeling really emotional right now. Because I am going back three years to my complete nervous breakdown, shared about it on the podcast, if you didn't hear it last Mental Health Week, go cue it up. I'm I tell it in its raw form. And I remember the complete isolation I felt in it, the loneliness I felt because I didn't know anybody who had gone through something like this, I didn't know the symptoms of what I was having. I knew something was building, but I had no idea what it was. And I remember just it was a very long, nine months for me trying to figure that out and feeling very alone. And I remember a moment where Jon looked at me, and he was probably, besides my husband, my biggest ally in my mental health journey. And he was like, you're going to tell this story someday, publicly, and it's going to help people and my first reaction was, oh, my gosh, I don't know that I can. And, and I'm pretty out there with a lot of my stuff. I am an open book. And I remember the day I chose to talk about it. And I'll tell you, I get an email or a DM once a week from somebody who finds that episode in the back catalogue. And I'm feeling so emotional right now. Because I'm just thinking, if you are somebody who can relate to feeling alone or isolated, and what you're struggling in whether you have privilege, or you have nothing, this is a place and I'm just thinking this is our gift. And I don't even want to say that in a self righteous way like We Are For Good brought it to you. But TWLOHA is here. For people like that. And what a gift it is to the world that you give someone the agency to come in and just share. And we're a community of activation. We want people to come in and learn and then we want them to do we don't know, whatever the do is, try something, be innovative love on yourself, you know, be brave and call a donor, whatever it is.
• 29:43
  Becky Endicott: But it's like the fact that you reward someone coming in to share their story with activation is the greatest kindness that I see in this community and it creates an amazing ripple. So just bravo to you. And I just I gotta go back one to one thing real quick because I got to talk about your impact numbers. 210,000 messages that you have responded to from people around the world. 3.8 million miles traveled to meet people in their communities who are struggling 1100 blog posts sharing these lived experiences 56,000 Find Help Tool searches where people can take the next step to sit with someone. 27,000 fulfilled merch orders that talk about these messages of empowerment. That is how you track impact and and how you create a ripple that keeps going, just in love with you guys.
• 30:39
  Jonathan McCoy: I gotta pull out some words that they've said to that just like, I want to put this on fire to say this is how you create a movement. And I love the chuck call it a nonprofit movement, because you're okay with it taking a different shape than when you walked in with and I, I just picture with open hands and this whole thing. Yeah, in every kind of way that you've expressed this from how you don't want to just shape how the conversations like you're really open and agnostic to how they take place and where they take place.
• 31:08
  Jonathan McCoy: Because you're so subscribed to the endgame of what you're really trying to do. And I love that you're leaning into media, and progressive media and you're trying stuff like you are doing all the things that aspire and hope and nonprofit today would really kind of pursue. So I want to give space to talk about this movement that you've built. I mean, now we're going back to what 2006 was the founding year, What have y'all learned about building this digital community and building a movement for good, that can be really translatable to others, you know, maybe one to follow in your footsteps.
• 31:43
  Chad Moses: I feel like one of the first things that we learned was, was really just to follow that, that sense of authenticity and beauty. That if if you are living in a dark place, then then Yeah, anything that resembles light, lean into that, follow that clutch on to that and, you know, call it like call it beauty, call it authenticity, call it what you want, but it's worth following. Even even when you don't know the exact steps forward, like even just positioning your center of gravity, just a little bit towards it. If that's all that your body can muster in those moments, and it's gonna be worth it. And that's for the individual that's currently wrestling with a mental health challenge and, and that's for nonprofits just trying to continue the good that they're doing. I remember meeting with a member, a former member of our board before they joined the board. And I thought that I was really going to woo them on to the spot. And like that was my goal for the day, take them out to this awesome lunch and sell them on why they should believe in us. And I remember the first words they said was, you know, y'all do everything wrong.
• 33:00
  Becky Endicott: I love it when that happens.
• 33:02
  Chad Moses: What a horrible start to this. And I'm like, Oh, well, what do you what do you mean? And they said, Well, your name is too long. And you fundraise through selling merchandise. Like, that's silly.
