Be the PRO. Launch Party + What's In It For You! - Jonathan McCoy, CFRE and Becky Endicott, CFRE

11:05PM Sep 7, 2021

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Keywords:

nonprofit

people

pro

building

community

good

hear

world

thinking

friends

mindsets

professional development

walk

conversations

industry

podcast

fundraisers

donor

guide

education

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

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

world. 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.

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.

So let's get started.

Here, oh my gosh, we start with a jinx joke. That was not scripted, but holy smokes.

So we've been working on something for a year literally, like the longest group project of all time.

Yeah, except for the group project. Everybody's contributing at an equal level, which also makes it amazing.

So today is if you're listening to this not live, it is September 8 2021. It is the launch of a we are for good Pro,

a day that will live in infamy. And I say infamy not in a negative context, because we believe the harvest is coming. And we have reimagined and awakening for nonprofit professional development. Would it be fair to say our entire lives?

Yeah, I think feeling like an outsider at some professional development events, whether it's like we're in the nonprofit industry, we're relational beings, how many times were we sitting on a workshop, and there's no humanity displayed, not that the people aren't great, but you don't know anything about them. You don't know their story, you don't know what got them to this place are the mindsets that informed. It's like we're all robots and cogs. And we just know there's a lot more to it than that.

And in fact, not only is there a lot more to it, but when you start to peel back the layers of connection, of humanity, of empathy, and lived experience, something really extraordinary happens. And this is a theme that we have been exploring, just by virtue of setting up a podcast and listening. And so we had this idea. And today is it's day.

Yeah, and so truly, it wouldn't look the same as it would have a year ago, because this has been a journey in every sense of the word. And it's taken a community, it's taken the weird for good community to really turn into something that we are building for you, the listener or friend that we see in the community that we get DMS and emails from, we're building this as a place where you can feel seen, you can feel served, and you can contribute to a place where we can just lift the conversations of the stories that matter of the topics that are really relevant to what's happening right now. In the time when the world is changing, we're all looking for a path, we're all looking for a guide, we built pro to be that guide for you.

I love it. And I think if we're gonna set some tone here, which we've done just already a little bit, I really want you to talk about why this matters. Why does this moment matter, john, like to our industry? Why does it matter and the right now talk about that? Well, you know, I

love that quote that, you know, we don't want to be or I don't want to be a man of success, I want to be a man of value, that you create value for people that you're adding value to the community that you're a part of. It's kind of in that same vein, I was I'm always geeking out listening to entrepreneurship podcast. And you know, I'm always feeding the mind all these different things. But something stuck out when you're building an offer. And I think the offer could really translate in the nonprofit world, if you're making a pitch to somebody, you don't want to just talk about the thing. Because the thing may connect with somebody that really loves that thing. But you really want to talk about the statements that connect it to what really matters, what really does this do. And the words that he used were so that. So it's like we're building something so that kids don't have to walk two miles to get a, you know, a clean glass of water, you know, so that they can have a more full life, how they can play soccer instead of spinning their day walking down the street, like the so that is so much more powerful than just saying we're going to build a Well, like I may know what a weld would do. But hearing the so that statements like completely changes it. And so I hope that, you know, we think about when we're building Pro, one of those so that statements for this community. And for us, it's Yes, it's got a lot of practical things. And we want to walk through some of that just because we've gotten a lot of questions like what's going to be inside this platform. And on the surface, we could say it's workshops, and it's these courses that you can take. But the so that is we imagine a world where more people are pouring into philanthropy, so that you know these missions can be fueled so we can eradicate some of the biggest problems facing our world so that you can raise more money, you can feel more confident to walk into that room and have those conversations that move the needle. And we can just go on and

on. I know I'm sitting here thinking so that you have more confidence and your ability to go out and make connections so that you are Healthy, more vibrant human being because the way you were approaching your donor approaching your community feels so natural and genuine. It's not this for script. And it just feels like the stars have aligned. We did not order up this pandemic, we never would have. But having this online classroom that is completely set up to be the democratization of nonprofit professional development just seemed serendipitous in this moment, when the world is all digital while people are moving online. And so we want to unpack what's actually in Pro, because we have to be honest, there are things that we just did not love about nonprofit professional development, training and education. And so when you look at something that is not delivering to you exactly what you need, at least if you're us, you're gonna take a step back, and you're gonna think how can we disrupt everything about the way we approach each other, the way we teach each other, the way we give each other tools and activate? And that's really what Pro is all about.

