Creating an Event Theme + Marketing Your Event - Cody Hays

6:59PM Apr 13, 2023

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Cody Hays

Keywords:

event

cody

people

theme

marketing

donors

literally

pivotal moment

organization

folks

work

moving

goal

nonprofit

community

visuals

ideas

virtual

pandemic

feel

Support for this show is brought to you by our friends at Bloomerang. Bloomerang offers donor management and online fundraising software that helps small to medium nonprofits like First Tee of greater Akron, and nonprofit empowering kids and teens through the game of golf.

After just one year with Bloomerang, they doubled their unique donors, improved donor stewardship and raise more funds to listen to the full interview of First Tee of greater Akron visit bloomerang.com/we are for good, or click the link in our show notes. Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

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So let's get started. Becky, how are you? We're beaming. Right?

So excited. I am beaming and I feel our community beaming because Cody Hays has only been recommended to our podcast about 182 times by people within our community. And so I'm so excited to have an evolved event strategies conversation today. And we're going to talk about wrapping your event in this intentional theme. We're going to talk about marketing your event. But guess what friends, Cody's also here to talk about? How do we take care of the individual who's organizing the event. And this is the first time that we've had somebody who is really in the thick of something that's as tactically heavy as events saying, Whoa, whoa, how are we building well being into the way we move forward? So thank you, Jess Campbell, Rachel bear Bauer, our virtual assistant, Andy Murphy follows you. And we're so excited to have you on the podcast Cody, get in our house. We're excited to talk events with a brilliant marketer. We're glad you're here.

Becky, oh my gosh, can I hire you to introduce me everywhere I go. She is incredible.

And I haven't even told like everybody why I love you so much. And you know what, I'm just gonna do it right now. Because I guess it's our podcast. But I mean, here's the reason why I really love Cody and I want to say this from the heart. Cody put his story of why he started his company on his About page on his website. And I encourage everybody to go in there. And I have to tell you, I felt so seen when you were talking about being at an event, and having just kind of a mental health crisis, because it is such a when I think about the events I've gone to in fundraising, it is such a frenetic space, the event space, and it's so easy to get caught up in all the little details and managing volunteers and vendors. And there's a goal on that. And it's just easy to get overwhelmed by that. And it was just in that instant Cody, I felt like I knew you immediately which makes this intro just so easy for me. So welcome.

Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. And to provide some context, I don't mind diving into that story right now for it. And, you know, picture this, I was fresh off of undergrad, I was already in my first job kind of getting ready to move on to that second one. I feel like that's a big pivotal moment, when you graduate, you have your first job and you're like, now I'm going to move on to do something, something different. So you know, I was really, I was bursting at the seams with ambition. And I was like, Yes, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. So I applied to like 80 jobs. And we know, we know, hoping that I would find like that next big one. And then the phone ended up bringing and that was a call back from this events and marketing agency that I had actually worked with. When I was in high school, they trained me to Publix to do public speaking and to was really my introduction into the events world and how to how to brand it. So I was like, Oh my gosh, this is incredible. Dream job right there. And the agency really wanted someone who could like juggle, juggle multiple projects, pitch new ideas. And so after literally like a four month hiring process, just a flag and that is Red flag number one. I finally got the job. And I was just like, I was so stoked. And throughout the first year, and I literally, it was a whirlwind of I'm putting this in quotes, productivity, knowing what I know now it was not as productive as I'd like to as I thought back then. But, you know, I was attending events meeting clients churning out content, like literally my event world when I would go there like many of you may recognize this. It was 16 hour days where you'd wake up at eight you wouldn't go to bed till midnight. And throughout that you're having meetings you were calling in for everybody who's like running and operating back home. There's not a Thea that just felt like wow, we did everything literally in that first year there, I could build out 40 websites and develop this process of crafting elearning programs developing print materials. And part of also what I did was this branding of events like how do we transform literally a empty warehouse the size of Costco into something that makes people excited to when they walk into this room, it gets them into that energy, that feeling of Yes, I'm here, I'm in the right place. And I'm excited. And so that's where I was, that was really what you're talking about is I was at a event, largest event of its kind in the state of Alabama, there are 4000 high school students there and 20 of my closest coworkers. Que that dramatic music you open and it's like, boom, boom, we're living it up. And I've, you know, just spent 24 hours putting up giant posters larger than me up on like wraparound pillars. And so there I was running, literally running on fumes and transforming the space. And right as I am literally onstage, filming, I felt it. And I don't know if you've ever had a panic attack, but like that chest tightens. And so for me, that was a pivotal moment. I was, you know, at this iconic, or this, this pivotal piece in my career where I was like, Look at this event, but I so successfully put together, but at what cost. And that's what I wasn't really realizing. And so, you know, that was five years ago. And since then I've definitely learned a thing or two. And but I think the most important thing that I've learned from that is if we don't take time to hit the reset button. And if we don't put ourselves first I call it making the mission you we're not going to be able to move forward to deliver on the work that our organization or even ourselves are counting on down the road, we can go really fast, we can go hard for a short amount of time. But if we don't counter that, with relaxation, recuperating self care, the pendulum is ultimately just gonna break. Not even swing.

