148. Leveraging Purpose Driven Work Today - Carol Cone

6:33PM Jul 23, 2021

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Carol Cone

Keywords:

profit

carol

purpose

nonprofit

companies

world

business

create

pnc

aflac duck

story

issue

butter

called

philanthropy

good

early childhood

people

goals

podcast

Hey, I'm john. And I'm Becky. And this is the we are for good podcast.

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Hi, Becky. Welcome everybody.

Wow, we are going to have such a fun day.

We are in the presence of greatness,

Queen.

I mean, I feel like I've said this before. But Beyonce could not make me a star struck as being in the presence of people who have done incredible things for philanthropy and for goodness, and today we have Carol cone on the podcast, we are geeking out. She is the founder of on purpose. But if you rewind back into like 80s, Carol was one of the godmothers of creating purpose inside of for profit businesses. Carol has worked with incredible organizations like the American Lung Association, the Bezos Family Foundation, the Everglades Foundation, Girl Scouts of us of the USA, Reebok, I mean, it's the for profit. It's the nonprofit, she has raised over more than $2.5 billion through her signature programs for various causes. And I just have to think that that ripple that that is created in the world has created so much good. And so she has got a litany of things that she does, but the thing that I love the most is, she does not slow down. I've spent some time with her before this podcast, and I was just like enjoying sitting in her aura, and just soaking up what she does. And most recently, she conceptualized this, my special Aflac Duck, which is a social robot developed for extensive child centered designed to comfort children, going through an average of 1000 days of chemotherapy, this little duck It is not like a stuffed animal you may think it is, but it is so intuitive in the way that it comforts in the way that it calms. And I just adore your heart for good. Carol, welcome to the we're for good podcast. Can you tell we're excited? You're here?

No, no, no, I'm blushing. that's a that's a very, very gracious and generous introduction. So I'm thrilled to be here.

Thank you. I I'm just so curious about you. And I know we have visited a little bit. But I would love for you to take us back like to Carol growing up in New York. And I want you to tell us a little bit about your journey and how it led to where you are today.

Great. Well, I well, briefly, you know, I remember sitting in front of the television, where you only have like three or four major stations and watching the Vietnam War. Wow. And it was like pipe right into your, into your living rooms or your dance. And then you know, the civil rights, riots and movements. And you know, I just just old enough, when I remember when, you know, school was closed down because of the President was was murdered. And so you grow up during that kind of cauldron of you know, riots and meaning and people really protesting. And so I grew up around that. And then I went to Brandeis University, and which is a very social activist school, and I got a master's in communications. And my mother was an entrepreneur, probably an entrepreneur. So I'm a third generation. And without really a business plan, I just said, I'm going to start a consultancy, I felt in the 80s, that a company or brand even are not for profit, who always are about meaning what they need to even stand for more. So you need to matter today, you know, in a very internet enabled world, where we all with our pocketbooks can buy from work for for advocate for, you know, with with the internet. So it's a brave new world out there, but I'm glad that I'm hanging around still and as energetic as ever to keep advancing the breath.

I mean, I couldn't agree more. I love I mean, I feel like growing up, I felt like that should be part of business too. And so it shouldn't, it seems to me so often. Why is it surprising that, you know, they think they need to have a soul all of a sudden, you know, like they need to have a purpose. It's like, it's funny that existed without that. But I love that you were on the leading edge of making those connections. You're right we do have a ton of nonprofit listeners as an audience and I wonder if you would talk about that connection, that sweet spot. We talked a lot about values finding value alignment with corporate and non for profit, what are some other you know concepts or maybe each and tips you have for nonprofits trying to get in the door with a corporation and that way,

the first thing is that you've got to think like a business. This is you've got, that's the challenge with the not for profit world and the for profit world. American Heart Association asked us in 2003, to reverse engineer our model and create an enduring, powerful cause brand for them. And ultimately, we launched Go Red For Women and other things with them. This is actually a Harvard Business School case, the American Heart Association. And it's a funniest story because Kathy Rogers, who is now president of American hearts, western region, convinced us that we could take that we should try to take our process is very codified. It's called the p3 process today. And so we did it for not for profits, and created go read the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, the Power to End Stroke and start four distinct initiatives for American Heart with depth, ability to truly to your point, what are some, you know, advice for your not for profit, besides the thinking about a business, you've got to provide something an asset of exceptional value that has grass tops, grass roots, it has content, it has execution, and has engagement, simple engagement, more depth engagement, or you're not going to be able to compete today, with all the other savvy not for profits who have upped their game. I mean,