Yeah, and we we know that we all learn in different ways. I know, I'm a really visual person, and I love abstract ideas. But there's a lot of people that that kind of conversation drives them nuts, like they want to

raise after like, 10 minutes, I'm tapping out

the to do list of like, what can I do right this second. And so we tried to really look at it from a lot of lenses and look at the things that resonate with different types of people, and truly build an experience that's going to have content that will connect with you. And if it's not there, like tell us you know, we're grow, adapt, disrupt repeat is part of our core values we want to build that over time we're not launching is the perfect thing today, we're launching and inviting you to come in so we can make it more and more perfect. And

it's so 2.0 right now, which is what I love about it no longer are we thinking about, oh, I need to get a digital campaign up for this one very specific thing in my organization. It's about looking at a donor journey. And it's about looking at it on a continuum of what are all these points that I can sew in the seats that I can drop in to get a donor to the next point to the end point, and you're growing and fostering the relationship that is pro for you. It is a journey. We want you to dive into this, we want you to immerse yourself in thinking differently, and innovating differently, and trying stuff taking great leaps of faith. And we really think not only is it going to grow your mission, it's going to grow your mind. It's going to grow your community and it's going to grow your heart too. So we got to break down what's inside. Yeah,

I mean, we call ourselves or we call this project really the Netflix for nonprofits. And here's why we view ourselves as the studio, we view ourselves as welcoming in the cast of characters that is truly cutting edge that are teaching the topics right now that are relevant, and through a lot of different lenses. And so I'm going to break through what those are good guides. So these are dropping monthly and good guides are just simply kind of like a masterclass. If you think about a series of videos that unpack a bigger topic. It's like it starts with a TEDx moment, you know, Mic drop moment, and then bingeable videos that you can unpack with your team or just one on one over time or all at once. So that's the good guide. And you know, we package each of those with a worksheet because we love getting you started right away.

And I just want to pause on this good guide worksheet because one of the pain points for us whenever we went to a conference or a webinar is you know, whether it's the best session you've ever heard, or the worst session, there's always that feeling of how do I activate this? How do I figure out how to implement this strategy into my organization. And so we thought, we're building that we're going to build that freebie, we're going to build that roadmap, and it's going to go along and accompany every single good guide. I love

that because I remember going to conferences, feeling the passion feeling so excited, inspired. And then you come back. And it's just like a room of people staring at you like you tried to review your notes. And my handwriting can be kind of crazy. So yes,

yes, we're totally right there. So the other thing that we have our 60 workshops, we're going to be dropping one a week. And these are what we call like micro focused presentations on something that is very tactical, very specific. You may want to know, how do I run a Giving Tuesday campaign? How do I implement a Google grant that I got? How do I take my donor relations to the next level through gift giving, we're bringing in the most disruptive and evolved speakers and presenters who are coming in and giving you very quick bites 20 to 30 minutes of telling you exactly how to execute that one particular topic from soup to nuts,

and you better believe it's we're for good style. So it's co hosted. It's lively, it's fun and interactive. Absolutely, which leads into live events. So twice a month. We are popping in with some of the best and brightest minds but leading live coaching sessions. And I don't know if you've ever been a part of this, but it truly is transformational. I've been part of an entrepreneurship mastermind group that monthly you get to sit in and watch others or sign up to be coached. And it's transformational. Just getting to hear people talk about the issues that they're facing, and have a lead or a guide kind of walk you through their steps and their mindsets for how to solve that is not only transformational for the person that they're talking to directly, but all of us and you know, so it's a safe place. It's a place to learn and grow in a place where you can be seen through these live events. So we're really jazzed about this.

And it's part of that journey, you know, how many times have you been at a conference and you want to go up and talk to the speaker, but they have a ton of people around them, or you want to visit with the person who just you know, co hosted your webinar, but they turn the screen off in zoom, it's over. We want those conversations to continue. And we want to give you access to these experts, we want you to speak specifically into the pain points you're experiencing in your nonprofit, we want to help them troubleshoot those issues immediately. So please tune in to the live coaching. We hope it's just going to help take you to the next level and advance your ability to execute this that much more quickly.

Yes. And all year, we have been recording just the best conversations, every conversation on the podcast, because some people like to just watch the kind of behind the scenes interviews with Dan pelada. And Vic Harrison and all these amazing people that have been on the show. We've curated some of those episodes, and they're available right alongside some these workshops and live events. I think you're gonna love it.

