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How to Future-Proof Your Fundraising with Social Media + Make Giving Seamless | Otter.ai

How to Future-Proof Your Fundraising with Social Media + Make Giving Seamless

Julie Confer32min

Jonathan McCoy

00:01

Hey, I'm John.

Becky Endicott

00:02

And I'm Becky.

Jonathan McCoy

00:03

And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

Becky Endicott

00:05

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

Jonathan McCoy

00:15

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, where 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. Becky, the enthusiasm is real. Right?

Becky Endicott

00:38

I love that you almost had to have a conversation with me before we got on to record to say don't talk about how much you've loved this organization for 30 minutes, because I would

Jonathan McCoy

00:47

enthusiasm Yeah. Oh my gosh, I mean, what an honor. We're sitting here with just kind of a legend in the space, honestly, if so many that's pouring into not just the nonprofit side, but the social impact side. And that is unleashing and making that tech available to all so it is a huge honor to have Nick black on the podcast if you don't know him. He's the founder and CEO of good United one of our really wonderful partners of the podcast, and also founder and vice chairman at stop soldier suicide. And that's not a stranger to this podcast. We just talked to Crystal Clark a few weeks ago who is like, you know, kicking a and taking names. Oh,

Becky Endicott

01:19

my gosh, what they're doing is amazing. Can I Can I just just I mean we seconds can I just give a little shout out to our stop soldier suicide friends, because they are so active in the community. Crystal Morgan, Ashley Claire camera, and there are more of you. But we are just so grateful for how you lean in and so nice to meet you, Nick.

Nick Black

01:37

Yeah, it's such a pleasure to meet y'all, as well.

Jonathan McCoy

01:40

Well, I mean, your bio is so good. I gotta give a little bit more than where you want to hear your story, Nick. But I mean, let's talk about good United if you haven't heard of it. It's a tech company that created the first fundraising solution for social media. Hello, they have already helped raise more than a billion dollars. that's with a B, for the nonprofits, some of the most respected nonprofits across the country. But Nick is this incredible innovator. He's a leader at the intersection of business and social impact for over 10 years. And the concept of good United came through Nick's work co founding and leading stop soldier suicide. So here's the deal that grew from a startup to really a national leader in the veteran space. You know, that's a huge heartbeat of our podcast, they now have over 100 full time employees and they count on good united for over 10 million in donations a year. So this is just really a fascinating case study of how both sides are really pouring into their work together. So Nick co founded soft soldier suicide stemming from his experience leading paratroopers as a ranger qualified army officer with the 173rd airborne during 27 months deployed to combat zones in Afghanistan. Thank you, my friend and so much respect for your service to our country. And Nick lives in one of our favorite places. It's on my route roadmap to come see you in Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, we're on our way with his wife Amanda, and they have a 10 year old daughter and eight year old son and two amazing dogs, you got to share the dog's names because about the most epic names. But Nick also has this incredible book coming out, you know, it ties into the trends that we're lifting this year making generosity frictionless. Of course, Nick is writing a book on the subject called one click to give how to future proof your fundraising with social media. Nick, my goodness, my friends, so much going on. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Such an honor to have you.

Nick Black

03:19

Thanks for having me. I need you to do my my promo right need to do the prep for me. For you guys. Yeah,

Becky Endicott

03:25

just tell us where to show up happy to do it.

Jonathan McCoy

03:27

Julian was recording this so you can have it on your playback. So I mean, like I shared truly just the top level highlights of your path. I wonder we love getting to know our guests just on a personal level, like tell us a little bit about growing up maybe some of the formative experiences that led you into this really impactful work you're pouring into today.