That's right.

I mean, Cody, thank you for taking us back. Because I mean, from Becky and I's experience of we know what that's like to be in the vortex of the event hustle. And it feels like it always I'm the creative brainstorming type I love taking on more. You know, it always sounds like yeah, that's let's do the next thing and add an add an ADD, but appreciate you just kind of naming it. And how you center it back to this is when we have to have bigger conversations around what's our real purpose here? What are our actual values? Are we actually living that out and how our team is expected to show up and pour into this work. And so I just I love the way you've turned set with and appreciate your vulnerability. That's just a beacon to so many people too. So thank you for that. I want to talk about questions, though, you know, I got lost on your website and love that you really encourage people to say what is your purpose, because a lot of times, you know, events have been around for a long time. Some of them probably got, you know, sunsetted during the pandemic era. But a lot of times things get started before we really even ask a bigger question of why should we do this? Or what's the actual intention? So would you kind of help us set some tone with how do you know what's the right questions to begin asking if you're thinking about starting some kind of event?

Absolutely. I think there's a few questions that I typically go back to and ask myself and the teams that I'm working with them. The first thing is, what is the ultimate goal or purpose of this event? Like if we can't name that, maybe we shouldn't be having the event? Or maybe we shouldn't be planning it? Yeah. Yeah. And so connecting that also to okay, if we have this goal, how does it relate to the mission or to the work that we're doing. And then, in addition to that, okay, if we have the goal for this event, who's our ideal audience for this event, because if we aren't going if we're going to dream up this big event that's glitzy and glamorous, but our ideal audience is, and folks who are low income, that's not going to match up, like people aren't going to be able to afford the tickets to actually go open into the door. And so we're first off like limiting accessibility, but also just not matching up with our goals to who this event is actually intended for. And then once we get really clear on usually those questions help us kind of get clear on okay, this is the goal. This is the who we're trying to reach with it. Then I come in and say Okay, great. With this idea in mind, how can we align our organization's values and mission and incorporate those into the event? So that's when we pause to take those questions and say, okay, great, if We want to do this idea who can actually execute on it, and what is going to be removed from their job duties or their job description. Because they cannot do it all. The reality is if we're you're going to ask your marketing person to run all of comms and do the entire branding for the event and do all of the email campaigns and the social and get the registration page up. That's going to take literally, like, at minimum three weeks of their time, like events are no joke. And so we have to be mindful about making sure that we have actual capacity. And if we don't, for this particular task or section of the event, how can we streamline it or, you know, remove some of the pieces to make it actually accessible for our team members? And then that kind of leads into the last question is, which is what resources and support do we have available to execute this event? So outside of team? Because we've already talked about that? Do we have the right technology? Do we have the right tools? Do we have the right systems in place? Like do we even have a project management system to help us manage the planning of this event? Because we know that there's going to be a ton of different hands in this pot. And so those are really the four main questions. What is the main goal or purpose? Who is your ideal audience? How can we align your organization's value event to your organization's values and mission? And then what resources and support do we actually have that can help us execute it?