• 33:13
  Chad Moses: And you are reaching people online, you're gonna have like an actual, like mailing lists that you're reaching out to like, this is all nonsensical, and I'm like, oh god. And they said, but keep doing it. Because for whatever reason, it's working for you. And I have to, I have to imagine that a piece of our consistency and longevity and tenure, is because a lot of us didn't know, quote, right from wrong in terms of how this is supposed to go. And so we just acted, we just did it. We just met and just, we didn't wait for a booking agent. We said we're going to book our own coffee shop tour. And, and we didn't wait for a presentation deck to get on to The Warped Tour. They just said, Hey, we want you out as soon as possible. We said okay, so so much of it was just finding a team of people that were excited and ambitious about saying yes.
• 34:13
  Chad Moses: And let's be clear, sometimes it's it's healthier to say no.
• 34:19
  Chad Moses: Sometimes it's healthier to practice restraint and to care for yourself. Well, it's always good to care for yourself. But I think so much of it was wrapped up in this frenetic energy of what happens the next time we say yes, what happens the next time we lean into this, what happens if we walk into this not so much with a financial goal or with an impact goal, but just the goal of, of allowing someone else to feel seen? And, and yeah, like, so much of that has stuck with us over our 16 years of of existing is just this desire to show up. And the humility and knowing like Lindsay was saying earlier, that we don't claim a monopoly on terms like hope and help and we don't want to be the only banner that can fly for mental health and advocacy of that nature. But even to that extent, we don't want to be the destination for anyone's treatment and recovery journey. Our hope is to be a bridge. Our hope is to connect people we know that we're a small team. Our hope is to connect people through us and to someone that ideally exists within your own community that this story can continue to unfold. And we hope to catch glimpses of that down the road.
• 35:40
  Chad Moses: But we don't need to know every single detail every in and out, because you deserve someone that you can call, that you can text that can be physical ears, and eyes and shoulders and arms for you to continue to grow in safety and in security and in confidence with your story.
• 36:02
  Lindsay Kolsh: Yeah, I think one other thing that we've sort of realized, you know, over the past 16 years is, is that we keep just accepting the invitation into new communities.
• 36:14
  Lindsay Kolsh: And that's, you know, as much as we have an online sort of presence, and I would say, at the TWLOHA community, I think what we've really continued to grow around is this idea of like meeting people where they're building community, so that has required us to to accept invitations like I'm heading out to TwitchCon in San Diego next week. And we have a great streamer community. But those are folks who, who found us a digital space, and they found community there. And then just said, I'd really like to have the tools and language to make sure my community feels safe that this becomes the ethos of what I experienced with write love, I can experience here and bring that kind of into different different pockets. And so while you know used to maybe be Warped Tour and music, it's at one year, I think we were at a yoga conference, we were at TwitchCon, we were at you name it did not like we were it didn't it was agnostic, and that like it didn't matter it just as if there are people, if there are people that gather than we are, we are open to the invitation to represent the thing that needs to sort of have in common among everybody, which is the ability to just to say, Hey, this is what's going on, this is what I've been through, this is how I know you can get the resources. The hardest thing that we hear, I deal a lot actually with families, I connect with families who've lost someone to suicide. And they just might say things like, I just didn't know who to call or I just didn't know. And so that that haunts us, right? So our goal is really to make sure every person knows what resources are there. And while those continue to hopefully grow, we at least want people to know what's available. And so that's kind of a main goal is just making sure every community has that access to to mental health resources. So we've got a long way to go. But we're really encouraged by every invitation, we get every request to be a part of something, whether it's already existing or something that's being built. So thank you, for you know, just asking that question about how kind of community has shaped a lot of this.
• 38:23
  Jonathan McCoy: Yeah, I mean, it's everything. You know, our one of our our final core value of our company is community is everything. And we just believe in the power of that, like how much more beautiful and richer We Are For Good from our example is now two years and with the voices threaded and built around the people that we have met in this journey, like it just it's categorically different.
