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Creating an Accessible Giving Infrastructure - Tina Roh and Mark Ulrich | Otter.ai

Creating an Accessible Giving Infrastructure - Tina Roh and Mark Ulrich

Julie Confer42min

Becky Endicott

00:01

Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky.

Jonathan McCoy

00:03

And this is the we are for good podcast.

Becky Endicott

00:06

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more work, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Jonathan McCoy

00:15

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.

Becky Endicott

00:23

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Jonathan McCoy

00:34

So let's get started. Back to you, yourself excited,

Becky Endicott

00:38

I am not embarrassed to say that I fell in love, love at first sight. The first time we met our guests today. And I am so excited to introduce them to the community.

Jonathan McCoy

00:49

And we're pretty convinced that you're going to fall in love with them to their platform are bringing into the world. So we are so excited to have Mark alrik and Tina row from every.org. They're the CO founding do, we don't have the third here today. But they came together. And we mark the CEO, Tina's the CEO. And what they've built through every.org is all about creating accessible, giving infrastructures for the entire country of nonprofits. And so what we love about this platform, let me just start with that is it makes giving social, like, you know, we believe that philanthropy is transformative in not just the impact that it's making, but in the humans that are engaging in philanthropy. And they actually built the platform where you can experience that in community as everybody supports the things that they're most passionate about. And you can cheer each other on, and you can see it and share storytel and connect. And it is the most beautiful platform that I've you know, run across since we launched we are for good. But it's not just an idea, you know, this was built from their impressive careers. Mark, you know, came from artificial intelligence background with Pinterest, a little company we've heard heard of called Pinterest. And Tina, you know, built her career at snap, where she saw the power of tech and social media coming and really changing an entire generation. So they took that power, and they have channeled it for good into every.org. And you know, it hasn't just been an idea, it is actually turned into a movement. And just the first headset turned it. I mean, we had a little moment because we thought their numbers were at four and a half million for the first year. And now they've blasted past 8.3 million in the first year, over 1.6 million of that is an annual recurring revenue. And this is supporting nonprofits with a true pass through to donations. 100% go into the charities. And it's just an incredible experience. So I've already talked to you much and I want you to meet this incredible duo, Tina, Mark, so glad that you're

Tina Roh

02:40

here. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, it's

Mark Ulrich

02:43

an honor to be here. We're really excited.

Jonathan McCoy

02:45

Well, hey, you know, I'd love for you to kind of give us your story. What led you to do this? Mark, I'd love to start with you kind of thread together some of your experience and what led you to want to start every dog?

Mark Ulrich

02:54

Yeah, absolutely. So giving has always been an important part of my life. I think my first donation was to like the library two blocks from my house. But there's always something that I kind of like I did pretty alone, like I would talk about it with my family. But that that was about it. And then after the Pinterest IPO, suddenly I was in a place where I could start getting more and I wanted to, you know, make sure I was learning from other people's experiences, not just my own experiences. So I started you know, just asking more questions, especially in my network, you know, people who I admire, like Tina, and it was a rewarding experience for me to be talking about philanthropy and both in that I became much more educated started making investing and a lot more nonprofits a much wider diversity of causes. And, and then also, it's more fun. It's more fun to to do things with your friends, with people that you enjoy spending time with. And then what I found was that oftentimes, especially if you're making more complex, like donations of stock, that nonprofits often like didn't have a great answer for how I should make that donation. It was like the really big name nonprofits always think like, they had a whole team and it was like, boom, boom, boom and saw you do it, you know, done. But it was the, you know, smaller, more local grassroots nonprofits that, you know, sometimes were like, oh, yeah, how do we accept stock donations? Like, let me let me try to figure that out. And I've seen kind of through through my experience, the importance of having that infrastructure and having a really seamless experience for your users. Just just means that like a lot more people will go from that inspiration to actually action. And I just thought that it was unfair, that not all nonprofits had a really good seamless donation experience. So that's kind of was was the genesis was both those conversations and seeing that need for creating a few.org as a nonprofit, where we could make sure that every single nonprofit could have the best in technology.

