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So welcome to the good community. We are nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Becky, oh my gosh, we're already having like so much fun.
We're dancing. We are already taking this Giving Tuesday conversation to the next level. You did not come to the we're for good podcast, on elevating Giving Tuesday for a basic conversation. And man Do we have a guest for you today? It is my great honor to introduce Celeste Flores. She is the Director of giving Tuesday's US and Canada hub Hello. And today we're going to be talking about building a Giving Tuesday campaign that's really fueled by your believers because we believe the most powerful movements build from within. And today's lesson is going to help us dive into how we're going to do that from the inside. But first, I want to give you just a little bit of background. She is that director of US and Canada hub. And right in that space. She manages and collaborates with local leaders. They're talking about growth strategies. They're talking about partnerships and mobilization of Giving Tuesday in communities just across those two countries. But this also includes managing the support system in this learning community that has over 300 leaders who are growing generosity movements for their respective and diverse geographic communities, causes and cultures. So it's not like giving Tuesday just takes the data and just synthesizes it. I mean, this is qualitative. This is quantitative. We're talking about what's working and Celeste is bringing us the goods. And she knows her stuff because she used to be one of us, y'all. She's held leadership positions at I live here I give here in Austin. She's been at the Foundation for the Carolinas University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. She's been at Texas Children's Hospital and the United Way in Houston, among many others. Celeste, you are a ball of energy, you have so much wisdom to give, get in our house. Hi, man. Looking.
Thanks for the invitation. I appreciate it.
We're delighted that you're here. And we like to get to know our guests personally and on a human level before we ever dive into the content. So we would just like to get to know, little Celeste Flores like, where did she grow up? How did she fall into this work and be driven by impact?
Being really inspired. And it was actually after a major US tragedy. And I'll get to that in a minute. But where's the last little Celeste Flores is from his Texas. I live in the DC area. And I kind of feel like that the lady from the Titanic like it's been 80 years I've been doing this work? Yeah. I kind of have done it a lot of different things. And it started about 20 years ago, being in the impact space, the giving space, the fundraising space, and I've had every single role around the table to but how I really got into this work as I started out of college as a tech consultant with Accenture. So there's little Celeste after college coding and, you know, doing all that coding stuff. Yeah. And then 911 happened. And I was living in Houston at the time. And I went down to my local Red Cross. I'm not a trained volunteer. I have no idea how I can be helpful here. But I know spreadsheets, I know databases. I can hook up your printer. Like so everybody's got some kind of thing helpful. And yeah, and so they were like, go up to the development office, we need your help up there. And I didn't know what the development office was and then learned the great world that is social impact and the range that your career could have in this space. And I went up the stairs and then I didn't look back. And I just stayed in the space since then, and helped them with their spreadsheets because I'm sure every Red Cross in every city had the same experience people just wanting to help. Obviously, we weren't in New York, but we knew that volunteers from all over the country were going to be deport, you know, sent up there to support and they were inundated with fundraisers, and people wanting to make donations and they have like three people All who worked in their development department, and Houston's a big city and it was a big red cross. So they embraced me with open arms and said, We need your help. And we have all these people who are calling, we can't keep up with the flow. And we want to make sure that people who are going to support this know that the money is going to New York and what it could support, what they could do, how they could volunteer. And so I do everything from spreadsheets to Manning phones and doing whatever I needed to do. But that moment of being an asset for Good is just why I didn't look back.
I mean, Celeste, you have to have one of the My Favorite founding stories of getting into nonprofit work. I'm so glad you went upstairs that day. And I feel like Lucky you found your people, you know, and now you get to serve people that are just hardwired and drawn to this work through your work and giving Tuesday. So catch us up. I mean, you're kind of setting context for this week about giving Tuesday has this really cool history? I mean, it's happened in our lifetime, this movement right in front of us. Would you take us back and kind of connect the dots of this movement coming to be and share a little bit of the backstory?