Right out of the gate, Cody gives us a framework. There you go. For those of you taking notes, you've got your framework right there. And I would say make sure it's also fresh, because I think John and I came from the organization that had what we would call the gala list poll. And it's like, if you're never updating, who should be, you know, pulled into that, are we looking at segments in different way, don't invite the same people every single time. Because you want some of that new energy in there, you want those new prospects in there, you want new companies and partners, you want different ages. I mean, this is about sustainability. Because as we've said, on this podcast, 850 times, the event is not just an event, it is simply a moment in time, to warm up to something and to create a really long runway afterward. And I want to kind of transition into talking about themes for an event. And you know, if you spend any time around here, John, and I are not the fans of the Casino Royale theme for your Gala, or perhaps a Hawaiian theme, but like, talk to us about an evolved theme, Cody, that makes sense and talk about how we can integrate that into the process to really, you know, create some warming and some excitement around the event too.

I love event themes. little spoiler there. And because what it does is kind of opens up our creativity in a container. I've seen a lot of events where folks, it looks like we're throwing spaghetti, it's like, Hey, we're doing this and this and this and this. And things don't necessarily feel as cohesive as it is when you're like going to the movies, and you have one plotline to follow. And so I like themes and branding around events, specifically for that reason, because it helps us focus in and say, okay, yeah, we could have a stuck on the casino idea. And we can have a, we could have a State of the Union address for our organization. Or we could have because this hypothetical organization as a environmental organization, we could have a state of the water effect. So it's just these little tiny pivotal moments that remind us Yes, oh, right, there is a deeper connection. It's tying more than just a this is information that kind of localizes it a little bit too. And so one of the things that I one of the stories that I like to tell kind of before we dive into actually how to develop a theme and come up with a theme. I want to tell a story of how one came about. So a few years ago, peek at the pandemic. So this event was previously in person and it was going to be moved to virtual. They never had a theme for this event before it was just like Glitz glam. It's in New York City. And so it's going to be like a red carpet style event. And we couldn't do that. Right? And so they were really struggling with like how do we like take this in person event like we just talk and we just like have conversations with people and how do we bring that to life in this like pivotal moment where everybody's feeling stressed. And there's 1000 other virtual events competing for people's attention, and said, okay, great, let's brand this event and continuously use that branding in our promotions. And so when we were brainstorming over how to like, what to name this, how to brand it, and the development director that we were working with, was just like, we were all just chillin on zoom as, as we do. And I said, Hold on a second. And he turned around, and his mom was walking in the background. He was like, Mom, what do you like so much about what we do here at the children of Armenia fund. And she was just like, well, it just feels like, even right now, all of you are just moving mountains for these kids. We were like, Wait, what'd she say? What she said, it was moving mountains. And that became our theme, because we went to a donor, because she donated and and it's just like, hey, what, what do you like about this organization? Or what is it that makes you feel connected to this organization, and through one conversation, in passing, we were able to develop this moving mountains, a televised event for the children of our Media Fund. And that branding? Yes, we took the moving mountains, we also took the actual mountain in and their community that they serve, and drew it into the logo for the event. And so we're taking these physical things that folks remember, because they lived in Armenia, they remember this from living in Armenia, and said, Oh, wow, this is like, I remember walking outside. And this is what I would stare at this iconic mountain in our community. And so being able to take that personal connection of yes, we're moving mountains, which is like, Yay, we're using some proactive language here, while also connecting it to a physical, tangible thing that somebody has seen and remembers and holds a piece of nostalgia for them, right? Be able to combine those two really made talking about this event. And writing the run of show writing this script made it so much easier. And I'll tell you also being able to go up to our community supporters, and spoiler alert, Tina Fey, Eugene and Dan Levy, and being like, Hey, we're moving mountains for the children of Armenia. And would you like to come and join us? They're like, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, I do, I would love to. And so taking all of that, it doesn't have to be this complicated, complex brainstorming session. It can literally be a text message, or a Slack or an email, or, Hey, what do you think of this, when you're like ending a donor call, you're just like, hey, we're brainstorming for an event, what makes you what makes us stand out to you, just these little small snippets can be the catalysts or the that pivotal moment that lets these ideas spread, and can be those moments that turns into a four and a half million dollar event.