Tina Roh

04:43

So for me, my origin story was more personal. So nonprofits are really at the root of why I'm successful today. I've benefited a lot from the local food banks and need based scholarships like questbridge and After my initial stint at Snapchat, learning the technology, learning how technology really scales impact whatever is at the root. And if you're thoughtless, about what you are scaling, then it can have a huge impact. And I started talking with Mark and Rahul, my co founders about what they learned with technology. And there was this United thing, how could we apply technology to the nonprofit sector. And we knew from the DNA that we wanted to create a nonprofit that is fully aligned with the nonprofit mission. And we were in love with this thought of like creating a nonprofit. And we started off building a completely different project initially. But after we talked to more nonprofits of what they needed from technology, like everything that Mark said, that became very clear, and it was a problem that we could solve, as well as tried to bring what we learned from the companies that we worked at in the past and build an accessible giving infrastructure, and build this community of givers and nonprofits. I'm just

Becky Endicott

06:07

so proud of you guys. And I am just so in love with your platform. And I want to give you a compliment, because you two are being really humble. And I mean, you were classmates you met at Stanford, but the fact that you all were united in this love of chasing purpose, like you went into for profit, you had incredible success in the tech industry. And we love it when people just hit the brakes on something, reevaluate their lives and say, You know what, I want to chase something that feels really good. And they look around, and they're like, who can I link arms with. And you literally find like minded people, and you went back to your friends. And the thing that I think is so interesting about that story is, that's what I feel like every.org is, when you get like minded values, on you, you give to those like minded areas, you find people who are also sharing that. And I think the genius of every dog, and I know I've posted this on my social channels before, because I'm just so geeked out about it, is you you have a way for someone to transact the gift, and then you give the option to share why you give. So love that about you guys. And I'm just really curious, like, what is this journey even look like for your team? So far? You've gone from big tech for profit, you've started your own nonprofit? What are you learning along the way? Because you are being met with just incredible success that we are truly rooting for.

Tina Roh

07:35

Yeah, before I answer your question, I just wanted to say I love how you involve your families. Both you, Becky and John involved your children in giving. And I think that's how Mark started giving right like your parents were really at the root of like why you started philanthropy. And the comments that you left. I know that this said I gave because I really liked what Malala did. And I care about girls like me. And that's so inspiring to read on the feed. And I think that's you really captured what we wanted to do and create with every dog. I know that you know, not everyone is engaging with every dog in this way yet. But we see a future where it could be the case. So one of the learnings that we've had to route it back to your question is this community and that we have so much to learn from nonprofits and givers. And a lesson that I constantly learn is how technology like we are here to learn from the community and the experts. We are trying to apply technology to whatever benefits the community the most. So we are constantly learning and changing maybe the approach that we are applying technology, or changing the feature set that we are focusing on next, based on what we are hearing from our nonprofit partners. So that is that has been my biggest continuing lesson for me how technology is an amplifier. But we just have to be super tuned into the community and listen to what they need.

Jonathan McCoy

09:11

Don't you love that these two that came up through for profit are teaching nonprofits this I mean, this lesson of listening is what people that have been in development say is the most important part. You know, the most critical thing to get right is the ability to listen and I feel like y'all that's why you're seeing success because you are leaning into that and you're being really responsive in the way that you're building it. But something I want to call out. And then please tell us more of how this actually came to be. But I love the accessibility piece that you've leaned into because y'all were talking about the ability for any nonprofit, registered charity to be able to accept crypto gifts on this platform to be able to have nice gifts you guys Ach, like bank drafts like this technology is easily automatically available to every nonprofits if you're listening and you have already As your charity, guess what people today can give through every.org through all of these wonderful ways, including the basic stuff too, but like, it's just it's about accessibility and leveling the playing field. And that's what I love that you've created here. So, kind of iterate with us, like, what, from Genesis to where it is now? How has it evolved? And what's really your strong feature set happening right now?

Mark Ulrich

10:20

Yeah, I love that you call out the the the crypto donations, because that's actually an example of a recent feature that it came because we were listening, in this case to donors who are saying I want to donate crypto. And when we started epi.org, we just started with the basics, and which was, you know, credit card and bank transactions, right? Those those two, although a lot of nonprofits actually only do credit card, which is pretty crazy. Because, you know, immediately we saw that that actually was a pretty even split between credit card and bank transactions. And then we got a lot of people saying, hey, you know, I got to donate with PayPal. So he said, Okay, you know, what, we'll add PayPal, and that became 10%. Before that, people were asking for Apple Pay and Google Pay. So we so we added that. And then, you know, some some very large donors were asking for themselves to be able to use their donor advised funds, or to donate stock. So we added that, and then some smaller donors were asking to use Venmo. So we add that, and then kind of crypto is actually the latest thing that that'll be that we saw demand for. So it's interesting, like, you know, technology is always changing, there's always something new and, you know, donors, I think, are very quick to jump on the latest trends, interview, you know, wanting wanting to use these new financial mechanisms to donate. And oftentimes, it's, it's just a lot of work, right for profits to, to catch up and to kind of figure out all these different methods one by one by one, and there's no reason to be doing that on your own. So what we want to do is, you know, be there for you. And you know, next year, something else will come along, and we'll have your back. And we'll be adding that to the platform so that you can focus on your mission and your storytelling and your own community, your own clients. And we can handle the the technical pieces for you,

Becky Endicott

12:03

which is really nice. Because PS, nonprofits are traditionally very scared of tech. So it's nice to have that little safety net of somebody else's managing it. But I just I just think about how generous and relieving This is to the tiny nonprofit who, you know, even by virtue of showing up and listening to this podcast, they're hearing us say over and over, you have to diversify your revenue, you cannot have one revenue stream coming in, whether that just be events or grants or to your point, credit cards, like there's people doing Apple Pay and Venmo. And text, again, there's just so many ways to give. And I just really value that you all come. And I just have to say this is such a quality of both of you that we have felt in the last couple months with humility, you come with such humility into the space. And I love that you are adopting these for profit, learn lessons into the business now because it's accelerating us to a point where we can transact the gifts faster, we can storytel Faster, we can connect with missions and hearts faster. So I really thank you for that. And I just think the story is really, really fascinating. But I think that just by virtue of listening, you've probably learned a lot in the last year. And we're really curious about what you're seeing in terms of the barriers that nonprofits are facing today. What advice would you have to those who are listening who kind of feel stuck or overwhelmed in this kind of Brave New World?

Tina Roh

13:31

Yeah, as we first built out every door, again, started to talk to nonprofits. The common thing was that tech is difficult, and it's expensive. A lot of people, a lot of nonprofits, both small and large, are paying a lot of money for technology. And I guess one of the conversations that we have as co founders is that tech should be much cheaper. Now servers are cheaper. I think it costs a lot to build, but to maintain server costs are cheaper than ever. And I think it would make a more equitable world if we are able to create technology that could be free for nonprofits. And I see a lot of the other tools that are available kind of pivoting in this way. But I just want to say like as every daughter will have nonprofit stacks going forward, and we want to continue to adapt rather than having to adopt technology piecemeal, to kind of have something that is growing with the landscape. And I know that Mark could probably talk more about this, but one of the tools that for profit tech companies use is a be testing. So it's continuously testing the features that are on the site to make sure that people have the best experience to complete whatever the action is. So in the case of donations, we we tested a lot on the language that we use or how our design is shown to donors as they are donating, and we are optimizing for recurring donation, so much higher percentage of our donations are recurring. And as you mentioned, it's 1.6 million recurring. So if we stopped building today, and if no one pauses are canceled their donations, we will be raising 1.6 million. And by optimizing for monthly, we have learned a lot and built it into the donation flow. So nonprofits who use every dot orgs, free open source, donate button, get all of these learnings for free and the features are going to continuously evolve as donors are adapting new practices. And you may, you might notice that our product is more catered toward the digital audience like people who have grown up with digital tools. And they are establishing their giving habits for the first time like they're they're not going to Gaul as they're, they're not as practiced in in person philanthropy. And as you mentioned, with the pandemic, like people have shifted a lot of their giving online, and a lot of nonprofits don't have the tools to adapt to this changing landscape. So we want to make sure that both the experience for nonprofits, and the givers are optimized for this and going forward can adapt to an evolving landscape.

Jonathan McCoy

16:27

Wow. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that I really want to dig into, because y'all are so brilliant. And I just love that you brought that brilliance to the sector. Because if you want to see this applied, like actually, whatever you're doing, if you're driving, which I do, and I'm driving podcast listening, usually pull over before you do this, but go to every.org. And truly, as you step through it, you realize, y'all are coming at this from like a consumer like mindset because you've had these incredible experiences. But it's the difference of the product, like leading you to not only set up a monthly gift, but just to make it easy, like it just feels really intuitive to do that. And prompt you in that way. And even down to the notifications. And the experience is categorically different than what you would see going to a typical nonprofit website, because it's built in a way that is for today's Tech user that would expect these kinds of things to be there. And so it feels very frictionless, you know. And so what you said, and I don't want people to miss this is that you can actually embed this on your site, right? So there's components that y'all have built that you can bring over to any site to link up. So if you want to have access to all these tools, it's not just giving through their platform, it's also bringing it to whatever platform you're on from a website perspective. So I want to talk about that, because that's a huge untapped potential, no matter who you're currently using for your giving provider or whatever. This is a tool that's out there for you.

Mark Ulrich

17:52

Yeah, this, this is a new thing for us. And you can access it today, if you go to every.org/nonprofits, where you can actually, you know, go and claim your profile, get instant access to all that donor information. So for a little bit of history for us, you know, when we, when we first launched, it was actually only a product that donors could use, you could log in, you could make donations, but we always knew that we you know, we were building this for the missions of nonprofits and for nonprofits. So now when you go to every.org/nonprofits, you can go, you can claim your profile, you can add your bank info, so you can get the disbursements directly. If you haven't had bank info, by default, it goes to network for goods similar to Facebook fundraisers. But we recommend, you know, adding bank info and getting your donation sent weekly. But you know, by default every single Monday, and and like you said, you can actually start using some of those tools on your site. So what's been most popular is actually our crypto button. So people can really quickly add a donate crypto button to their own website. Tina gave an awesome webinar on the topic, which you can watch. If you go to abby.org/crypto and scroll down to the bottom there's there's a link to Tina's webinar. And what we found is that it's just a huge time saver for nonprofits and a huge revenue generator to instantly go and get this button on your website. And then the way we work is, you know, not only are we saving you time from a technical perspective, but also from a regulatory perspective. You know, we're the ones who send donors their tax receipt, we're the ones who report the 8282 to the IRS, we're the ones who adjust our 990. And you actually just get a US dollar grant from every.org that next Monday, so when you know we take care of selling the crypto so you don't have to, like you know, make a decision on you know, is crypto too risky for us or not because you're not really accepting crypto, you're actually getting US dollar grants from every word from a regulatory perspective. We're also registered to solicit donations in all 50 states. And then the new thing is a kind of like our All In One donate button where you can have Have one button on your site where people press donate. And then they'll be able to donate, you know, cash via the normal methods like credit card bank, Venmo, PayPal, Apple pay Google Pay, they'll be able to donate stock, they'll be able to donate the donor advised fund, they'll be able to donate crypto. And it's all one simple interface. And actually, the newest thing that we just added is people will be able to start fundraisers for you from your website. So you can use our button and there'll be a little fundraise call app. So you know, someone can support you without any money, right, they can start a fundraiser for you. And they can talk about why they love your mission.

Jonathan McCoy

20:37

Friends, this is year one for y'all know where to go next.

Becky Endicott

20:41

And I just keep thinking, it's almost like having another set of hands in your shop, because you're taking care of the things that some of the operations people would do and IT guy would do and the gift processing person is going to do and that is just so helpful for shops that are wearing all the hats and they're the chief everything officer and I have to give like a little plug because and I know people are thinking we're super effusive. And I have to tell you, we're getting no money from this conversation. We just love the platform. But it is truly like shopping for philanthropy. That is how I felt. I have like an empath question I want to ask for you guys. I want to know what it feels like to leave your jobs and chase this dream. And to know that if you closed up shop today, to your point, Tina, you have infused $1.6 million into the nonprofit sector. And that alone is just one metric recurring revenue. That's just the recurring one. I mean, what does it feel to be standing in this moment? Where you have yielded? Probably, you know, over close, you're getting close to $10 million. So I just want to know, like, have you sat and stopped? And like thought about that?

Tina Roh

22:01

Yeah, we try to stop on occasions and and think about what our metrics mean, sometimes it's like a quick like, all right, like we did it. And then like, keep going. Which is a habit that we learned, I think from the for profit tech sector of, but honestly, it's so humbling, how generous donors and givers are with both their, you know, their money, as well as their time, not only just like to add a comment and share out the messages of these nonprofits and trying to amplify them so that the nonprofit, you know, fundraisers don't have to do it all on their own. That is one of the reasons why we try to make it really easy for people to share out where they are giving, instead of giving privately they want to, to encourage them to give their voice as well. So yeah, I think it's just in awe of how much generosity there is. And I guess it also shows a lot more generosity can be unlocked by having the right tools available to both the givers and nonprofits. For me, I am also an empath, and I feel feelings very deeply, and I am deeply moved. And whenever there is something that happens in the world that is striking a chord that makes me distress, then I turn to every.org. And I try to, you know, create a cause page that's related to that. thing that's happening and, and try to instill a bit more of that hope. And that generosity and, you know, share it with my friends. And hopefully that like sparks something there. And I think it just requires a bunch of these smaller sparks to really shift our world for the better. And I am also really inspired by that we are for good community, I like to open it and see all of the information that I could learn from, like people who have been in the nonprofit sector, just growth mindset nonprofits. So yeah, thank you, Becky and John, for making that community available to

Jonathan McCoy

24:11

oh my gosh, that's nice. How about you, Mark, I want to hear you, too.

Mark Ulrich

24:16

It's kind of hard to take a step back sometimes. And at the same point, like we're still so young, right? It's still so so early in our journey, you know, we launched in March of last year. So this is just the beginning. But I think one thing that I'm most proud of is the team@every.org and we're you know, building this with with our values first. And so I think I'm almost more excited about about the future than then what we've what we've already accomplished. And I think one thing that we will be a part of that by no means the only driver is that drive to have, you know, giving it just a bigger part of your life. And I likely y'all have said about you know, being addicting or Almost almost feels like the Amazon, right? Like the consumer experience, because we just have so much in our world is driving us to consume, consume consume, we're constantly bombarded with ads. And so I'm really excited to see a shift. And I think it already is happening with a lot of young people were giving is a more important part of your life and where you know that you're probably not going to get happiness and fulfillment through greater consumerism. And studies have shown that you actually can get that through giving right it does improve people's health, it does improve people's happiness, it does improve people's connection to their community. So my hope is that more and more people know that and more more people experienced that. So I think there's kind of two sides of it. When we think about the amount of donations one is all these incredible missions that need the funding and are getting it. And then the second is all of these people who are now more aware who are happier, who are more connected to the world and to the community through this act of generosity, whether that's because they started a fundraiser or they were able to make a donation themselves. I think there's there's so many ways to engage on off every.org such as really inspiring to see.

Jonathan McCoy

26:12

Hey, friends, this episode is presented by virtuous and they just happened to be one of our favorite companies. Let me tell you why. You know, we believe everyone matters. And we've witnessed the greatest philanthropic movements happen when you see and activate donors at every level. And here's the thing, virtuous created a fundraising platform to help you do just that. It's much more than nonprofit CRM. Virtuous is committed to helping charities reimagine generosity through responsive fundraising, which is simply putting the donor at the center of fundraising, growing giving through personalized donor journeys. And by helping you respond to the needs of every individual. We love it because this approach builds trust and loyalty through personalized engagement. Sound like virtuous may be a fit for your organization, learn more today@virtuous.org or follow the link in our show notes.

Jonathan McCoy

27:02

Hey, friends, after meeting some of the most visionary leaders and world changers in the nonprofit sector today, we realize they all have one thing in common, they invest in themselves and their teams so they can say relevant to what's working now to succeed and scale their missions. You know us we believe education for all, and that's when we created we're for good pro Pro is reimagining nonprofit professional development, giving you access to incredible live coaching events with some of the best thought leaders like Shanna Palmer and Lynn Wester and more. Imagine being able to work through your challenges in real time. That's the power of pro. Every week, we host a new workshop, giving you the playbook and tools to take immediate action, build your confidence and grow your impact. Be the Pro and get started today with a 14 day free trial head over to we are for good pro.com/free. Okay, let's get back to this amazing conversation. Well, I think Tina, when you were talking your story of just this gives you an outlet, because there's been so much especially in the last couple years where we just all kind of feel like hands tied of like how do we actually plug in and do something. And it this does give you that and I think this whole idea of social giving is really something that this generation and really anybody in this space could embrace right now because there's something to it, it threads community to get it through his philanthropy together. kind of talk about that. I mean, to me, y'all are pioneers in this, but what is this power of social, you know, giving, and how can we kind of get more people to spend their time, you know, investing in this type of community?

Tina Roh

28:35

Yeah, I think I saw some stat about millennials and how they make financial decisions through social media, a majority of them. And I was like, I guess that that's true, because I I do take the feedback of my friends. And the reason why I got so deep into financial giving was through my friends. And then when I think back into why I started to volunteer for nonprofits, it was also through my friends. There was a stat, I think, from Fidelity, charitable. That said nearly nine in 10, millennials say charitable giving is an important part of their lives, compared to 74% of the total population. And then three out of four Millennials consider themselves philanthropist compared to 45% of the total population. So I think the thought of philanthropy as only for wealthy donors is shifting and people are giving their time their voice. Yeah, even if it's just like a retweet of a nonprofits like mission statement. And we wanted to make sure that it was a philanthropy infrastructure that was made for everyone that was available to everyone. And by making it accessible, we could build a community of high intent givers and allow people's generosity in all of these different ways to inspire more generosity from others. So we're hoping that this community kid kind of motivate one another to look into themselves to think why they are giving to search by cars. One feature plug is that you could search by cars by organization size, and the intersection of all of those by location on every org. And so people could find, you know, organizations that are black LED or indigenous LED or working in Environment and Climate Change specifically. And another aspect of community is that a lot of that is both by our team going through and tagging these nonprofit and the nonprofits and volunteers, so we're dreaming up a Yeah, our we're dreaming up a WikiPedia style platform that nonprofits don't have to go in and try to keep all of this information up today. And in fact, like every door can run on its own even without your nonprofit coming in, if you have an engaged donor or supporter who is going in and like updating that information for you. So anyone can suggest edits, we do have a moderator on our side, that is looking, if you if your nonprofit claims app profile, then you could your edits are automatically accepted. So as we're building out this community, we want to acknowledge all of the different ways that people are giving both in their time, their voice. Right now we're focusing on finances and money. Because when we ask nonprofits, they're like, number one thing is I need more, we need more money to execute our mission. So yeah, I think it'll be really awesome to grow generosity and make it contagious.

Jonathan McCoy

31:45

We're just like, beaming over,

Becky Endicott

31:47

what are they going to do next? They're doing everything they're going to put on our Kordon blue dinners, you know, next up, you're gonna find a way to do it. every.org

Jonathan McCoy

31:54

I mean, they're doing every door. Basically, I'm glad

Becky Endicott

31:58

you're gonna get a dad joke in here. I

Jonathan McCoy

32:00

mean, I'm just I'm really thankful that you are pouring your brilliant minds into this. Because to me, it's just the tip of the iceberg, because we know this industry is grossly underserved. And it's so inaccessible to so many. So you're leveling the playing field for the donors for the nonprofits. So we're just kind of completely geeked out. Okay, friends, we've got we want to hear story from y'all. Because, you know, we let in with this a little bit. But I'd love to hear from each of you how philanthropies personally touched you. It could be something that's happened since your every.org journey, or maybe it's something that's happened outside of that. But Tina, let's start with our impact here.

Tina Roh

32:36

Yeah, I think one thing that kind of weaves throughout is I used to volunteer at my local food bank. And that was through like, Red Cross Club. And then our home, I realized that we had one of those boxes. And that was when I was like, Oh, we are actually getting these food boxes. And at the moment, it was a little bit embarrassing for me, but later in life, to be able to go back and support them financially so that they could have those food, especially in the pandemic, I gave a lot to local food banks. And that sort of like integrated me in a deeply personal level that I could support the nonprofits that are serving our community. And then to zoom out more than that, I'm just thinking about like, the world at large. I know, I don't know if this is like too high level. But I think a lot about this these days where the world is so interconnected in ways that we don't see. And to be able to contribute just a little bit to heal a part of that, like, whatever intergenerational trauma that we are carrying or traumas that we are creating for ourselves to heal a bit of that. I think it's, it's so empowering for me that we can do something in this world. Sorry, I'm getting a little bit teary. But yeah, I think it's a really incredible opportunity that I I've been given to be able to work on every dark. So I just want to do my best in here.

Becky Endicott

34:13

I want to hug you I want to reach through the camera in

Jonathan McCoy

34:16

her car that

Becky Endicott

34:17

says I'm going to California I'll be there in 15 hours. So I just think the Pay It Forward story is always when it when it comes full circle. It just means so much more. And I can imagine when you were able to make like a first nice gift back to that that had to just feel so great, especially in your little Empath heart. So okay, Mark, we're ready for your story.

Mark Ulrich

34:41

One kind of recent thing in my life. So I've been donating to Immigration Equality for quite some time, which is the nation's leading LGBTQ immigrant rights organization. And for me, it honestly wasn't an issue that I thought would affect me that personally, given that I didn't didn't plan to move Anyway, but I actually did recently ended up getting married, and my husband actually did need help, you know, staying and staying in the US. And so you know, we didn't go to them specifically because we were fortunate to be able to, you know, have to have good legal advice. But I think just knowing that that resources out there for for everyone, it just makes me feel really good about having it for me. And I think also just very hopeful, there are so many issues, that it feels like we're not making really fast progress on right. But I think when you look at, you know, marriage equality in the US, it's like a, you know, a lot has changed from from 10 years from now. And you know, maybe there was 60 years before then when there were a lot of activists and a lot of great organizations doing a lot of work and feeling like they weren't making progress, but then it kind of happened. And I think so many of the issues that we're facing are like that, where it can at times feel like you're just hitting a brick wall. But that brick wall is constantly weakening, and it might be 10 years from now, it might be 50 years from now, but the dominoes will align, and things will change. So I think that's an important thing for me to keep in mind. It just at all times, like you know, if you if you do your best, and you work for positive change, yeah, maybe you won't be alive to see it. But hopefully you will. And things things do add up.