I as a marketer, I feel like I'm just sitting like in a class with one of the greats and I'm soaking it all up in the way that you just casually drop. And I have nobody missed this, because Carol sent me the Harvard Business Review article on go read, Carol's group started and initiated, what is now go read, Who's heard of go read, every hand is in the air. These are brands that matter. They are brands that have resonance, and they have longevity. And I want to kind of go back to social impact, because I just think what you have done to build this sector, which is now so globally accepted, and in fact, this year, I don't think CSR has ever been as explosive as it is this year, and especially as we're coming out of a post pandemic world. And so I the BBC, literally called Carole the purpose Queen, the BBC. And so I know their queen,

you know, the BBC knows who to call a queen and got about that they

do know they're clean, they do know they're clean. So you're you're just truly the mother of connecting business with purpose, we would love for you to dive into this a discussion around how you feel like nonprofit can leverage this purpose driven impact today,

you got to be a self learner. You've got to read, read, read, McKinsey just came out with this amazing study. And it was called, it's called the triple play. And basically, it says creativity plus analytics plus purpose. And then they dive into companies that had all three of those. So you're talking about purpose, being very thoughtful law, and analytical. It's not just putting, you know, oh, isn't it sweet. We're going to partner with this not for profit, but it's delivering on business issues, as well as making the social impact. PNC grow upgrade. We identified early childhood in 2003, for PNC, and we were asked by their CEO and the president of their foundation, find something that can truly give us meaning that works with our business, a bank invest in local communities. And it's an issue that's about to emerge. And we did a ton of research, we have a process. We picked early childhood education. And this is another one was great stories where we presented the idea to their CEO Jim Rohr at the time, and Eva Blum, who became a very, very good friend. And, you know, it was here's the issue, here's why especially underserved kids are totally behind when they get to first grade, you know, they have 30,000 less words, they have all sorts of challenges. And you can take this on and be the first Corporation truly leading the charge. So everyone shaking heads in the room, you know, very serious faces. And then we go to what agencies do, and we are suggesting a five year $50 million investment, and the room goes silent, totally, totally silent. And then Jim roar looks to all of his senior executives and then to me and he says, not big enough. 10 years and $100 million. It's continuing. It's like a year 17 They have great not for profit partners who we selected. PNC is not an expert in early childhood. But part of our secret sauce is an advisory board. So we went to experts around the country who were academics. And they were, you know, they're working in markets, etc. And we invited them. And I will tell you to this day, most of the original advisory board is still on the advisory board. Because they said, Oh, my God, here's a company that truly will invest in early childhood. And so and now the number that they have committed to a half a billion dollars, it's all aggregate to this subject. So it's a long story of saying, there is an approach for both the corporate and the not for profit, that is thoughtful, that is strategic, that is well researched, that is architected to be built to last. And that's what I challenge your listeners on either side of the aisle, that you need to be strategic and business oriented, you can still have the heart, but you need to have that so that you will be built to last because some of these issues are going to be solved overnight. They are 10 years, 15 years 20 years Coalition's coming together to truly help to make you know, a dent in an issue. There's one other thing I did want to share which goes back to like what's a great insight for your not for profit listeners. And in our book, my favorite chapters chapter seven, get breakthrough not for profit, Brandy, and it's really simple construct. And you can do it you don't need to read the book I hope you buy the book about getting rich on the book, but I did it is a labor of love. Is that you say what is our goals? So you know your before even get to a meeting together? The company brand says what are our goals for a social issue or environmental issue relationship? Then you ask the potential partner What are your goals? Then you come and sit down on a meeting. And then you go over and identify shared goals. That is where the magic happens. That's where you set the objectives, the milestones, the measurement and reporting and begin to talk with the same language. Talking with the same language is the biggest challenge for the for profit, not for profit partnership.

Hey friends, we wanted to take a moment to thank our amazing sponsor gift butter, the world's fastest growing online giving platform powering more than 35,000 causes. One of these is family reach a national nonprofit dedicated to eradicating the financial barriers that accompany a cancer diagnosis. Like many of us, they were unsure how they were going to replace their critical in person fundraising events during COVID. Family reach put give butters virtual fundraising tools to use by hosting a super fun and engaging celebrity chef cooking challenge where they raised more than $350,000. And if you think this was a one off success, think again. They just did it again and raised more than $600,000 family reach raves about give butters ability to livestream video alongside their real time support or feed and saw have the threaded comments engage their audience beyond what was possible on other platforms. It's buttery goodness at its finest. Don't miss the full success story in our show notes. Ready to explore how give butter can help your organization take your online fundraising to the next level? Check them out at gift buttered calm. Okay, couple observations. One, corporations probably haven't even thought about how to partner with you. They haven't even thought about how your values and your shared goals could align with their business objectives. And so I love the story, which I think you're so spot on in absolutely everything that you said here. And it points to back to what you said at the very beginning. You're a connector. And you could see all of these end points to make these connections to all of these individuals. And it starts with a conversation. This is not a concept that is not understood by us. We do this all the time with donors we're going in and cultivating them. We're pitching really big ideas and strategies. Why aren't we doing the same to cast massive vision to corporations? That's the first one. The second one is I love your point about playing the long game, which is value number two in our company. These are not transactional relationships. These are long term value driven relationships. And it's not going to just happened over time. But the point that you say I'm gonna pitch $50 million of investment to PNC and you can talk about however many decades later, they're putting a half of billion dollars now into that investment. And so I positively love this. And I want to tell all our nonprofit listeners, Carol is giving you permission and telling you, you need to be brave to go out there and define what your shared goals could be, find something that works in business for you, for them, think like a business and figure out what you are standing for. And so this is a conversation about entrepreneurship, about bravery, and about alignment. And I don't think those things are really intrinsically something that we think about traditionally, a nonprofit, we work from a scarcity mentality, we've got to work from the abundance mentality, and we've got to go for it. And this is your year to do it. So that was my hype.

And just to thread everything together, if you don't have that vision, you know, that would even cast a bigger goal than just trying to sell a table at your event, I'm sorry, we always pick on the table. Because that's where you park a lot of corporate relationships, part of this thread that I just keep seeing you keep coming back to we have to learn how to communicate to businesses like they need to be communicated to, and that's the goal of a business is to create value for their shareholders or whoever it may be. So thank you for that. Okay, Carol, I something that you've said that also stuck with me is just this idea of we all have to be committed to learning and growing. And as the times are changing, right. And this, as Becky referenced earlier, has been a reckoning in the business side of things, especially in the last few years, through the pandemic, what are the trends that you see emerging? And where do you think of the things that we really need to pay attention to, with this future of social purpose that's in front of us? Just love your thoughts on that?

The pandemic, and thank God, so many companies got it. Right. Right, they got it right. Because of their employees, they recognized whether they were purpose driven or not, that their core engine, their employees had to be protected, had to either go home and work from home had to have extra PP, they changed the manufacturing processes or site. So most companies got it right. They learned to be human. When people had the luxury and the opportunity to still work from home for 1516 months, they ask the question when they're being brought back to the office, is it worth it. And so one of the things, I think companies, when they're embracing, and we're working with a number of clients on this, they've got to provide the space for listening for sharing, let's share our human experiences. Let's talk about the good, the scary, the pain, the good things, we learn the new friends, the neighbors, we may allow that to happen. And then as purpose then look at your purpose, and I think people are gonna start thinking about their personal purpose. And the companies that are really sophisticated, are going to take some time, but in six months over the next year, they're going to be aligning the company purpose and the individual purpose. It allows the employees to truly live into lean in and live in their full potential, and their full energy and their humanity and empathy and listening, lots of great skills. So that's where we think it's really important now in terms of I'm always asked like, which issues are really coming to the fore. And there's a lot mental health, you've heard over and over and over on social determinants of health for underserved, huge in terms of local farming, you know, how we're going to support our farmers technology, the haves and the have nots, how we're going to work. So there's the issues are expansive. And we trust the companies who are already have a purpose, they'll evolve it. If they don't, they're going to start working with their employees working with some sort of strategic way to determine what's right for us to do that is values driven, that is honest, authentic, you know, that's kind of it's, again, a long answer to where we going it has to be authentic, it has to be aligned, you have to have experts play the long game, but you also need to have the early wins, got to have the early wins. And you also have to be flexible and pivot if necessary.

Aren't you excited to be alive in this time? I mean, it's a good time.

I agree. And we were talking about this the other day, john and i just about how for the first time ever, we're seeing stakeholders start to rise up and be about the same importance as shareholders. And I'm just thinking this is your moment nonprofit. This is the time to find these employees. Get I'm connected to your mission because they are the mouthpiece in the engine of these companies. And I could not be more excited about how empathy, authenticity are going to drive this narrative. And I think that has the potential to just revolutionize the way we interact, the way we show up at the office, the way that we treat each other. And God bless you for talking about mental health, because that is probably the elephant in the room for nonprofit in terms of, we work so hard, we are working on the margins, we're trying to do the most good. And it's like we're not even treated equitably, or compensated equitably. And we just pile it on. So if you're not doing self care, please make some time to do that and talk to your company about it. Oh, my gosh, so much in here. Okay. I you have given us a lot of stories. And you and I have talked offline about some crazy stories that you have been able to witness as a result of philanthropy moving into our world and making an impact. What is a story or a moment in philanthropy that has personally moved you that you might share with us?

Or Well, I guess I have to talk about my special apple. I was hoping you would. Aflac. Everyone knows the Aflac Duck. And the Aflac Duck is about a $20 billion asset for AV Wow. So the business side now on the philanthropy side, pediatric cancer was their social issue. And they had it when they came to us, they had invested that time about $135 million into pediatric cancer, mostly in Atlanta, through the Aflac center for blood disorders and pediatric cancer at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. And so their cmo at the time, we had worked with her before. And she said Carol come to your magic because we cannot have these separate. In today's world, these assets and these authentic assets must come together. Long story short, I had the idea because I was having lunch with a friend of mine who does social robots with kids with illnesses. And we're having lunch. And he says, Hey, what's going on? And I go, Hey, we're starting work with Aflac. Here's a social robot Aflac Duck crashed into each other in my mind. And I said, in my mind, I'm going to create a Sophia robot. And my face was like really strange, because what's wrong? And I go, do I have an idea for you? And we sold it to their their marketing team or their branding team and their business team or whatever. And we actually then started, you know, doing designs, and we went to pitch Dan Amos, their CEO. And it's another way it wasn't very much of a PNC moment, totally, you know, we start talking about the background and the need and the coming together of this business assets. He is stone face cold, absolutely. And in my gut, and like, Oh, my God, he doesn't like and blah, blah, blah. And he finally gets up. And he walks around in a circle as a CEO would want to do is a big, tall man. And he goes, that's the best idea I've ever heard. And all of a sudden, we all took a deal. We all took a deep breath. And he and then he turned to his wife. And she was actually president of the foundation. And he said, and we're going to start with a significant donation to kick this off. And so Aaron is a genius. He's a great partner. Um, he basically he he for a year, he interviewed families and doctors and kids as young as three, what was it like going through 1000 days of cancer, a pediatric, it's lonely, it's scary, it's painful, it's nauseated. So the duck is a you know, is is an advocate is a way for the child to communicate. And this duck is being given free through hospitals, through childcare specialists, child life specialists to the child because there's a way to utilize this in terms of a regimen. And so it became a philanthropic story became a business story, because it really had a great impact on athletics reputation.

It's like the little duck that could, you know, of course, it's a media darling, because that story just makes you feel good. Thank you for sharing that.

We have a great video and we'll give it to you for your show notes. Because I will tell you, you need to have a tissue when you watch it.

Okay, so look for that in our show notes. Carol, I wanted you to take all your wisdom of all these campaigns you've been involved in and bring it boil it down to one good thing, something that we could actually implement in our life today that that resonates with you which you're one good thing.

The magic is in our goals, your goals, shared goals, because it will bring you into language of the business. It'll bring you into where do we have to go So you know, having that and then checking in on it quarterly. It doesn't mean you have to be perfect. But it means you need to be strategic. And that when your strategic and so many not for profits are getting there now, they then get the best relationships. But they've got to create assets of value because companies truly want to advance their purpose, their social impact, environmental impact.

That is just brilliant. Thank you for just leading with expertise. And speaking with so much truth today. I just think there's so much that we can all put into work right away. Is there a way that people can best connect with you, Carol? I know you're kind of all the places where would you like people to reach out to you or follow you? on LinkedIn, LinkedIn,

LinkedIn, we keep saying it's an incredible resource. And I would also encourage everybody to go to Carol Cohn on purpose.com. It's an incredible website, you can download their great ebook that they have. They talk about their work, their insights, and there's just so many good resources there. Thank you so much for coming in here bringing your passion, your creativity, your innovation. I love the final call in this brave new world to diversify, diversify and cast your net wide. Thank you, Carol. We've enjoyed every minute with you.

Oh, I thank you for letting me be on the show. Good luck and you're doing great work. So invite me back in, you know, six months or a year and I'm happy to do it again. We'll

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