Nick Black

03:45

Yeah, appreciate it. I grew up in African Europe, both my parents were an intelligence community. I didn't know that till I was 15. We moved back to the states for high school. And you know, sitting around the kitchen table, we never talked about business or money or anything. You know, economics is about service. My parents never had a bonus, they never had anything other than service to their country. So for me, my life is series of things that essentially just pissed me off and I tried to attack it. So the first one for me was 911. I was a senior in high school, about a mile away from the CIA at Langley High School. And that was a moment where I decided that I want to do something about it. So I went to undergrad at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, did Army ROTC and played football and commissioned from there as a second lieutenant in the army. Nothing's ever come easy for me. I usually start off last and everything that I do. So took me a while but then I became a ranger qualified officer. I had the honor to lead paratroopers in combat for 27 months. My first deployment was a 15 month deployment to five tilam in the border of Pakistan. And, you know, is it's just so humbling in hindsight to see the men and women they get to serve with and for me, you know, I got an email from the other founders to the other two founders to stop source suicide. at all three of us were in the military, but that emails, we lost more servicemen and women to suicide than the enemy. So, you know, that was the second thing that really set me on a different direction. And, you know, so to get out of the military, I somehow got in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill for grad school. But along the way, knowing nothing about nonprofits, I never think I'd ever be involved with a nonprofit, came up with a brilliant decision that co founded nonprofit. And we were so creative around and saying, Well, what the hell are we going to call this thing is saying, Well, what stops sort of suicide, let's make the the logo and American flag. That's the dumbest, smart thing I've ever done. I thought people would be giving me free money, because I thought, you know, millionaires would just hand out checks. And I met with a billionaire. And a gentleman wrote me a check for $100. And I could not believe how difficult it was starting a nonprofit and growing it, and I can tell you that start a for profit, there is nothing like starting a nonprofit, that is the hardest thing that you can do. And, you know, in going through that experience, I thought fundraising was way too hard. And for me, it made me we had a fundraising event. And it was one of the you know, like the wine tastings, where you get to ask every single one of your friends to donate an item for the auction, like one of those deals. Yeah, in there, one of my soldiers showed up, and he was really struggling. And he wrote a check for $50. And after the event, I spent all my time reaching out to all the all the rich people. You sent me an email and said, Hey, sir, did you get my gift? I said, I have no idea. And it was that moment for me saying what would it be like if we could give the average person meaningful experience? And where he gave that gift was on social? And I thought, Well, why are we spending all this time money and effort posting and social community engage with people that then have to pay to get them to leave to go to our website? What would it be like if we can empower people to give where we're engaging with them? And that's not to say you don't need a website? You do? It's powerful. It's big. But man, I don't know about you all. Where do you spend time? And what we're seeing, and we're really we're the thesis behind good united and the book and the conference, is that I believe we're entering an age of hope and optimism. So many people have this downward, you know, pessimism on what's happening for nonprofits. And you know, what I'm seeing in the social space. I mean, who's got better content than nonprofits? Who's telling better stories? And what we can engage with these people and their new people, right, that's one of the big piece so I could talk about this forever. But yeah, I've, we're at a cocktail party, and someone came up to my wife and said, What's the deal with Nick, which I guess people asked a lot. And she said, you know, things, things happen, and he attacks it. And here I am, you know, working with incredible nonprofits. And I'm really fortunate and glad. But it's been quite a journey. And

Becky Endicott

07:41

mean, starting at the kitchen table with mom and dad, just laying that foundation of it's bigger than us. It's bigger than anything else. But we have to be a part of the small change, and to the tune of over a billion dollars raised on your platform, I cannot believe that stop soldier suicide is yielding $10 million on social a year. And it just makes me want to say nonprofits listen to this, please take some some of this playbook and integrate it because the way that we are engaging, and I have to say that was such a powerful story that you're of your time and nonprofit, and it was a lot like mine, and nonprofit, and I was raised in this. And just the mindset shift of hey, that $50 donor could be the linchpin to everything, it could open up everything, if we weren't just putting our attention on the people that everybody is hitting up. And that's not to say I don't want to diminish the major gift donor because they are extremely powerful. But to your point, if we can really harness that story, that hope, that joy, that that conviction that people have inside, to want to do good to want to be better to want to get lit up. And that's to me is like the through line of your story is you didn't never get mad, you got active, you know, and I think that that is like what a true founder has. And I just really respect your journey very much and what you see. And I want to just talk to you about this next shift of gifts that we're all feeling right now I want you to talk about from your periphery. What are you in the team paying attention to what what is that opportunity that is in front of nonprofits today that we are just not seizing?

Nick Black

09:28

Yeah, it's a great question. The irony is it's pretty obvious. Why have we been posting to social pages for over a decade, and I meet with organizations is saying, Man, I mean, if I get it, you know, back if I give you a magic wand, what would you like to say, Oh, we want new people like really how many? Anything you want? How many people 30,000 or 30,000 people for our house file to get engaged with organization, saying what if I told you you had 150,000 That's consuming your content and engaging With the same where so talk to your marketing team. So for me, right, if we bow this whole thing down, I think it's really important to understand user behavior. And there's a rise in Delta happening, where we have huge technology giants that are pushing all of us to different areas of the internet, to different experiences, whether you're on Spotify, or whether you're in Tiktok, or wherever that may be. But our attention is being captured in these different networks. And to me, it's just trying to follow e commerce, where are people engaging? Where are they buying? That's where they should be giving. So like, there's a great quote by Gretzky, right? Go to where the pucks gonna be, right? It just like, talk to your kids, talk to your friends, where do you spend time? Are you on Pinterest? Well, how can we get creative? And there's just so much opportunity to go to these different channels to understand your audience? Who wants to support your organization? Where are they? And let's start to build that there.

Jonathan McCoy

10:53

I mean, it's so good, Nick, you're definitely in our head on what we see is like trends in the space because we talked about like even that joy is trending media skills. Impact is like you you've lifted that the stories that happen in our mission are like bomb to society right now when everything is so negative, and so divisive and all of that. And I think the traditional from Becky and I that spent all these years and nonprofit social media was let's give the intern that project. You know, and you're you bring such a good work week said like, Oh, really,

Nick Black

11:27

board meetings is just started railing, the social media person come up with like oppressions to stop, stop, stop where the money, people and tricks, right, and it's like I get, and like, we know, it's a thing, we kept doing it. Right. And thank God, we kept doing it. Well, I think stop. I haven't done anything, right, let's be clear, the team had stopped sort of suicide has grown that community 750,000 people. And then like, there was this moment where we kept like, Okay, well, let's do a race. And, you know, in eastern North Carolina, like how many people are going to show up 50. And then the social media persons at the end the table talking about half a million? And they're like, Well, why don't we go there? And I'm sitting there, like, wow, I'm an idiot, you know, like, why don't we just go, well, you're doing a great job, I never knew that cool. Let's actually tap into this incredible community that you're actively posting and building.

Jonathan McCoy

12:11

I mean, it's just so cool. Last year, we call this this trend, which is now just like a mantra around here is like marketing is mission, like you actually realize, like part of sort of suicide is just starting a bigger conversation with hundreds of 1000s of people on a daily basis. So just really love that. I mean, we're talking a lot about activating the one as you grow your movements. We talk to us about how nonprofits, those of us that are in this work and establish personal connections really at scale, to really activate and grow our movements. How are you seeing this workout?

Nick Black

12:41

I think it's easy from a tech point of view to talk about scale. But I think the real skill starts with one on one conversations. So if you can't have a one on one conversation, to understand why people are engaging with you, then there's no hope of scale. So what I talked to organizations and saying, like, we can go one to many, but one to many is not going to go well, if you can't do one to one. And whether it's your you know, the local community group, or just an individual that keeps showing up? What do they want? What do they do? Do we understand them? Are we taking the time to do the discovery to really figure out why they're engaging with us? Well, how many other people are like that? And where are they? And so in trying to figure out to understand that one on one communication, there's so much insight to be gained, and how to start thinking about skip. And there's a ton of technology out there. And people talk about general AI and chat GDP and these different things. Well, it's to me, what's the point? If you can't figure out as a human to really engage one person, then 10, then 100? Can you do 100? Really? Well, really well, honestly, 100 people? What would it be like, if you just had $50 donor and he built relationships with 100? People? What would you learn? How could you take that to 1000? So I think that scale actually starts right, we want to skip the hard work in like, all the technology is just replicating your knowledge of who that person is. Right? That relationship, and I don't think that's something that that you can skip. So my advice would be, there's all sorts of great technology out there. But man, it all starts with really doing the work to understand why people are engaged with you. Thank you

Becky Endicott

14:08

for saying that. Because honestly, Trend number two for this year is activate the one is gonna build the movement. Yes. And we and I get on my soapbox. Every time somebody gives me an opening to talk about this, but the days of valuing donors based on what they're financially giving you are over we have to look at donor behavior. We have to look at those engagement signals. And I think just flexing that tech and finding a way to just be an authentic freakin human being when you talk to them and see them as a human being asking about their family. I saw this I just think there are ways to connect personally and so thank you for bringing that up. And I just think that the good United I think the way stop soldier suicide has just done a brilliant job of like future proofing fundraising with social media. And I love that we're like taking it to this 2.0 of this conversation, because I want you to talk to us about how nonprofits can really leverage social media, not just as like this additional channel, like because your board member told you, we need to be on Twitter. Yes, I still call it Twitter, we need to be on x, we need to be on Facebook, you know, just because that is not a strategy. But how can they really flex it as a primary platform for fundraising? And how can they future proof that fundraising in the way that you just explained it? Which is that personalization that one to one, that one plus one equals 100? Love your thoughts on this?

Nick Black

15:40

Yeah, sure. So if you're starting net new and you haven't done social before, I'd really start to understand where's your audience? Who do you most resonate with? What's the path of least resistance? You could probably see demographic information of what social channels are out there. But I believe in the world of always doing less better. So are you going to, are you going to whole, whole everything going into Facebook? Do you want to tick tock, okay, whatever. But like, what is that channel for that? Most organizations I interact with have been posting and building community and channels for a while, you know, the first place to start, I think of your smaller organization is trying to monetize this isn't work that you already doing. And we think about monetizing the work and you brought up something really profound. One of the biggest drivers of revenue for good United is someone that has no net worth is a gentleman that guy engage with our cause, and just shares every single post that we have. He just so passionate about the cause that he's probably moved hundreds of 1000s of dollars, for our benefit, because he engages he tells his story. It's not the stop Susa story. It's his story. So I think starting with where you're already investing, were already posting, who are those champions? I can speak a lot to men, I can speak a lot to Facebook, they'll tell you that people are sharing your posts. How do you engage with them? How do you leverage technology available, I would start with building a group. So we know that meta has deprioritize, your post reach, but they've also prioritized group reach, have you been able to invite your top followers or fans into a specific group that you can cultivate, that are going to see everything that you post to them. So I would start there, I'd also start with signing up for the Facebook given tools, it's free, it gives you ability to fundraise. It gives you ability to ask for donations. And if you're not doing it, then you're leaving money on the table. But with that, using those tools for in general calls to action. When I speak with organizations, I think generally most people agree that you want to keep people where they are. And I've yet to meet a nonprofit that has ever sent their web traffic to anywhere else other than to keeping on their website. That's why we have wonderful software platforms that are out there to be able to harness that website traffic. So why is it that we're okay with sending social traffic to the website, you know, if you want to keep people where they're at, then like, let's just make this simple, right? And like there's, I can tell you, if I put my stops or a suicide hat on, it makes me mental when we have to spend time, money and effort to post to build community in one place, then have to pay the sentiment to another. And so I think that to me is the future. Right? And the most powerful part, you know, and I think I'd love to get your thoughts on this is when we first started goodie night, and we built the first fundraising software for social media, the feedback that I got from nonprofit executives like Nick, all you're doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. And I say, Well, you know, I've had seven concussions explaining what that means. The saying, well, the people that would have given to us through our website were not given through social. So that's, you know, super interesting. How would we prove that? And saying, let's take the email addresses in the context, let's match them against ones we already have. Over 95% of people are given social new. And my favorite question is, what is that mean? And to me, that is the single even for the largest organizations in the planet with 10s of millions of email contacts, right? For them. It's over 90% They're new. Right? And like, to me, that's hope, right? That's opportunity. That to me, underlines where we can go is that there isn't the kind of Angel giving, there isn't a client of America's being philanthropic. They're just changing where they're at. And the question to me is, are we going to go to them or force them to where we want them to be?

Jonathan McCoy

19:07

I feel like you're calling out truth that that just when you say it, it sounds so like obvious, but I think sometimes you need somebody to say the obvious of like, of course you want to in the channel, or Yeah, but secondly, like this is the power of like growth mindset. I mean, those of us that grew up in the field, like annual giving, like mint, this thing. Hello, you have this huge opportunity for acquisition, that we're not even looking at it as a legitimate channel and most shops, you know, and I think your point is so spot on, that it's there, it's just gonna look different than it used to look in and actually the opportunity is greater probably than what it's ever been. So those are two things that I'm just like, Yes, keep preaching. Nick, are you going to go

Becky Endicott

19:47

into your question about what is that 95% mean? Ramin Nick, it means that if I'm not engaging with those people over there, I'm getting 5% of the pie. And so when you think about Mehta, when you think like there's over a billion people on Instagram, you know, there's a quarter of a million people on Facebook. And I just think the diversification of where our revenue comes from, and not just the diversification, but the way that we engage with them there. And I think the behavior piece comes back to that, because it's like, how are they? Is somebody one of your rabid fans? Are they showing up and liking everything? Is somebody sharing something to your friend in North Carolina? You know, what are you doing to reach out to them to stoke those flames to steward that and tell them how much that means to you. And just being seen like that, in the world right now has a compounding effect, to not just our connectivity to the mission, but to our worth as individuals, as we're all chasing, purpose, all chasing some sort of high to mute out this loud rhetoric we're hearing and it's like, you are really doing it.

Nick Black

21:03

Becky's spot on and you know, my message to the nonprofit world. And what I'd really like to put out there is hope and optimism, optimism, optimism, optimism. And I have yet to meet a nonprofit that's not going to continue to post on a social. And then when I asked them why there's a very awkward pause. Longer than that, right, like, very awkward. And you say like, well, because that's what we do. And I say no, seriously, like, why isn't? Well, that's where we get engagement. So why are you fighting yourself, though? Like, why do I have to, like litigate this, you know that 70% of America is on Facebook, you know that they spent 30 minutes a day there. So and you know that because you're posting and you're engaging. So like, let's just open, you've already done the hard work, you're already you're already sharing great stories, people are already engaging with you, insanely, and that's not just Facebook, right? Think about LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn is something on the roadmap for good united. But holy smokes, the amount of people that I get that reach out to me trying to sell me something I've yet to have a nonprofit ever reach out to me, ask someone on your board or someone that you have that some sales to show you Sales Navigator, Sales Navigator has at least 35 Different like inputs and filters, where I can search for someone that used to work in the army, that is a chief executive officer at a software company in Philadelphia, and their name will pop up saying wow, well, if you know who your donors are, and who supports you, LinkedIn is maybe the best way to find look alike audiences and start to build relationships at whatever scale that you want. But these people are spent and the whole point being, there's so much opportunity to be had for nonprofits. It's just we just have to see where people are, and be okay with trying, trying, instead of reach out to someone on LinkedIn, send us an email, talk to him on LinkedIn. That's where they are. I

Jonathan McCoy

22:52

mean, Nick, the fact that you can be a torchbearer of hope, you know, considering the lanes that you have had to you know, walk or you have chosen to walk in your life like me just think it says so much. Thank you for the way you're showing up and giving us tons of like ideas and energy in this today. So I want you to shine light on some examples. I mean, good usually works with some of the coolest organization stuff soldiers, suicides epic, who are some orgs that are doing this engagement well, and like what sets him apart? What have you seen in terms of impact? Yeah,

Nick Black

23:21

there's, there's so many, and we're very fortunate, and I'm very humbled to be able to do a small part in service, some incredible missions. And for me, the mission is everything. And, you know, there's a ton of organizations a couple that come to mind. One is a Michael J. Fox Foundation. They tell incredible stories, To Write Love on Her Arms. They're a, you know, there's just like this new generation of nonprofits that are digital first, social first. And it's amazing to see right, where they might not have the heavy infrastructure that one would think of a nonprofit, I know stops or suicide doesn't, we're actually really good at social. So we're building a direct mail program, we're building a email program. So these organizations are really figuring out how to tap in their community to be able to leverage the content that they have the storytelling that they're doing to the world, and allowing people to engage on their terms, to share things to be able to post one of my favorite kinds of use cases a good ignited to stop sort of suicide piece. But we had unfortunately, there was a post from the Veterans Affairs Administration, I think in November that said, we've lost more servicemen, we had unfortunately more people take their life year over year. And the stops are a suicide team user good united to ask people to share the post in Messenger. And what that resulted in was kind of like like a movie right? In real time. We went from eight chairs to 2800. And in real time, the share piece just exploded because which gets to the point, it's not all about money. So if people are engaging with our content, then holy well let's, let's ask them to share posts. Let's ask them their story. And like these are the things that can happen. So I think Michael J. Fox, right loving arms are doing incredible things. There's a small organization, one of my favorites Puppy Rescue Mission. The name speaks for itself. But they they get puppies from combat zones or bring them to America. They're an entire volunteer organization. They just post a fundraising link on their about page through goodie night on their Facebook page. And they raise $1,000 The first month, just people clicking at the start of fundraiser so like, you know, they have I think over 300,000 people engaged with it, but like, wow, look what you've done. Look at the stories. You can raise money here, you can build community here. You

Becky Endicott

25:31

literally just got Puppy Rescue Mission a gift because I'm obsessed. Give oh my god, I'm

Nick Black

25:38

terrible CEO. I just sometimes I see organizations like I'm often on the sales call. And I warned them and the sales team hates it. Because I just I just don't care what's happening. We're serving you like so like,

Becky Endicott

25:50

I'll pay you you have nothing. Yes, yes, let us please raise money for you.

Jonathan McCoy

25:54

So I mean, Nick, we are storytellers at heart to we love philanthropy. I know we're in like mighty community with you. You know, we got to ask you for a story a moment in philanthropy that stopped you in your tracks. Some point in your journey. It can be big or small. But take us back like what's a moment of philanthropy that has stuck with you. We were

Nick Black

26:11

very fortunate stop sort of suicide. We got an award from General Milley and the department defense is nonprofit of the year. And it was really neat where we got to go to the Pentagon and meet with General Milley, who is the Chairman of Joint Chiefs. And they gave us a tour. And for me, we got to go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And that in itself is unbelievably powerful. But we got to go to the barracks for the honor guard and honor guards in elite kind of calling where you do the funerals at Arlington, you do. You walk the walk at the tune on soldier, we have people walking no matter what rain, hurricane, whatever their walk,

Becky Endicott

26:47

it's so powerful. I encourage anybody to go if you haven't seen it before. And

Nick Black

26:52

one of the moments that really shaped my life was that we got to go down into the barracks and I was standing in the corner. And as only a 19 year old, private could do this, this young man asked me as a sir, congratulations. It was really neat, and saying what's name your organization? And you said Stop sort of suicide. And the guy looked me dead in the eyes. And he goes, so when are you going to do that. And it was this moment where I sat there and looked at him, I realized that stop source suicide to that point did not have a mission that was driving an outcome, we were driving an output. And I thought about it a lot. And I said, You know what, for this organization is no longer good enough to be a nonprofit and pat ourselves on the back, we have to be bold, we have to develop a mission set that specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. There was that moment, I called the other two co founders and saying, Guys, we got to, we got to change our thinking about this. And we came up with the mission statement that we're going to reduce veteran suicide to the national average by 2030. And with that, that night, in my hometown of Great Falls, Virginia, there was a fundraising of that. And we usually brought in 15 to $18,000. From this fundraising event at the old roguish pub, which is an awesome place you should go. But that night, I went off script, which I'm going to do and talked about how we had failed to that point. And that we haven't been prioritizing the thing. And the thing was to accomplish the mission of reducing veteran suicide, the national average, and we didn't do everything we can to get there. Instead of 15. We raised 55. And I had a line of people standing up and saying, You talking about your failures and having a big mission set on behind you. So for me, it was a moment, right? Well, the number one thing they'll talk to nonprofits number one thing for me, is your mission big enough? Is it measurable? There's a lot of people asking for money. Are you asking for money? Are you asking for an investment? Nick,

Becky Endicott

28:42

I like you so much. Like you? I do I do. I felt like I was with you in that room. And and John, we've talked about this so many times, you know, in a channel, the Dan PELADA all the time like is your vision and your mission so big and so ridiculous. That it actually can be a beacon to people who want to come along and either eradicate that thing, reduce that thing, or amplify that thing. And it's it's business as usual. I mean, we've talked about this, this was our number one trend this year business as usual is dead gone, right? And it's like embracing the vulnerability, the authenticity or people want to know they don't you know, they they think they know the founder of stop soldier suicide, but right there they saw Nick, they saw a human being and it shifts. When you get out of that mindset of here's our CEO on a pedestal and you actually shift to the humanity. Guess what community comes along with you because they see themselves as as that they don't see themselves as a CEO. They see themselves as a part of the movement. So I love the way Uh, you are living this life, I love the way you're running this business. And I absolutely love that you're sharing all of the details and you're talking about, you've written this freakin book, which is amazing. We're gonna make sure that it gets when it drops, you all have access, but I anticipate you probably will give it a lot of weight because you want people to have this resource in their hand. And I just feel the generosity of your spirit, fill the hope. we're winding down this episode. And I have to ask you this final question, which is, what is your one good thing? We ask all of our guests this, could you distill something, a piece of advice, maybe a life hack, something that you've learned, and give that to the community today? For

Nick Black

30:41

me, I've never been very talented at anything. I don't have many physical, you know, or mental capacity. But the one thing I think I've been able to do is perseverance. And I think that for me, for whatever it's worth the road less traveled means the world but you know, I have, I have Winston Churchill quotes all over my wall, and I can read you a couple of them. Success goes from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. 99.9% of what I do, I fail. And I think embracing failure is one of the keys to being successful. And that if you're not failing or not trying, and my guidance to you is that don't fail big right? Fail small, that's an art. But you know, and I have one that when I walk out my door, and it's a military one, because I don't know how I'm gonna win, I just know I'm not going to lose. So whether it's reducing veteran suicide and mash out by 2030 We're democratizing funding spirits to good united, there's gonna be a million failures along the way. But you know, I've embraced it, and it's worth it. So just keep going. Nick

Jonathan McCoy

31:42

Black Status, yeah, really, this this whole conversation just been such a beacon to the sector. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking, I wish I would have had access to this, this type of conversation. 15 years ago, as we kind of had starry eyes dreams in our nonprofits. This is the kind of game changing perspective mindsets to embrace. So how can people connect with you? I mean, you're a powerhouse on LinkedIn, tell us the ways to find you, where you show up? How can people engage with your content and get united and everything else?

Nick Black

32:11

LinkedIn is probably the best. And you know, I'd love to chat with, you know, anyone that's interested in and learn.

Becky Endicott

32:16

Nick, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you so much, and it comes back.

Nick Black

32:19

This man,

Jonathan McCoy

32:22

thanks so much for being here, friends, and 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.

Becky Endicott

32:31

We'd love for you to come join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. Sign up today. We're for good.com backslash Hello. And

Jonathan McCoy

32:42

one more thing if you love 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 this community. Thanks so much friends. Can't wait to our next conversation.

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