Becky Endicott

36:24

Well, congratulations, newlywed, number one, that's wonderful. And the second thing I just want to say is, everybody can do something, whatever, wherever we are in the world, if you can align that passion. And we had a great conversation with Simon Manwaring, who just came on our podcast, and he was talking about, you know, sometimes you feel like you're pushing the boulder uphill. And it's such a very hard push. And to your point about marriage equality and all the things that we're seeing, even with just racial justice in this country, when you feel like you're pushing that boulder up the hill, by yourself, it feels very, very heavy. But now it's starting to feel, you know, you say the brick wall is starting to shift. But it's like what he says when you put many hands on the boulder, the boulder doesn't feel so heavy. And so I love that we're all pouring into this in a way that works for each of us in the space that works for each of us because it's making the boulder so much lighter. And I feel like the moment in time for philanthropy is now and we're going to have this very bold coming out party if we're bull if we're brave enough to seize it. So I just love you guys love your stories. Love your hearts, you know, as well enough to know that we end all of our episodes with a one good thing. And so I would love to know what your one good thing is. And Mark, I'm going to start with you this time.

Mark Ulrich

37:45

Well, I'm going to kind of steal from the.org team and our team values as you can see it every.org/about us and one of them is support each other and honor our commitments. And I think that, to me, it's a very simplifying value almost, when you think about, you know, how can I help my teammates? And how can I make sure I follow through on what we've promised to nonprofits? Right? And you know, the moment you go back to those two questions, it can oftentimes be much more clearing what it is that you have to do today, right? Because otherwise, you might feel like you're trying to boil the ocean. So if you just kind of get back to basics and think about, you know, supporting your team members and supporting you, the nonprofit supporting givers, you know, whatever you've said that you'll do following through on it. I think, you know, a lot can happen in a year, if you're making sure that you make progress every single

Becky Endicott

38:37

day. Not at all surprised you picked a humility based one good thing that was fantastic. Okay, Tina, good luck topping that.

Tina Roh

38:45

Yeah, I'll just piggyback off of Mark and to one of our other values, which is to advance communal wisdom and learn from experts. This is tying back into constantly learning asking questions, and to be humble and know that you are not the end all be all expert. This field is massive. There's always things to learn. There's always things changing, and the world is also very complex. So being able to advance communal Wisdom means that we are facilitating those conversations, like listening in in different communities, and then also to always be learning from experts and highlighting expert voices. So for us, I guess one example is we did collaborations with give black, and they are a nonprofit focus on reducing racial inequity in giving. And so they also use our API. So we help them with the technical aspects, but we we learn a lot from them about like, how deep is this problem? What are the solutions that are being shared around and sometimes it's just like a matter of visibility. So how do we Make those causes more visible. So we created a black LED tag in collaboration with them. So there's, there's things like that, that we are constantly learning and iterating. And I think it's true, both on the micro level and the macro level. So no matter where you are, which cause you're working in to look around and see what other people are also doing or learning from them. Yeah.

Becky Endicott

40:27

Congratulations, Tina, you absolutely were as awesome as Mark was.

Jonathan McCoy

40:32

I know, he was amazing, good things. We started this conversation loving yell, we ended the conversation, like you guys are, have already changed the world. But you're really going to change the world through every organ. I just thank you for your dedication for showing up this way. We want to connect everybody to y'all and to what you've built. So can you kind of share quickly the ways that people can find you online and just keep connected?

Tina Roh

40:57

Yeah, the main thing would be to go to every.org/nonprofits, you could reach our team at team@every.org. That's the fastest way. And yeah, I think that those two are the best ways to connect with us. And we're really happy to learn from what you all are doing. If you're a nonprofit, you're a giver. If you're just anything, and just want to talk with us, please reach out to us at team@every.org.

Becky Endicott

41:23

We have loved every single second of this conversation, we adore what you were doing. And we love the salt of the earth people that you are and how you chase things that matter. And we appreciate that you see the little guys, so just encourage everyone listening, like just go check out this platform. If nothing else, you're just gonna see why people gave to certain causes. And it's so visual and beautiful. And it like just warms our marketing hearts and it's just a boost. So go check it out. And yeah, just thanks for coming on and just inspiring us as you always do every time we talk

Jonathan McCoy

41:55

rootin for y'all.

Julie Confer

41:57

Thank you so much. Hey, friends. Thanks so much for being here. 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. Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie confer and our theme song is sunray by Remy Boris boom

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