Yeah, it's really an interesting backstory. And it's within our lifetime, right. 11 years ago, Asha Curran, and Henry Timms who were at the 92nd y in New York City decided that there should be a day around giving, you know, it started as a hashtag. And it was, let's do this thing called Giving Tuesday, we have Black Friday, Cyber Monday, let's just reclaim Tuesday, people need to start giving back after a couple of days of consumerism, this is what the season is about. And calling people in a new organizations they knew like let's try and create this day. It certainly looks very different 11 years later than the creators imagined, obviously, and now it is fast forward. All this awesome stuff happened. And 11 years later, it's a year round movement. There's actually an organization, we are an individual organization. But more importantly, we have 90 countries celebrating GivingTuesday in a way that is meaningful to those local cultures and generosity habits, instilling new habits around philanthropy. And we have a data commons that is one of if not the only one that has the level of relationships with platforms and researchers and leaders in the sector to really understand where the sector is, where it should be going. Or not, where it should be going, where things are headed, and how do we help use all this information that we possibly have to help the sector? So yes, 11 years ago, started the 92nd. Why, But fast forward, I have colleagues all over the world. It is still a small team, but we believe in the local leader. And that's how this movement has grown. We have leaders in those 90 countries, leading an effort that is taking this unbranded, you know movement and making it work for them. And it was intended that way that it was not going to be like there's this list of rules of how you do GivingTuesday. No, it thank you for that, by the way, no way. You take it. And people have done so many creative things with the logo and created campaigns that are meaningful, and resilient and relevant for those organizations and those in those communities. And it's all about the leader community. So we don't have a big staff because it's the distributed leaders in areas that know what's best for them. Celeste does not know how a campaign should be created in East Africa. But my colleague in East Africa with other leaders in East Africa can. So it's grown into this global movement, but it really has then defined itself through values that we exhibit every day and so to our leaders around co creation and CO ownership because it was unbranded people took it and did what they wanted with it and some really creative amazing things, and then sharing it with others and it was it almost this open source movement. And because of that, the this is how the movement continues to grow. And we certainly come from a place of abundance and we were saying abundance and co creation and collaboration before it is now the only thing and everything that everybody says and I'm not saying we made that up maybe we did I don't know.
But doing it before it was cool we get.
Before it was cool and then put it in put a name to it. We were doing that already. But I think it just shows how something was able to exponentially grow because the the set of values that were kind of created organically and so yeah, so it's it's changed a whole lot but at the core it is about givers and giving the people a day to express their generosity in any way that is relevant to them. And really redefining who's a receiver of generosity who's a giver of generosity, it really was a day meant to just do good, do something good on this day, it's look very different now, and nonprofits use it in a very different way. But it really was a day to take something that you have, and we all have something, if we all have a resource that we can give to someone else, to an organization to a community. And our movement has this vision that if the world operates from a place of generosity, that is how systems change, that is how we create a world in which we want to live.
That's the kind of world I want to live in. And I think those Inception stories are so important, because we said at the top of the conversation, we're going to talk about how do you power a movement, you know, that's built from within, and it's like, that is your Inception story. I mean, I'm picturing The Y in the middle New York. And it was just this tiny but mighty idea. And I think the great beauty to me of Giving Tuesday is how open it is for interpretation and how, how it embraces creativity. And because let's, I'm glad you don't have a framework, because the framework doesn't fit for everybody, it doesn't fit across cultures and across causes. And, and so it's, it's really been a joy to watch the evolution of that. And I want to dive just a little bit more deeply into the power behind giving Tuesday in terms of how you partner. And we talked about this in terms of like locking arms for impact. And we want to know, like, give us a deeper dive into what actually powers Giving Tuesday, what makes this movement, move, grow and get mightier and mightier year by year?