Okay, so we got to talk about the people. We talk about this all the time, if you saw our pro trailer, it is exactly what we said it was learning is not about faceless, nameless organizations, it always goes back to the people. So we want to introduce you to our good profs, john, tell him what a good profits.

So a good profit is somebody that just honestly kind of knocked our socks off. You know, we met them over the course of the last year, through the podcast through their work the way that they show up online and serve this space. And what they're saying at their core is something that is disruptive and honestly just needs a bigger microphone megaphone. And so we've asked them to come and so we actually did, corral what we call the good props into Dallas after kind of COVID had a little lull earlier was

that in the sweet spot? Yeah, we

invited everybody to Dallas, we had eight props all descend for a weekend. And we had a production weekend because y'all we take this so seriously, the nonprofit industry gets passed over all the time on lack of production value. And you're we're always serving, you know, as an industry we're serving outward. And this is about investing in you. And then we have spent the last year investing in you to create this platform that's engaging, entertaining. The people that are part of it are so fun and amazing.

Yeah, you're just gonna love them. We're talking about kushana Palmer who's our leadership expert, Dana Snyder, who's our digital marketing Queen, Lindsey Simon's is going to take our hands and walk us through campaigns. Crystal cherry is our board. whisperer, she is the one that's going to help us elevate our boards and get them to be more inclusive. Jermaine Gayo is our operations queen. And she is taking all the fear out of numbers for us. The Laurie Gandhi is coming in and talking about the importance of partnerships between foundations and corporations or as you as a fundraiser and then of course, there's Yours truly, john and Becky bringing up the rear back and talking about employee giving. So we're just really excited about our lineup and we know you're going to fall in love with them in

the same way that we have. You know, there's going to be good guides dropping throughout the year. So there are more props that are coming alongside and so exciting. Lynn Wester Mallory Erickson, Vic Harris and Matt hanging. Dr. Tyrone Freeman.

I mean, these are people my brains exploding

truly have changed us as professionals and have challenged our minds on so many topics. And so I can't wait to welcome them in Pro.

But there's one good Prof. We haven't mentioned yet. Yeah, let's mention possibly the most exciting one of them all the unicorn, the unicorn Julie Confer will be joining us as a good Prof. Why? Because young professionals we see you and we see a complete absence of focus on education for you. And so we are intense, and laser focused on building a really solid content machine for you that is focused on basics. It's not just about getting you experienced and in saying the right words and figuring out how to get rid of your imposter syndrome, but it's about how do I thread my values into my job? How do I take the passion that I have? How do I focus on mental health? How do I look for a mentor or a coach? How do I ask for a raise you know, or a promotion? So Julia is your good prof who is here she's going to curate this content for you once a month we're going to have that dropping in Pro. So please tune in.

Taking a quick pause to share some exciting news from our friends over at give butter. They just launched an even better way to give with an end to end fundraising solution. They've paired their beloved virtual events and online fundraising platform with an integrated CRM and built in tools to engage your supporters through custom emails, texts, and more. And the best part, it's completely free. It's easy to see why give butter is loved by more than 35,000 nonprofits and other good causes just like yours, NPS, there are also loved by the three of us who are super fans ready to get started with gift butter, check them out at gift butter.com Becky, and I love creating content and sharing a lot of our perspective too. So you're gonna see a lot of original content there, where we kind of blend our marketers disguised as fundraisers approach. So if you like the things that we teach, it's all going to be right there inside of bro.

So at its most basic form, we believe education is for everyone. And we understand that professional development is likely the first thing being cut out of your budget, when you're asked to go value engineer that budget down. And we're saying we think it could possibly be the most important part of your budget. So we knew that pro had to be not only accessible, but it had to be affordable.

And so where we landed was less than $1 a day, it's billed annually at $360, that breaks down to just $30 a month, because we really wanted access not to be a barrier. But you know, if you're not new here, we show up in a lot of ways for free, because our commitment to you is that there's lots of ways to learn and grow and access free resources. But if you're ready to truly go to the next level, we really believe that investing in yourself does something really significant to yourself, to remind yourself that I'm going to plug in, I'm actually going to work through this, I'm going to take steps to be better. I know it's worked for me in my life, when I actually make an investment, it changes things. And that's what you kind of focus on. So we wanted it to be accessible. And we realized that 360 still could be a barrier.