• 38:42
  Becky Endicott: I mean, this is mental health week on our podcast, I would love for you all to just give some advice to our nonprofit, nonprofit professionals and our friends out there who may be feeling burnout, anxious, depressed, struggling with compassion fatigue, they may have anxiety about bills and trying to make it through this moment. Lindsay, I'll start with you. What's what's a little bit of counsel that you would give to our community?
• 39:10
  Lindsay Kolsh: Well, I felt like you were with that running list.
• 39:13
  Lindsay Kolsh: I was like, Oh, I identify with all of those things. So I so I think I think that's the first thing I would say is like, please take that and know, like, that was not that's not I'm not being cheeky, like I'm like, legit, like I'm in that boat.
• 39:30
  Lindsay Kolsh: And when I think about what I need to hear i think i i I tried very hard and I don't succeed all the time. But I find myself saying, like, what does good rest look like for you? What does like what does it mean to stop trying to look for the problem to fix? What does it look like to stop striving to get it right to whatever and to just just to be to be Lindsay to make to be you know, to maybe just be present? That is probably the hardest thing I have probably it's my life's work. I know it will be it'll be being present because I struggle with anxiety. But I am also a I'm an Enneagram one, and I'm a fixer and I like to I like to plan and how to how to do better and how to reiterate and it's like but when is it okay to just just be present and so, presence for me has to look like a commitment to a couple of practices, one of which have been kind of the past couple weeks have been really off so I'm feeling it one of which is we just had a Hurricane but it was a commitment to movement. So one of the ways that I process some of the cortisol, the stress hormones that I experience and kind of are a byproduct of sort of my, my anxiety is, is movement. So that might just be showing up, whether it's it's a yoga mat session or a walk, moving my body brings me into the present moment. And then I've recently, you know, reached out to a therapist trying to get back into a counseling situation, but I think it's, it's really making sure that there's one person in my circle who really knows how I'm doing.
• 41:09
  Lindsay Kolsh: And so I think, I don't want to should all over anybody. I don't know if you've heard that phrase before. But I would love to take my own sort of advice. And to give it to you all, if it has helpful is to just make sure there's somebody there's one person, maybe two who really know how you're doing, and then commit, commit a little bit to rest to some version of rest.
• 41:33
  Lindsay Kolsh: You know, I'm a mom with two kids and I have a busy demanding job. But I think the the sacrifice is too great if I if I don't prioritize that little bit of self care for for myself, so that might look like a walk. So I don't know, I hate giving advice. Like I truly, I truly want it to feel helpful. But I just more than anything, maybe want someone to know that.
• 41:57
  Lindsay Kolsh: They're really not. They're not the only one in that position right now. I'm in the same boat.
• 42:01
  Lindsay Kolsh: And it's really hard. It's really difficult. It's kind of an overwhelming place to be at times.
• 42:09
  Becky Endicott: It is overwhelming. And I feel I'm in the exact same spot Linds, two kids as well. And I know Jon's got two sets of twins. So there's double the effort right there. Oh, their eyeballs. I love it when people's eyes get big.
• 42:23
  Lindsay Kolsh: I'm a set of two sets of twins. So I grew up, I was the child version.
• 42:27
  Becky Endicott: We're going to need to chat about that at some point. What about you, Chad?
• 42:31
  Chad Moses: Yeah, yeah, I love what Linds said there, not about twins. But but about your your non advice Linds is so so good.
• 42:42
  Chad Moses: Just to extrapolate that a little bit further. Hi, Enneagram, eight I take up a lot of space.
• 42:51
  Becky Endicott: We love our Enneagram eights here.
• 42:52
  Chad Moses: And sometimes I'm aware of that space. And sometimes I'm not. But I would say that there are healthy ways to smolder, visibly. That is to say, if you were burnt out if you are burning out, like Linds said, it's okay to let someone see that you don't gotta fake it. In fact, faking it is just going to make it harder to resuscitate. And, and kind of have to draw that metaphor out further, that when when that flame does start to smolder, it doesn't mean that that Ember isn't still in there somewhere.