That is a really good question. And a pandemic really helped. Unfortunately, I think it really brought to light that we are all different, but the one thing we have in common is that we are all human. And we have our shared humanity. And we have to take care of one another. And that is the only way we are going to survive in this world. And I so when I when we talk about locking arms for impact, that is the point of a shared giving moment is that your money with someone else's money with someone else's money, or your item with your with someone else's item really does extend the impact that you can provide to a community. So yes, it's evolved. It's powered in many different ways. I would say the first source of power is those leaders creating something that works for their community. But then it's using that giving moment effectively and having immediate calls to action. And it's time bound, at least for the day we are year round movement. We are working with leaders to extend generosity year round there is there's 52 Tuesdays y'all in the year.
Three on Leap Year if it hits, right,
yes. You're right. So you got to be extra on that year, extra. Um, but it's this notion that, and we want to get to the point where you wake up on Tuesdays, and you think just about tacos, you think about what am I gonna do for my community? It's giving Tuesday. And then the day itself. That's the the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which by the way means nothing in other countries, they just follow the day usually. And they're just like, what is how, why did we pick the day? And why does it keep moving? Well, because our Thanksgiving keeps moving. And we want to treat the day more as like an anniversary, and that people are giving year round. But this is an anniversary, and we're all given together mediate call to action, we hope people are making it easy for people to act, and making it somewhat time bound. But leveraging the notion that everybody is doing something together, and everyone's gifts are coming together. And so the other power is the shift of power. This structure, how you structure how most campaigns are structured, in in other countries is about giving agency to someone who may not have realized that they are truly a giver, and that they can be a giver on this day or within this movement. And so the power of people and people understanding their assets and being able to give instead of just being considered the person who receives and so these are things that power the movement, again with those values of CO ownership and co creation. But it also comes to mindset of optimism and abundant approach. You know, I have been in the business for a really long time and I know that cash is king and as a development director, you have that goal that you need to make because otherwise you're not going to be able to get the people off your waitlist, you know or you're not gonna be able to make payroll, I get that it's real but we make really poor choices when we have a scarcity mindset. And we get really small really fast and so with this optimistic and and there's times when people are like you're so Pollyanna about it, and I'm like no I honestly believe that the pie is bigger. It's not For a finite amount of givers, and I'm just trying to get more givers on my side of the pie. The pie is bigger, there's lots of pies. There's a whole bunch of different pies that you need to discover. So it's really about people powering it's about this shift of power. And everybody has something to give. And it's a mindset. So I think that those are the things that power, this movement, all over the world. But, you know, the biggest thing here, too, that this day is different is that you're honoring all the ways somebody can give to your organization. And we can talk more about that when you're planning your campaign because we know the dollars are down. Number of donors are down last year, you know, and it really comes down to diversifying, who is supporting your work and being in it for the long game. I know that that is hard, and making decisions when you're like, I need this funds. But if we're constantly asking people to support your organization in a way that is only meaningful to you, and not them, it's not going to work, at least in this next generation of givers.
Sunray screech it Seth Godin says, Yeah, I mean, Celeste, you are preaching our values back to us, we want you to stay in this almost word for word, just like vibing on so many levels. I just think when you talk about like, there's more pie, you know, there's the pie can get bigger. I'm like, it's to generosity in America in terms of dollars is like 2% of GTP. We're saying that there's no more than 2% that if we could give I mean, there's so much opportunity. And I think having that mindset, the abundance is how the storyline comes through with these coalition's and I want to talk about the coalition campaigns that come together, because to me, that's abundance when you can lock arms with leaders around geography, your cause, or issue or identity. What is this unlock through these coalition campaigns that you see?
That unlocks a lot of different things. But I also have to say that this is a learning environment, people, our leaders are constantly trying something and they learned something from it didn't work. And then you iterate and you keep trying something else. But these collaborative campaigns that we're seeing the growth of, at least for the last few years, is, like you said, organizations under similar cause coming together, locking arms, creating a campaign that is really about mission over brand. And it's not saying that, you know, people like oh, well, if I joined this coalition, the I'm one of 50 organizations doing this. But there's something about the garnering the attention of people when you're talking about the bigger issue. But for the organizations, a lot of these campaigns are built, almost like a plug and play like so if you can have a campaign that is about the cause of domestic violence. And you can have the calls to action, you can have the, the Canva templates, but and then the organizations who have zero staff in rural America, trying to provide domestic violence organization, services can be like, Alright, I'm gonna take this campaign and put my logo on, I'm gonna say what my call to action is. And I'm using these hashtags, everybody else is using these hashtags. So and that is the mechanics of how these are created. But more importantly, it's opening up a campaign that many people can see themselves in it. And I'll give you an example. We have the native ways Federation last year, created a campaign hashtag give native. And it is a coalition of, of indigenous led nonprofits, that is formed by the people, and did the idea of GivingTuesday. And shared giving moments is even new to new to its concept to a lot of these organizations. But anyway, they created hashtag give native, they had examples of seven calls to action of ways that people can engage. And then everybody use their audience and their platform to talk about give native. And so the organizations that participated, still had this overarching, give native, they were getting the attention of other people, because they always had a page that said, you want to give native here 50 organizations that might be in your backyard that are, you know, working with indigenous led people. And if I was indigenous, I'm going to tell my story of generosity, and hashtag it give native, if I'm a Business supporting an indigenous population, I'm going to tell our story, and why we give native. So it's creating a campaign that everyone can find themselves in it. And that's really a lot of our identity based. So that was an example of a culture. But there's identity based campaigns. And there's campaigns that are based on our religion. We have I give Catholic. It's a huge campaign. So it's giving people like the donor of space and a place to tell their story. The nonprofits to be able to take that camp. Kane and leverage it and use the assets to promote what their call to action is. But it's being part of a bigger conversation. And a lot of these coalition's aren't just using it on GivingTuesday, they might use it during another time of year. So the native ways actually does another campaign on indigenous peoples day. But they've already primed the pump with, you know, a given Tuesday effort. They're working with these organizations year round to build their capacity. And they're helping these organizations leverage a shared giving moment and love and raise the voice of their stories.
It is such a beautiful way to approach this work. And to me, it also lends itself to be evergreen, if you do that it's not a one and done sort of campaign because I want to follow that hashtag, you know, I want to I want to be a part of something bigger. And to me, it puts a lot of onus on the nonprofits for to storytelling, like what are you doing to this cause, like, rise up. And I just, I just think the creative and open source pneus of the of the interpretation is so great. But it also gets so noisy on that day, and I'm here to tell you all, if you are launching, Giving Tuesday, on Giving Tuesday, you're doing it wrong. And PS I used to be that person, so I'm calling myself out. But it's also like we got to warm up to what we're going to talk about on Giving Tuesday, there are people that our community needs to meet their there's a vision, we have a bigger vision that we wanted them to be a part of. And so I want you to talk about how to rise above the noise Celeste, like how, what is your advice like on how to build community, increase that engagement across these audiences, and really stand out on a day that is really, really noisy? We'd love your take on this.
It is noisy, but it's good noise, right? So yeah, it is and you know, so I just part of my background, I feel like I'm a grandmother of what is giving days. You know, I've been doing giveaways for a really long time, y'all. And GivingTuesday is a little different. It has the day, but we have, you know, a bigger movement. But when I was working at Olympia give here in Austin, there was a giving day in the spring called amplify Austin, then we became the community leader for the GivingTuesday campaign in the Austin area for GivingTuesday. And we were about leveraging these, you know, giving moments. And so I heard all of this, just within Austin, right working with 700 nonprofits, and they were all launching amplify Austin campaigns and trying to get match money. I would get nonprofits to an individual saying, oh, here comes amplifier, I'm gonna get so hundreds of appeals. So what, you know what, how many times do you get bombarded with Old Navy ads? Or, yeah, or Amazon telling you meet something? This is Les Flores talking this is not Celeste floor as part of Giving Tuesday, but because I've just been doing this for a really long time. And I have heard it all. But I hear you, I hear you. It's the noise, right? So how do you break through this, you know, noise. Look, the idea that you're going to break through the noise, and everybody in the US is gonna know about your organization, obviously is like, not possible, right. And then you want GivingTuesday, to, to do all these things for you. And that's like boiling the ocean, you gotta get real specific. And you gotta leverage your people. That is how you are successful in that day. So let me get a little more tactical. To me. It is sticking with these core values of the movement. And I'm not saying you do this for just giving Tuesday, you should be doing this for all the things that you write. This all should be hanging together. But it starts with that mindset, that abundance mindset. I know that that is annoying to constantly hear. But it takes practice. I know, preach, preach. Exactly. But it takes practice. I'm not, you know, you can't turn that on overnight, I get that. But when we start thinking in the mind of abundance, starts guiding our decisions and maybe better decisions. So starting with that mindset, but use the day with intent and a goal, a specific goal for that day, that will drive your strategies, right. So people are like, Oh, it's giving Tuesday. I'm gonna everybody else is putting out social media posts, and the money's just gonna come in. No, that's not possible. And just like you said, Becky a little bit earlier of like, you can also do it on the day of it has to be well thought out. A lot of organizations just added on at the end of the year because they're like everybody's doing it. I might as well do something for GivingTuesday no use this day with intention. How does it hang with all of your other strategies year round? Once you've decided what that goal is, then think about what is success for that goal. What does cutting through the noise mean for that? goal, not your whole organization, but for that goal and what you want to accomplish, and that will drive your tactics. So is it new donors? Is it general awareness? Is it an item's drive? Is it a volunteer drive for 2024, you pledge 24 hours that you're going to donate to the organization and 2020 for a thank you event. There's so many ways to use this day to prime the pump for your next strategy to kick off your next strategy to do something different with a group of people you normally don't engage with year round on GivingTuesday. And that was with intention. So it really goes back to Yes, it's a big day. It's a big movement. I don't even like talking about like, but I'll mention it $3.2 billion was donated last Giving Tuesday. Casual but and that was that was just the US alone. It's a big number. You're like, what does that mean? Even me, right? I'm talking about individual organizations don't boil the ocean GivingTuesday has to be used with intention. Don't think that you just showing up on the day, you're going to be ready to go. And you're going to all the money's going to come in with that one social post. It isn't that. So once you've decided what your goal is, and who you're going to focus in on and what does success mean? What is cutting through the noise mean, when you've arrived on the other side of the noise? What did you accomplish? What does success look like for you. And then remember the intention of the day. So I said at the beginning, this is called Giving Tuesday is a day for people to do good and give something not fundraising Tuesday, you don't have to fundraise. So you honoring the all the ways that someone can support your organization, and they are able to exercise generosity in a way that is meaningful to them. That is when you increase engagement, that is when you increase motivation, and inspiration. And so I think it's important for us to think about, yes, given Tuesday's position towards the end of the year, I need them to give me dollars, it was so short sighted if you're not able to give people all all the ways that they could possibly give. Because you have to remember that it's not just about you, but it's about them. And so when I was doing this Giving Day in Austin, people were like, you're just pitting the nonprofits against each other. You know, this is competition. And I'm like, nonprofits are the end goal, but my values and us bringing this day, it's about the donor community, it's really easy for them to find new organizations all on one website, have an immediate call to action, something that's engaging. And that is why we're building this thing, nonprofits, we are totally doing this, so that you get the support you need. But you have to think about what the donor wants to do. And if you just keep wanting them to do the one thing that you want them to do that is just really short sighted, so honoring maybe other ways that people can give building relationships and cultivation, build those cultivation plans before the day even starts. What are you doing with those people after giving Tuesday or during Giving Tuesday, or your board members calling people and thanking them? And I say this because it's like a no brainer. You know, anyone who's been doing fundraising for any amount of time knows you have to cultivate, but it is the one area that I feel like nonprofits do not so well with and forget to do well. Or not thinking about what's your relationship with this person. So they gave me $25 new donor on Giving Tuesday, what are my next steps with them, I might not ask him for another gift and invite them to come to an event or invite them to come volunteer. So when you're building the campaign, you have your goal, you have your tactics, honoring all the ways to give creating, making sure that you're going to create a relationship and move people from a transaction transformation. People complain about GivingTuesday just being a transaction. Well, it's what are you doing with them? They're not an ATM, you're right. You need to be doing so it's about relationships, and then being creative with your messaging. Woodrow, we were talking about what your was Bob, who is our Chief Data Officer, he always says there's no such thing as donor fatigue. And when I first started on the team, I was like, you can't tell nonprofits that of course, there's donor fatigue. It's it's it's an actual term that is being that is used and thrown around. He's like, No, there is no donor fatigue. He's like what people are tired doing, they're not tired of being asked to get they're tired of being uninspired. And the quality of the messaging and the lack of engagement is what fatigues donors, it's more about how you're asking them to give what is your story and what is your level of engagement? And, you know, think and take it personal, like how would you want to be engaged? There's the process that we all learn in fundraising one on one of what you're supposed to do with the donors and all the pyramids and stuff like that. That's important to plan. But think about like, Okay, how would I want to be engaged? How would I want to be talked to somebody next to me is it As Gen Z, or I'm asking him like, how would you want to be engaged? So it's keeping it human. And remember that it's all about humans. And, and being creative. And those are kind of like the top things I tell an organization when they ask how do I cut the noise? When you come up with a new term? Because it's good noise.
You put on your coach hat there, I feel like we're you laid out, like is so good. Just the clarity of goal, clarity of intention being intentional, like, all the steps that you outlined, there is like, literally a roadmap. So I hope nobody missed that. Put them on repeat. So I'm just curious as you get to work with hundreds of organizations who's doing this? Well, I mean, what's a partnership? Or maybe a campaign or somebody that's like, cut through the noise? Yeah. And
once it come to our attention, I mean, there's 1000s and 1000s, and 1000s of organizations that do GivingTuesday out there. One thing before answer your question, if you want to feel good after GivingTuesday, look up the hashtag GivingTuesday. And see all the stories that show up on your social from giving Tuesday, I used to do that with amplify Austin to you're just like in the craziness of the day, and but you lose sight of what the bigger picture was. And all the good that happened in the world. On that day, there's a leaven year's worth of that hashtag. So you go knock yourself out. For sure. But yeah, so when we're setting up all of these things, are saying all of these things, these are things that we observe. But I'll give you a couple of examples of things that were different that people decided to do and use and leverage the day, no matter who you are, whether you're an individual listening to this, and you're like you're in a small community, and you just want to do something cool for your community, you can do that, go to our website, there's many ways to do that. If you are an organization that you are trying to determine how you use a day if you use the day, and sometimes it's just doesn't work for people. But honor that day, at least with a thank you. There are a lot of organizations that actually partner and partner well with other organizations, as we were talking about that are similar causes. I'm gonna give you an example. In Maine, there's an organization called footplates, full potential, they were encouraging their community to support fellow organizations that are also work to end hunger. So they were promoting, they were using their channels, they were using their voice, to promote the other organizations that come together in Maine, to try and end hunger. And so that is like mission over brand, the awareness of what hunger look like in Maine, and all the other organizations. That's hard for a lot of organizations. So you're like, I need that money, I don't need to be promoting somebody else. But we all have a place in this. And so if there's some sort of partnership and organization that you have never, that you've thought of that you've kind of doing something similar, do something together, their people and your people doing something together, there was another two organizations they were in, I forgot the place. Now I'm going to think about it, it's going to come to me, there were two community gardens, and they were seen in the community as competing community gardens, right, they decided there were two nonprofit organizations, each of them had a group of volunteers. They did work at one garden in the morning, they had a joint meal, and then they had afternoon of work that needed to happen in the other garden. And that experience for the donor, think about that. I mean, the organization, it pays in dividends, and you have to think about these things in the long, the long game, right. But that is incredibly inventive. Evolve. And yeah, and evolved and mature. And you know, and they were now able to, and they had never done anything together before. But now they were able to show the differences between their their community gardens, who they're serving might be different. And but they're volunteers of the each organizations were exposed to the other community garden. It's hard enough to go around. And then lastly, I'll talk about Marley's Mutts, it's a dog rescue that brings together animals in need of a home. And they decided to go out at two other partner organizations. So first, they went to brought brought dogs to people who were impacted by the prison system. So they had a little gathering and other organs. They went to another organization, they surprise the food pantry with pet food and supplies that they had collected and treats. So it's giving to other organizations, I guess is the thread here. But it doesn't have to be just another organization. I think others who think about how they can partner with another group in their community and a lot of people say I don't have time for giving Tuesday we'll share the work. It doesn't have to be that it has to be other ambassadors talking about your mission. I guess that's what I did miss when we were talking about effective care. campaigns, you can't be the only one talking about your organization and list ambassadors. But they can be peer to peer fundraisers, but they don't have to be peer to peer fundraisers. But it could be, you know, people talking about your mission. And don't just copy and paste, logo, the Canva templates they send you and the message they send you, you can't do that algorithms will never pick it up, explaining people they need to share their personal message. But having other people talk about it is also a way to cut through the noise.
Okay, that's a brilliant tip right there. And I don't want anyone to miss it. Because what you're talking about in all these examples, Celeste is abundance, which is what you talked about as a real hallmark of how this movement even started. And if we look at it in the through the lens of, you know, my organization, and what I'm gonna get in the money I need in the, in this program, it's, it's a really myopic view of, of what is really, I would say, the tip of the iceberg, when you can get underneath and start bringing in partners, I'm sorry, I'm just still, you know, dreaming about the geraniums going into the little shared garden space and then having a meal. And it's just a meal from the garden, right. And it makes it such a bigger conversation. And if you can even equip those people who were in the garden as ambassadors to say, take a picture post about this, you know, you're giving your time by being here. But I just really appreciate you lifting these mighty movements, these mighty nonprofits who are really reimagining Giving Tuesday, and making it more than a day because that's what it's about. And so we also celebrate story here. I've heard you mentioned it several times on the podcast as really a bedrock for what people should be flexing into giving Tuesday. And we want to know a story like from your life, you've had such a storied career in profit. That was my entire life that you have, but I want to know about in all of these roles, and all of these travels, what is the story of philanthropy that really sticks out to you that changed you as a human being?
I would, I would have to say that started at the beginning. Why am I even in this field, it was things that were instilled to me at a young age. And I So my story is, is personal, of how of experiencing of giving and philanthropy that has led me to want to stay in this space of, of helping others like I truly believe if we all operate from generosity, the world would look so different if we think of that someone else's suffering is just as important is our own suffering that changes the complexion of how we make decisions as as a society and civil society. Okay, I'll get off that soapbox. But why I do this. And also is that moment of move is probably when I realized that my love for philanthropy, it literally have occurred, this moment of light bulb moment occurred, like maybe a couple of years ago, and I've been doing this for a long time was the modeling that my grandmother did around giving. And she was doing mutual aid before mutual aid was a thing or that mutual aid had a word. I mean, the idea of mutual aid and the work that happened around mutual aid, and community organizing has been going on for 1000s of years. But now we're talking about it. It has a term. There's lots of things that are being written about it, but it did it came from the people, right. My grandmother, we did not have a lot. You know, our family is not a resource family. We do not I do not have a trust fund coming down the pike at any point in time. We are mom from San Antonio and my grandmother who was kind of a pillar in her church. Everybody knew Mary Louise, Mary Lou, and my daughter is named after her. She had she was constantly baking something, making something going through a closet to find stuff. If somebody didn't have something somehow she figured out how to get it to them. When somebody we were constantly dropping off casseroles through somebody who had been in the hospital. She's wrapping gifts and getting them to the neighbor to so that because he lost his job and the kids need to have something to open on Christmas. The idea of taking a little of everything and and sharing it with others so that others had what they needed. What is just it's mind blowing that she was doing that constantly. And I didn't honor that as an I just want to hit that's who she is right? But I didn't really honor Are the veterans still this idea that we always have something to give? They might, my grandparents had six children. My grandfather worked for an electric company, Grandma, grandma had all of these businesses, they were out of the home. They didn't have a lot of resources, but what they had went to others. And I think that I just continued to practice that as an adult. So I saw her going to people's houses and doing whatever she did. And that was just part of the DNA. So I always say like my grandmother, if there was a back then a term for she'd be like a mutual aid organizer, right? She has she had the closet, she had the all the things. But I think it was idea you always have something to give, always. And so I guess, when I talk about what moves me, it's that we always have something
again, the Mary Lou legacy, is the Mary
Lou legacy.