I love that example. And you know, as your resident designer here on the call, like, this speaks to my heart, because it's like, we don't hate on cheesy themes, just for the sake of that. But it's like, there's so much untapped potential that is unique to your organization that you can unleash through a really cool theme like that. And it gives you so many more legs, you know, it kind of gets everybody gets the committee more excited, gets your team more excited. You got assets to work with. So I'm just feeling this love how you're kind of leading us in that. And I love that this conversation talked a little bit already about virtual events, because I think a lot of us, even that have spent our careers and nonprofit felt like we were scratching our heads when the pandemic rolled around, you know, of like, how do we do this meaningfully? And now you've had a lot under your belt, you know, and I'd love to hear just walk us through what is strategy look like? How do you develop a strategy for virtual events? Maybe taking us through your best ideas?

Absolutely, absolutely. So when I'm thinking about branding, and event and putting a theme around it, there's a few things that I do. First, again, we're gonna go back to what is that events purpose? How are we connecting it to our mission? Who's our audience? Then, before we even dive in, like I do this, before diving into any visuals, actually write out our messaging, because we know through the words that we're saying, there's colors and themes and icons that come out of that, that we wouldn't necessarily know until we write it down. And so we you usually write a messaging guide for that event that includes, you know, what's this controlling idea that we're wanting to have what question are we going to be asking folks to consider? Not even when they're just registering it, but when they're when we're up on stage? You know, how, what is that story question that we can use to unlock this problem solving skill inside of all of us. And then the event description and aspirational statements about where the funds are going to, where they're going, and where how it'll support. So we write out a one to two page messaging guide, make sure that everybody that's on that event committee signs off on it. And then from there, that's when we go into design and visuals. So we'll go through and say, Okay, what adjectives are we using? And let's pull those out? What and, you know, what are some of the visual language or metaphors that we used, are there any puns that we can incorporate in and, and so using that as a way to just like, throw ideas out there kind of within, again, within this container of our messaging of this brand. And then that gives us a smaller pile of ideas and colors and visuals. And so with that, that's kind of like my brainstorming process. And but when it comes to actually developing the theme around it, and I always like to make sure that the theme itself is very forward looking. So we know that like, a lot of times, we're developing these themes for like an annual event that we know down the road is going to repeat. And so we don't want to look at this theme as just like a simple moment in time to recognize what you've accomplished. We want to position this branding and this event itself, and have the visuals feel like it's reinforcing the idea of where you're headed. And what these gifts that you're asking folks to make, how that's going to help you accomplish, what you're setting out to do. And so incorporating all of that into this theme into the visuals. Sounds can sound complex, but really, it's through those conversations that we have. And through identifying what our donors are saying what's resonating with them, that we can develop these, this overall sense of feeling and an aesthetic for the brand identity itself. There is a little bit and kind of where we take that brand after that and how we apply it just based on the strategy for the event. But I'm happy to dive in there as well. Yeah, let's

hear it for sure. Okay, perfect.

So kind of backing up outside of the brand and the event side of things, there's five things that I usually tell folks that we need to have in an event. And before we really even like get started. The first one is developing a project management timeline. And this is like sanity for all of us to just make sure that things are written down. And it helps us stay streamlined and make sure that we're on track. And so that can include things like your fundraising strategy, this run of show that we've been talking about what event platforms and technology you're using, keeping track of your audience, and like who you've invited, who's responded, who hasn't? Who opened those emails, who didn't? And even keeping track of like, what videos do Ben stories do we need to produce in preparation for this event. And then of course, like the marketing calendar, and where we keep track of the emails and the social posts and things like that. And then from there, we go into setting relevant and strategic goals. So one of the things that I like to preface with events, and specifically around marketing is that as much as we love to set big goals, and because we think that they are going to inspire people, the reality is that when we set an unrealistic goal and our audience, and we don't actually reach that goal, donors walk away feeling like this event was not successful. Even if you met your you met your unwritten goal. They Oh, they only made like 40% of the of their goal. This is called the goal proximity effect. And it's ultimately like, the closer you are to your goal, the more people see the potential that their gift is going to be the one that pushes the needle, and to help them get there. And so we've used that a few times in events on like, Oh, we're gonna hold a few major gifts towards the last like 15 minutes of this thing and make sure Oh, wow, we're 99% there. Folks at home, make your final gift. And then we're thinking about the types of goals within fundraising and within events. Yes, we want to talk about your fundraising goal. Development usually has that taken care of Are we on its marketers? Are you looking at our registration goal? So obviously, how many people do we need to attend this conference in order to reach that fundraising goal that development has said, because if we know that, and we want to raise $100,000, and the average gift is $1,000, doing that here, then we need 100 people in the room, and to make that get, so that kind of gives us a reverse engineer. Okay, now marketing knows, okay, I have a registration goal 100 people, which means I'm probably going to have to email 20,000 In order to

get 30 times that.

Yeah, in order to get them to come in. And but one of the things that I have to constantly remind people of is outside of registration goal, track your new supporter goals, you know, how many new supporters or donors do you want to actually come in to reach us so that because these are, as you were talking about earlier, like, these are the future planners, these are folks who we just need them in the door, and I tell people copy their tickets, I don't care, like get them in the door. So they can experience this feeling of what of this branded event, like we were talking about earlier, we want people to walk in and feel the emotion and feel the power of this, the work that you're doing. And sometimes all it takes for that person to go from supporter to donor is seeing and being in the room with you. And so one of the things that we especially over the pandemic is that if you're going hybrid now, keep your in person tickets, however usually do. But give it an option for folks who a can't afford that ticket price, that still would be a wonderful advocate for your organization, give them an online option, let them watch it from home, then you don't have to pay for their food in the room. You don't have all these additional event expenses. But you do have someone back at home that spending an hour with you ideally undistracted. And the how often do we get someone who actually sits down and wants to watch a one hour movie of your organization? Never. So these events if we think about your right, so if we think about it, and we're thinking, Okay, if we know we need to get new folks in? What are those barriers that are preventing them from actually opening the door? Maybe we need to open that door and allow them to walk through as that introduction. So from there, and to kind of figure out what our goals are. I'm like, Okay, who do we need to get involved in this thing? And so yes, from like, a team perspective, but can we bring in influencers or the local celebrities that really people look up to, and the children of Armenia fund event, obviously, that was Tina Fey, and Eugene and Dan Levy. But if you're a smaller organization, this could be folks that your community really looks up to maybe it's your mayor, maybe it is a local Congress person. And we're an elected official, it could even be Yes, board of directors or staff and supporters. But we want to think outside of that, and think, you know, who are these community members that can help build authority, and help tell the story that we're trying to get across? And so I always say, Okay, who who can we bring in Yes, to tell a story or tell a personal story for the actual event. But let's also use our mark put our marketing hats on, and tell t's a little bit of that story in our marketing content for what's to come. It's like we don't go to the movies without seeing a trailer first. And so with our events, we kind of have to do that same thing. And so after we go into this, like, you know, who's going to be there, that kind of helps us figure out, okay, and we put it up, put all of that information into our run of show, when you say, okay, great, we have these people that are supporting, that's one part of our marketing strategy. And so we can use the, all of this content to plan our email, social posts. And so and we want to make sure that we're giving people like ample time to find out about the event, register for the event, everything like that. And so I always recommend emailing and posting kind of within the the six to 12 week mark. And, and I say that to say folks often come to me And I like, I'm freaking out, nobody has signed up for my event yet. And like, that's because it's in four months, people don't know what they're doing tomorrow. And so I always tell people, you don't want to start too, too early. And but we do want to make sure that folks have enough time to move plans are playing for it. Finally, I like when we're coming into this final tip of how do we make sure that this engagement or this audience stays engaged on social and through email, but also like at the actual event, and we want to make sure that we're using engagement strategies, right. So if somebody has registered for the event, and they register, but the that isn't for two months from now, you're gonna have to remind them that they signed up for this event, or else they may not show up. And so I recommend using things like a event attendees nurture sequence that drips out, Hey, this is what's happening, or here's the latest speaker lineup. And the it's just a every few weeks dripping, a little more information, teasing at that P PDS section, if you want to make an advanced donation, click here. And I'm kind of just getting folks into that mindset of, hey, we're having this event, and it is coming up, I'm going to ask you to donate during it. So be ready.

I love all these suggestions, Cody and I got to live two that I think are really powerful that you're saying that I don't want anybody to miss. And one is thinking about your marketing, your messaging, and thinking about the event as an entire engagement journey. And I think too often with events, we use our playbook we dusted off every year for the same event over and over again. And it doesn't allow us to be nimble. And if you're looking at those engagement signals, you know, pre event at the event post event, like who's opening your emails, who's clicking through, who's liking your socials, I mean, every single one of those interactions is an engagement signal. And from those signals, you can truly curate a different kind of marketing sequence for that individual that is continuing to warm them up. And I also think, depending on how do you behave at the event, and I don't mean like, are they the drunk? Guest? I mean, like, are they buying something at the auction? Are they engaging in the actual, you know, whatever the fundraiser is, are they coming up and talking to you about how powerful it is, that's gonna give you an output and a reason to go back to them post event. So marketing can really help you with these engagement signals, I just think we can't just be you know, have our blinders on and plow through that. To Do lists like we always have, because we might be missing some of those things. And I just want to say, as somebody in their 40s, who is like, kind of over the events and dressing up and putting my Spanx and my sparkly heels on, I am loving the hybrid option. And so if you're thinking if you're someone who's always in had an in person event, maybe you went to a virtual event in pandemic, but you've got swung back, if you are looking to engage a different kind of audience, do some polling with your people and say, if we had a virtual event, would that be attractive to you, you know, ask your current donors, it might be a very interesting study for you to look at to say, oh, people actually don't want to come and we could save a heck of a lot and overhead if we move this virtual, and actually put somebody on production, who's doing nothing but managing the engagement of those who are on virtual. So thank you for those great tips. Cody, I want to ask you just very quickly about some case studies, like can you throw out? Who's doing it? Well, who is killing the nonprofit and social impact event game right now? And who are some experts? Our audience can look toward?

Absolutely. So there's a few organizations that come to mind. The first one is the King County sexual assault Resource Center. And they every year do something, you know, we usually have like a luncheon or a gala. They said, Now let's do a breakfast, y'all. Let's start the day. And so that first and foremost was like, Okay, this is different than what we've seen before. And that was enough to like, peek me. And so, you know, back in 2021, they are traditionally having this event in person, they realize, oh, no, we can't have to be virtual that they had in that in their playbook a moment where there's a traditionally there's a like a stand up moment and stand up if you have ever been impacted. And so that's like the Hallmark moment in the event. And it comes right before the ask. People are like, how do we do that? We can't let people we don't know if people are sitting, standing, walking like we can't see them. And so being able to what they did was recreate that stand up moment in a online version where folks were able to literally interact with the screen, and click Yes, I pledge. And, and again, it saw that moment, again, it's, it's a way, it wasn't as emotionally impactful as feeling that energy in the room and that collectiveness of everybody standing up, because you know, we're at home. But for the people that were at home, they got that experience. And so if we can think about how do we pair these now that they're back in person, you know, how can we pair this standout moment, the in the room with folks that are at home, that need a different way to do that. And so, I would say first look at case arc, and there be loud breakfast. And then also, I'm going to throw it out there, again, the children of Armenia fund, that show itself is written. And very similarly to the structure of SNL, in the sense of we have a cold open, we have these videos that are telling the story. In Armenia, they're telling their own stories. And we're mixing a compilation of pre recorded content that needed that more polished, and that storytelling piece with the person on stage, who is actually like the host and the emcee. And it's a good mix of kind of combining that virtual and in person to make this hybrid. And they do it really well and intentional in a way that doesn't leave out the person that's sitting at home. And so I would definitely recommend watching the last like two years for the children of Armenia fund. And the first one that we worked on with them, raised four and a half million, and then the one after that raised almost $9 million, which was wild to me. And, and so Billy's really, really intentionally focused on storytelling. And, and we invested the, well, they invested a lot into hiring a Hollywood writer to support on this, and it paid off.

Clearly look at Santa Fe.

I mean, I think it speaks to that we all have our own assets. I mean, we don't all have Tina Fey in our text threads every day, you know, but what assets do you have? And what could make you stand out in your community? And maybe it's just doing that breakfast? Like I love just kind of the simple shifts that can help you disrupt and make the most of what assets and people you do have. So okay, Cody, I mean, you get to sit adjacent to such moving acts of philanthropy. And I wonder if you would take us back, it didn't have to be at a fancy event can be the smallest moment of life. What's the moment that philanthropy really moved you and has stuck with you throughout your life?

Let's rewind, literally, I was in high school, and it was senior year, and a student body president, what do we what do we do with student body president a service project. And so rather than good old car washed or a bake sale, or you know what the traditional high school high schoolers are doing, I said, Now let's throw an event. Let's throw a fashion show and dinner, and to support the ALS Association of Arizona. And so I was love that cool seven team planning my first ever event, basically, it raised, I think, like $1,200, but we had such a good time doing it. And we had such a powerful transformation and the 30 of us that came together to put on this event that I always credited to being like, that was where my passion for nonprofit came from, is like being able to just say, yep, we're doing this, we're doing a service project. And we're not going to make it just this one, went this low lift thing, we're going to be really intentional, bring our entire community together and celebrate the work that these organizations are doing to me and having full support from the education staff behind it. Like that, to me was the power of belief, the power of collective activism, power of collective action. And, and really something that kind of stuck with me is like yes, this is where where I want to go and I actually set my goal. And I remember talking to the student government, right gonna be like, I really liked that. That was fun. I think I could like do event planning or something like that. And but I think I'm gonna like in my entire lifetime entire lifetime, it's such a wide goal on a raise help organizations raise $5 million. I did that within the first year of marketing mission. That was when I noticed or felt like, Yep, I'm on the right path.

I mean, what a great one good thing that is, to me a great is the great metaphor of your life. Because we all just want to be empowered to do our thing, and to do what lights us up, and when we can personalize it. When we can make it not just the same ol event. That's when the magic happens when we can create something beyond the event that we can pour into. So love that one. Good thing, Cody. And, you know, people are going to want to know how to connect with you and love this conversation. Such good tactical counsel here about how to really rethink our events. Tell us where people can connect with you give us your website and where you show up on socials.

Absolutely. I'm so excited to connect with you all. You can find me on Instagram, the handle is marketing mission. org. And I'm also and our website is marketing mission dot work. So before we wrap up today's podcast, if it's okay with y'all, I would love to share a resource for folks.

Oh, we have resources. Let's hear it.

Perfect. Okay, so we have been working very, very hard the last six months to put this together and it is the nonprofit marketing vault. And inside this vault, we are putting our comprehensive How to Guides, our canvas templates, and education hub. And literally it's meant to help you streamline your marketing and reclaim your time. And so inside of it's going to be workflows for streamlining your campaigns ready to use templates to simplify complex content creation. And again, Edge educational resources like webinars, ebooks, case studies, things like that. So you can head over to www marketing mission.org forward slash resources and everything is within that vault. Don't have to download individually or sign up individually. It's just one access.

Like a Cody just coming in with abundance at the end. You don't have to start from scratch. Cody and the team have already got you started. Thank you for that.

Yeah, this conversation actually has an excited about events which is saying a lot, right. I mean, thank you, my friend love the way you show up in the world and just feel grateful for this combo.

Likewise, I really appreciate it and stay in touch friends, we're gonna have to do the skip

option to keep going with your amazingness can't wait to work with you further and keep going my friend.

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 Borsboom