• 43:29
  Chad Moses: But campfires are not self manifesting. They require someone to breathe into it, they require someone else to give of themselves a piece of their essence, into that that piece of you to remind you why this is important to remind you why you gave a damn in the first place to remind you that there is something still worth fighting for, and that it doesn't have to be solved overnight. You don't have to wake up overnight that I think that's one thing that the pandemic really, really shifted for us in a negative way is is this binary thinking because we had to enter lockdown immediately. And then when the world started to open up, I think so much of the world want it to reopen immediately. And the reality is we forgot. We forgot how to do community, we forgot how to be good to ourselves as we be good to others. And this has to be a dimmer switch. And sometimes that light is going to be too bright and you're going to need to dial it back a little bit.
• 44:35
  Chad Moses: And that's okay. And and sometimes putting your full effort into it is not going to be enough. And that's okay that does not devalue where you came from, where you currently are, or where you can go in the future that, you know so much of this is not about redefining what's happening but rather getting more eyes on the circumstance that that we can be really unreliable narrators to our own stories. And what I was mentioning earlier about needing an audience one thing that we've forgotten over the years as social media has blossomed is that we believe that the most powerful people in the room are the people with the microphone or the people on the screen and everyone on this screen knows that that's a lie that the most powerful voices in any of our movements in any of our lives are going to be people that agree on our common paths, people that are sticking around for the present and people that, that are hopeful for this next chapter that are committed to seeing the turning of, of that page. So rest in your audience.
• 45:40
  Chad Moses: Give your audience time for feedback. That's the one thing that that our, our, you know forebears always had that even though one person was telling the story, the rest of that audience in there, they weren't passive. They were they're calling BS whenever the storyteller was projecting a piece of you know, their own bad day on to the story that they were telling. But so much of the audience is, is about being a corrective force of perspective.
• 46:16
  Chad Moses: And even in your moments of burnout, you've not waived your right to that audience. You've not waived your right to being in the presence of other people.
• 46:28
  Jonathan McCoy: Yeah, I mean, y'all are incredible humans, and I feel so cared for in this conversation and how you show up, and I'm dying, that we are running out of time, but we got to bring this home, because I think so much of what you've shared is applicable to everybody that's listening today. But we always want to give you a chance to kind of tack on a one good thing. And this could be a habit hack could just be a piece of advice, or whatever you're feeling in this moment. Let's round it out. And Chad, you want to go first with your own?
• 46:57
  Chad Moses: Man. So my one good thing, my secret to success. I don't have many good habits. I'd say that my secret to success is lead with honesty. If if you're hurting, say so. If if you're celebrating, say so. Don't hide your pain. And definitely don't hide your celebration. I'm going to keep this story short. But years and years ago, I was still working for the organization.
• 47:25
  Chad Moses: But I was in a rough headspace and I just wanted to fly under the radar. And I scrubbed my birthday from all my social media. I wanted just to skate through this, this anniversary of my life. And my friend Aaron Moore, found out about this, and he lovingly verbally smacked me around and said, How dare you, man? How dare you not tell us your birthday? I'm like, dude like, I don't need anything. I don't need an extra coffee. I don't need attention. He goes, what if your birthday is not about you? What if I needed to celebrate you? And that really, really adjusted my my television set, you know, like the fact that that my story doesn't begin or end with me. But my story is something of value. Because it intersects with other people's stories as well. So Aaron would have loved to be with me in the moments of pain leading up to my birthday so that he could care for me and an Aaron wanted to be present and celebrating with me even if I didn't feel worthy of that celebration. But what Aaron was asking for moving forward was just honesty, be honest with the timetable, be honest with the calendar, and be honest with me and how you're feeling on any of these days, because none of it is, you know, is something that you should go through alone.
• 49:00
  Becky Endicott: Oh, man, good luck topping that, Lindsay.
• 49:05
  Unknown: I know do I even try?