And it's the very thing that you're perpetuating through your work and giving Tuesday. Now, I mean, just the idea that this is for everybody, you know, we find a way to plug in this is a day of generosity of love of care. So amazing. So that's, I feel so boosted by this conversation, we got one more question for you. We in all of our conversations, asking for a one good thing, this could be a quote, this resonated with you and want you a mantra you're feeling today, or just something you want to leave with our community with your one good thing,
we can get really bogged down with processes, and what we should be doing and what is expected of us. And when we're talking about organizations, and talking about what we talked about today, it's really easy to get very tunnel vision on what you have to accomplish in a day. But if you look outside of all of that, remember that you are building bridges, and you are providing connection and community. And that is your legacy. But remembering that because it can get you can get down a road and you can have a particularly tough role, year, whatever it is, and you get disheartened. And it's hard, but just pull yourself out of it sometimes and really look at what you have done. But I do think philanthropy and generosity and giving is what will change our civic society. What will bridge this division that we have that will it you are providing a connection, or connections for people and building that sense of belonging. And so just remember, that's what you're doing. It is not. I'm Celeste Flores. I'm a fundraising director and I raise a million dollars for kids in the foster care system that is so important. But you're doing something bigger than that. And just remember that
she's asking challenging us to ask the bigger question that hits very well here, Celeste, thank you so much for dropping your wisdom. Getting us amped up, I feel like this is going to be a new level of energy that we can all gain going into giving Tuesday season. So people are gonna want to connect with you. Tell us where you hang out, tell us where people can connect with you and giving Tuesday and of Giving Tuesday has any resources, tips, studies, anything? Send us to there too, because we want to link them up in our show notes for resources.
Yep, you can find me on the website. But so I would ask everybody just to go to the website if you're looking for those resources. And we have resources for everyone. We talked a lot about nonprofits and organizations using meeting resources, you know, to build the best campaign. But if you are a person and individual family, a mom, somebody who wants to do something for your community, we have those resources. You can do something big, do something small. We have lots of ideas, lots of toolkits that will keep guide you and how to do this. So for organizations, we have nonprofit toolkits, and all sorts of resources on the website to get a hold of me you'll also find me on there, everybody and GivingTuesday is really easy to find because it's our first name and at GivingTuesday. There's no there's not a lot of us. And then LinkedIn, I think will probably be another space in place. I mean, if you're in the DC area we can hang but
online have a lot of winners in DC. Coach Celeste, my heart is full. I'm so amped up for giving Tuesday. I feel so honored that you spent this time with us today. So good to
Well, I had so much fun with you guys. Thanks for the invitation. Thanks for what you do. Thanks for the stories that you bring in the wisdom that you bring. We have to all be in this together our sector is it's got a road ahead of it but we're so needed,
evolving together. That's it and evolving together to remember we're
in it together. There were added together.
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