We don't want any barriers for you. We don't want any barriers for you to train and sharpen yourself. So we did something a little radical. And we thought were fundraisers, we know how to fundraise. So we built a scholarship program for Pro, we partnered up with some of our for profit friends, and I want to give them a shout out. Thank you asked dot zero MSP digital Bloomerang donor relations guru, these people have shown up for you friends, they have shown up to donate almost $30,000 to the scholarship program, which means that we have more than 115 scholarships available for you to come on to Pro. And we did this because we feel this is so important not only to you as the individual, but to the sector. We want to democratize and grow this training these mindsets and the way we can do more for our missions. And there's absolutely no scenario where finances should be the barrier that gets you that level of training. So if you are someone who's saying to yourself, I cannot afford $360 Don't you worry, we got you. All you have to do is visit we're for good pro.com backslash scholarships, we have a very simple application process. But you got to know if you get a scholarship, you are going to have to do a heck of a job stewarding your donor and we're gonna facilitate that process. And we're excited to do it.

So the scholarships that are available are for $250. So that would make it less than $10 a month that you would pay to access Pro. So truly an incredible opportunity. And if you're listening and you're thinking, I want to be the giver of a scholarship, we love partnering with different organizations or individuals that want to be a part of this movement. Because I mean, just being on this side of it, what unlocking education can do, we believe can truly change the world. So come and join us on data.

And you might be wondering, why did we not fully scholarship you. And it's because we want you committed to this personal investment. And even if you're only paying a fraction of it, we think you're going to have more of an impetus to want to see value from your investment. So we want you to tune in, we want you to download those worksheets. We want you to talk with your good guides, we want you to get something out of this. And we think it can be done for less than $10 a month. So that is pro but you know what, john, you have been dreaming about this for years. And it's like today is the day. What are you thinking? What is your Why?

I mean, it's hard not to just think that this industry and I kind of have said this already. It deserves this level of care and attention. You know, it deserves this level of investment. And someone saying I see you. I mean we're 10% of the American workforce is in nonprofit 10% 10% you walk down the street, one out of every 10 people works in a nonprofit like that's a shocking statistic. But the resources available to us the curation of those resources, where do I start? Who do I trust? What kind of plans because we don't have a lot of time. We just we wanted to carry that vision through to be a place where you could find like minded people that you could change the world to Gather with. And I'm really excited that it's finally here.

I'm just so proud of you for conceptualizing this dream, meeting it into existence. It is time friends to revolutionize this nonprofit industry. We want to do it through profound compassion, best in class training, authentic storytelling, and just this crazy good marketing, that places everyone on the same level playing field. So if you've been hanging out in our community, you've been listening, you've been learning, you've been commenting on socials, and you're waiting for that moment to go all in. This is it, this is your moment. Go to we are for good proz.com we've got a ton of resources there. We've got FA Q's. Of course, we got little chat features there if you get stuck. But anyone who buys now through September 30 is going to get one of our little boozy, we're for good shirts, we're going to send that to all our our inaugural class of students, and we want to see you reppin, the best swag that we have to offer. And it's really just because we are so grateful that you would not only take this leap of faith, and purchase this for yourself, but understand that you are worthy of this investment.

And can we just say learning should be fun. Hello. So we want to usher in this new generation, let's change the world and have a blast doing it together. So we can't wait to welcome you inside. So you know, there's no ego in this, we do not have all the answers. We're a guide that I hope can speak into your work. But there's so many people with brilliant ideas that are leading movements that we've not heard of yet. But we want to hear from you. So if that's you, if you know something that could really unlock the potential of nonprofits, please reach out we've put together a form to scroll to the bottom of we're for good pro COMM And there's a teach with us section. If that's you, please fill out the form. We want to hear about the amazing disruptive work that you're doing. And let's talk

Yeah, you may even have an incredible case study that we need to explore something that was incredibly successful that we need to build a framework and figure out how to replicate it. Again, this is all about evangelizing and democratizing education and leveling up our game. We are here for you. And we really hope that Pro is something that sharpens you and makes you proud.

So nonprofits as you walk in those doors this week as you join Pro, please don't make it a one sided conversation. I know you don't often talk to your Netflix queue. So if you think this is Netflix, we want to hear from you is only going to get better as you reach out, share your ideas share where you're stuck. And we our commitment to you is that we're going to provide the best experience possible

community is everything and we all thrive more vibrantly, and community. We hope you love this little space of the world that we have carved out for you and we're looking forward to seeing you in there.

So how do we are for good pro.com and until next time, it's back to the original programming that you expect them as podcast. infomercial is over.

We are always rooting for you.

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 weird for good comm 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