• 49:05
  Unknown: Well, I actually just came back from last week, this really great event where a couple of nonprofit leaders are gathered.
• 49:17
  Unknown: There's a group called Turnkey Consulting, they do a little convening where they listen. And it's almost like group therapy for nonprofit leaders. It's It was amazing. And we'd ask some simple questions. But I think what I took away from that was was hearing kind of Becky use you mentioned it like how hard it is right now to be human. And then to also want to be working with other humans and wanting to work for other humans, like in a good sense like it to change something. It just feels overwhelming. And I think we're seeing that across the nonprofit sector. And it really opened my eyes that like the challenges that are even within TWLOHA community and walls. It's like why we're serving people outside our walls, our mission. Right now. I think I'm trying to zoom back out and kind of look at myself but then also look at the team and just say like, this is an extraordinary time to be alive and I want to have some kindness and compassion and and care and notice and look like the humans within our walls I think are hurting right now. And so if you're listening and maybe You're hurting. I think that honesty Chad's talking about, I think that listening and just like, really trying to be present to it, and not to put a fake Band Aid over it or to move through it, but only you're gonna know what's right for your community by doing some of that listening. And so we're trying to get better at that we're trying, internally, as much as we listen to our external community, what they're saying, I think, right now, the secret, I wouldn't even call it to success. But I think their secret to just being alive right now is to is to be willing to just like, listen and hear how hard things are right now. And knowing that we're gonna get through this, but we're only going to get through it by being connected to one another, and to being attuned and aware of one another, and trying to meet some of those needs that we all have.
• 51:22
  Unknown: So I don't know, that's kind of where I see the state of things I see like the state of affairs.
• 51:26
  Unknown: If I zoom out, Chad kind of was more in that one on one story, but I think it applies when you zoom out, it's, it's a really hard time to be in this in the nonprofit sector. And I think it's really hard time to just be a human. So I don't know.
• 51:42
  Becky Endicott: You just took the micro and the macro and distilled it for both of us. And I love that you did it. From those lenses, guys, thank you so much. Okay, people are gonna want to know how to connect with you how to connect with their programs, they definitely need to follow you on social because you all are masters of telling an incredible story and one graphic with just a couple of words on it. So that is storytelling goals nonprofit, like drop your channels and how people can connect with you.
• 52:12
  Unknown: Yeah, across all of our social media profiles. So tick tock, Instagram, Twitter, it's at TWLOHA, T W L O H A on Facebook, it's our longer, full name To Write Love on Her Arms.
• 52:28
  Unknown: And our newsletter is actually a great place to sort of make sure you can find that on our website, subscribing there, you're gonna get encouragement in your inbox, you're gonna get storytelling in your inbox, you're gonna get what's going on with To Write Love. Because not every you know, Instagram likes to change the algorithm. And you know, you might not be on Facebook anymore. So you pick your lane. But I can tell you that if you're not on our newsletter, you're totally missing out some core key moments for us to connect with you. So we would love for folks to sign up for that.
• 52:58
  Jonathan McCoy: Okay, I'm signing up right now. This has been such an amazing conversation. Just really love you both as people and just the work that you're doing too. So thanks for coming over to our house.
• 53:08
  Becky Endicott: And I hope everybody's leaving with these words ringing in your ear that you are not a burden. Hope is real. Help is real. Your story is important. So gather in this community, find a community and just open yourself up to the possibility of just being loved and working through whatever you have. So Lindsay, Chad, just in awe of you guys keep going.
• 53:32
  Becky Endicott: We're rooting for you in all things.
• 53:35
  Lindsay Kolsh: You guys are awesome, thank you.
• 53:36
  Chad Moses: And say hi to your dog for me, please.
• 53:41
  Becky Endicott: Dixie, Chad says hi.
• 53:45
  Julie Confer: Hey, friends.
• 53:45
  Julie Confer: Thanks so much for being here.
• 53:47
  Julie Confer: Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics? Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at we are for good.com backslash Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community.
• 54:19
  Julie Confer: Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom.