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, philanthropists, world changers and rabbit fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started.
Hey, Jon, what's up?
Hey, B I mean, I'm rubbing my hands together because we get to talk about one of our favorite topics today, and that is leveraging modern media to scale impact. This is one of the trends that we lifted at the top of the year, and it's really fun to look at it from a lot of different angles, because, let's face it, friends, it is time to invest fuel and activate around our cause areas through the power of media, like it's out there right now. Influence is currency, connection is currency. And, you know, activation is currency. So how do we embrace that tension and release control of our message? Let it take on a different shape by partnering with creators and those pouring into the media space. So we have compiled this panel at the virtuous, responsive nonprofit summit earlier this year, and we just had to replay it here, because there's such rich conversation of things you can do today from some of the most brilliant minds in the sector right now.
I am truly pinching myself at how incredible and dynamic our panelists are, and they are truly living in the moment of how to leverage modern media to help scale their missions. Let me introduce you to our panelists. The first is Jeff Rosenblum He is the co-founder of Questus. Our dear friend, Neda Azarfar,. She's the founder of Nazar Works, Dr. Bertrhude Albert. You know her. She's been on the podcast several times. We adore her. She is the CEO of P4H Global over in Haiti, and then the incredible Kelly Lyndgaard, the founder and CEO of Unshattered, incredible, dynamic organization in upstate New York, working on addiction recovery. So dive into this. Get some incredible pro tips. Learn how to leverage media as a way to scale your impact. We can't wait to hear your stories.
We got to start talking about mindsets, you know. And I think Dr B, we definitely want to kick it to you first, because kind of name this in your intro. But I want to talk about fear, which is maybe not a natural place, but we think it's like so core as a place to start when we think about flexing media, let's just call the elephant in the room. A lot of us feel really uncomfortable about getting center stage about some of these topics. A lot of us work in really difficult topics. But I mean, you've overcome so much to be able to do that, not only with your own story, but with a bigger story about Haiti, talk about how you overcame that, and what are some recommendations for everybody joining today about how they can just get into the game of talking and sharing.
Yeah, certainly again, I want to thank you all for having me. And I love this question, because everything so I work in Haiti. My full time job is training teachers in Haiti. I was just there in Haiti, and I'll be there in about another two weeks. And as I was working in Haiti, I found that it was powerful. The work was moving. But the diaspora, the Haitian people that were in the United States and and people that are allies of Haitian Haiti, they didn't know our story. They didn't know what was going on. And so I decided to go on social media, and I was like, You know what? I need to share the true story of our people. I need to share what we're doing on the ground in Haiti, but then also the history of our people, who we are, where we come from, what we've what we've accomplished as a people. Because there's just been this negative narrative about Haiti, there's been this, this concerted effort to just downgrade our people. And so I knew that social media was key to spreading the truth of my country, this truth of my people. And what has been very important for us is this idea that as scary as it might be because I was like, Oh, what if I don't look good this day. What if my hair is not done? Well, what if? What if they don't receive what I'm saying.
The struggle is real.
Or what if they even take me just as like the angry Black woman, like, because I have so much truth that I want to share, like there was so much fear in me going on social media and just making a video. But then I knew at the end of the day, in order for me to connect with the people I wanted to connect with, I needed to share a story, and I need to do it through social media. The last thing I'll say, I mean, I could spend hours, but like, it's blown my way my mind, seeing how people have taken a hold of what's happened. In just two years, my TikTok has grown to over 250,000 people. Instagram has grown to about 100,000 people, and this is just in two short years of going on. And it's not just because I'm cute, which I'm cute, but it's not because
You are.
Because people want the authenticity they want the story they want. Want to know, and they want it to be shared with like an open heart and with a genuine spirit.
Okay, such a good tone set, because we move from fear into joy, and I want to compliment you. Dr B, because when I watch your videos, I feel joy, and I mean your millions of views and downloads later, and people are sharing that story. And I think that's the thing that we want you to understand about modern media. It's not one and done. It's creating something that can have ripples, and no one understands amplification and ripples like Jeff does. And you have worked at this sort of intersectionality of marketing, media, advertising, consumers for decades, and you have seen just incredible opportunity that is there for the taking. What can nonprofit seize in this moment to really grab that opportunity and start to get a voice and a cadence going out in media?
Yeah. So first of all, so good to see you guys, Becky and Jon.
We missed you.
Every moment I spend with you is is one of my favorite moments, and you're two of the greatest people. And if I could, before we even answer your question, just say to your whole audience like congratulations and thank you and you're incredible human beings for doing what you're doing as the lone capitalist working with Fortune 100s on a regular basis, what you guys doing is so incredible, and everybody wants to move the world forward, and everybody thinks they kind of are, but every single person that's logged into this right now, you're making the world a better place and in a real, real way. And that's not the easy life decision. So on behalf of everybody else who's not doing that, I'd just like to say thank you and congratulations. And now I'm incredibly nervous, because I don't know if I can bring enough value to this equation and answer your question, but I'll take a swing at it. Here's what I here's what we tell all of our clients, which is, at the end of the day, the secret sauce to all of media, all of marketing, all of creativity, all of data, technology, all these things feed into the modern marketing ecosystem. It all sits successfully. When it's done successfully, it all sits on a foundation of empowerment. And what that really means is, if you think about marketing and the history of marketing, and some of the greatest ads ever, they're not that cool anymore, right? It used to be like this desperate game of getting attention and superficial messages. And when you turn on TV or YouTube pre rolls like everyone's desperately trying to get attention, there's Flo from Progressive in the Geico Gecko and all that crap like those days are over, and particularly for your audience, because your audience is looking for something that's a lot more meaningful. So what I think you can lean into is empowering people, giving them meaningful content, really answering their unmet needs and unmet questions. Sometimes those questions are very emotional. They need to be inspired. I don't think they need to be entertained. For some reason, in marketing, there's this legacy of entertainment that's frivolous, right? It's superficial. Like, how do we inspire people to let them know that they can be part of your organization and make a real difference, and then ultimately, how do we give them that, what we call functional messaging, like, answer all those questions that people have, whether you're helping Haiti or any other organization, people have questions like, where are my dollars going? What else can I do to help and in what are the ways that we're making benefits? What are the challenges that you're facing? Like, there are tons and tons of questions, and I think Dr B's thing about being on social media is a great technique. It's there are many, many techniques out there, but if you always look at this lens of, how do I bring value, how do I empower the audience, how do I answer questions you don't need to think about, how do I capture attention? How do I build awareness? All that stuff is overrated. Give them the information that they're looking for, and it'll move your business forward.
I mean, y'all, you brought so much value with that. Jeff, thank you for these tone setting convos I mean, I feel like we're we're moving past our fear here in this conversation we have. We hold the power here. And I hope everybody here realizes that there is a powerful story and value that you're bringing to the world. So, Neda, I want to kick it to you. Bust some myths for us, my friend, we've heard from nonprofits that think leveraging media, and I'm not just talking about social media, it's, you know, it's not enough. How can we reorient our mindset that this is for them? You know? It's, it's an opportunity that all of us can really pour into.
Yeah, thank you also for having me, and I love the hype, so I really appreciate it. And I do feel what Jeff feels, where it's like, I'm not really one of the good ones. I just kind of work here. But you all do all the good stuff.
You both are so good.
I definitely feel that way. So I would say the thing I noticed, the myth I want to bust for people is, I don't know if this is a myth that people consciously think about, but this concept that this idea that you can focus on just, you know, one type of media and just really go all in on that, and if you do it really, really well, then maybe. You don't really need to worry about the other ones so much. And I don't know if people consciously think this, but you can see it play out in the way nonprofits set up their media mix and where they allocate disproportionately and where where they don't. And I think that that, to me, is maybe a result of fear, you know, maybe it's a result of, well, this is what I have control over. Or, you know, this comes from this budget. So whatever reason it's happening, though it's to the detriment of the whole thing, because we're trying to use things that were designed to do certain to have certain impacts, and we're trying to use them to do something else, and then it's not working, and we're not exactly sure why. And I think that the fact that a lot of times we even we think that this is possible to do, like, if I just really build up my socials, you know, and my web content and my website, then, you know, my own channels, I'll have, I'll have the success that I want. Right, years ago, it was like the myth of an ad campaign, how, how doing a big campaign for a nonprofit was going to make their year and then, and then it wouldn't, and people would be disappointed, and then they were like, you know, well, it was the campaign, and it was the message, but it wasn't it was that, it was that that's just one media type, right? So just kind of like breaking it down, very simple, because you told me to do that, Becky in the prep, it's like, you know, think of like, paid, owned, earned, right? So you're owned is your website, your social, in your channels, you got full control. That's where you go, very deep, and you can present the message however you need to present it, and give people all the information that you think that they need to have with the flow. But the problem is, if all you're doing is over investing there, you know, audiences are not getting that communication with you unless they're already in communication with you, so you're not really reaching new people too much and growing, growing your pool, paid helps with that. That's where you're doing ads to like intercept you know people where they are. You still have a good amount of control, but it has to be pretty short, right? So you have to summarize and then use the paid to get people to your channels where you can go deeper and earned. This is, like the the sweet spot, right? It's really special because there's still an interception that's happening. But it's not you the brand, right? So it's maybe, it's a journalist. I think today, you know, people, people. I don't think this effect is that people trust influencers today more than they trust journalists. I don't like that, but that is true, right? And so to me, when I think of earned I would say, think of word of mouth and peer to peer, and PR and and influencers in this and that is really effective at reaching people, but it's really effective at opinion formation, right and and credibility and building trust. And so, you know, with that breakdown, I would say for nonprofits, the idea that you can just do one of these things really, really well and get where you need to get it's never going to work. And the fact that it's not working is not because you need to re you know, you need to hire a new content editor or or rethink your social you know, your social posts, you may need to, I don't, I don't know, but it's probably because you're not thinking about the whole thing, right? And you need, if you've got goals that range from I want issue awareness to, you know, I want member engagement, I want donors, then you need that, like, whole funnel, you know, that marketing funnel. I don't know if how much you're familiar, right? Like, you need that whole funnel approach where you're using different types of media, the appropriate types of media, in the appropriate ways that are aligned to your different KPIs along that funnel. So that's my thing, that I want people to like, really get, is to come out of your fear and come out of what you know you've done in the past, come out of that one little like niche area of marketing and media and and think about the whole thing.
Okay, I gotta give you some validation, some affirmation, because you nailed this, and I think that that was so good, and I'm so glad you brought up the creator economy, because whether you're in it or not, it's here, it is going to be a $1 trillion business by 2027 and I think what a lot of people miss is that these are communities. These are trusted influencers, content creators. I mean, I'm looking at Dr B. That is a trusted content creator and human who has built her own community, which means it's going to be a plus one, because it's an amplifier. It's going to get you into spaces that other people can't like, get you in you can't get on yourself. And so I want to help people who are listening figure out how to start. I want to go through some case studies. And Kelly, I'm so dang proud of you. I remember in December, I get this email from Kelly, and she's like, Hey, I'm going on Kelly Clarkson next week, and we chat, and I was just heart bursting, because I think what you have done to one go from this physic, be this physicist, and to being a nonprofit leader who is literally taking on addiction in this entirely new way based around community, but you're flexing media in such brilliant ways. So talk about how you're taking the Unshattered story, you know, out into the world, and how you're getting that amplification.
Yeah, well, first, I'm so grateful to be here and so grateful for all of your coaching and advice. We wouldn't be doing this well if we didn't have you helping us shape this? And you know, I coming from a corporate world, right? I had some media training about what it means to be on a stage, but not how to access it. So we've just been really scrappy about where can we get resources that we don't have to pay for? One of the best places to do that is local colleges and universities. So we partner with Marist College, that is near us. They have a whole PR department that is student led. They do great work for us. We do some interns. That's a great avenue. I think one life changing organization, changing moment, was on the heels of the pandemic. Up until that point, most of our sales were face to face. And of course, that was all shut down. So we pivoted. We ended up making masks when that was a new thing. That seems ridiculous now, but I knew that media was the only way to survive, and so I just started making phone calls to people in the network, and that landed us on NBC, Nightly News with Lester Holt. CBS News came to us and did the story, Fox News, Huffington Post, knowing that we had something amazing to tell and empowering somebody else to tell it on our behalf. So I have just found that if you have a good story, you make it clear it resonates with people, you give them the language to share it, they will. And so back to the working with Marist College. It was actually one of our former interns through that program that's now a producer on the Kelly Clarkson show that landed us there. So it's relationships, pathways, empowering people to have a voice, and being very clear about your messaging for us, as we talk about ending the addiction relapse cycle, we call everybody from an individual customer to people like you who are speaking on our behalf, ambassadors of possibility. And so crafting that identity for people when they do something like share the word for us has been really, really powerful in the market.
I mean, we just
You are slaying it.
Yeah, totally slaying it. And seriously, go check out the site and meet some of the women and the stories behind this movement. Dr B, we're like Joy's a vibe. We love watching you soar. The last two to three years have been incredible to watch your journey. What's some pro tips from your vantage point, as you've had openings to stages and new doors, kind of talk us through pro tips of what you've learned along the way?
Yeah, certainly. And even before I could do that? Could I jump on the idea of fear for a second?
You kidding me? Preach. Get in that pulpit.
Okay, I'm ready. Let's go. Okay, so when we're thinking about fear, I think that it's a really powerful and beautiful thing. It's part of our humanity. And in this work, a lot of times, whether we're trying to do work on media or even our work with our nonprofits, or trying to do good in the world, fear might try to get in the way, but I think that fear is it could be a really good thing, because it tells us that what we're facing is important. There's something that's very valuable, something that's really big and just so important in front of us. And so I think that fear can be a good thing, but courage is always a good thing, because courage is mastery of the fear. Courage is saying, like, despite what's in front of me, despite the the physical reaction that my body is have a having there is something bigger and better ahead of me, and so I'm going to overcome and I'm going to master these emotions. So yeah, I just want to embrace that fear, because it's part of our humanity, and it could make us be on our game like it could make us be sharper and more refined and ready to do the good that we're all here on this earth to do. And so my advisor, like my the tip that I've learned, I guess, in in light of, like, this entire talk and using media to leverage our impact, I think that every day I'm trying to become a better storyteller. I think we've all talked about, like, the impact of stories and the. It's all important because storytelling, it connects it's this humanity. It connects us to another human. Stories are what our ancestors use as a Haitian and all over the world. It's what our ancestors use to pass on values, to pass on knowledge and understanding. Stories are, are what we what connects us to our past. It's what propels us to our future. It what's it's what connects humans together and like the better we get at storytelling and conveying messages and connecting to that, that that beautiful soul that each person on this earth has, like it. It enables us to further our mission, and it brings out the humanity in each of us, and hopefully it'll inspire like, hopefully somebody that's listening today will be like, Man, Jeff, what you said there. Oh, how you told that story. I love it. Let me go change the world. Oh, Kelly. Yeah, like, I, I think that storytelling, in summary, it connects our humanity, and then it also it inspires us to keep on changing lives.
Oh, I mean, this is why Dr B. is the great joy giver, because she can integrate that in. And I have to give Jeff a shout out, because the first five minutes that we met him on the podcast, we learned all about his mafia family, and it was just such a, Julie please drop that in the chat, because I want everybody to fall in love with Jeff in the way that we did too. But I think that you know, getting started, getting that courage and channeling it, recognizing it, and taking that first step is so important. And I have to give a shout out to Natalie in the chat, who is also on the Kelly Clarkson show. She has dropped her media in there. And I want to say to anybody out there. If you have media that you are proud of, drop it in the link. We want to celebrate it. We want to give people examples of what you have done, how you've approached this, how you took it on. It could be with an influencer. It could be with a reporter. It could be with local put it in the chat. We want to see examples of this, but I want to help people who are saying, how the heck do I get started? So I want to kick it to you Neda, because you walk nonprofits through this so beautifully. I love, love, love your ALIMA campaign. In fact, your ALIMA campaign, and Unshattered, made it into my philanthropy giving things last year, because I love both those projects so much. But I also want you to kind of talk about, you know, how do we begin when we have limited staff sizes. We have maybe no budget for this. Hello, this is the reality of working in the nonprofit sector. How can somebody start?
I think that if you are a small nonprofit, and you're kind of thinking, I don't have budget for this and I don't have the resources, you're right. That's a challenge, but you're I think you're actually better positioned to do some of the things that you all talk about than a large nonprofit, because, you know, you actually truly have that ability to to know your supporters and know your audience, because they're not that big, right? And you want them to be bigger, but like, you actually can know them. And I think that would be where I start. That would definitely be where I start a lot of times I see, you know, people come out of they read a benchmark report, or they'll watch a summit. They've got this list of all these marketing activities that they have to start doing. I need to, I need to do this kind of a campaign. I need to do this sort of onboarding, and it's good, and do it and and learn from other marketers and be the best marketer you can be. But my fear is that you know as a marketer, then like you get so stuck in being a marketer, and you spend so much energy and coding messages and delivering messages and tracking and reporting that you forget to even spend that time to like, think about the audience response, you know, and how they are receiving those messages. Not what channel are they receiving it from, but, like, what life context, you know, are they receiving it from? And how are they, how are they feeling about it, and what's, what's it stirring up in them? That, to me, is, is the most important thing, and that is where I would say, as a small nonprofit, take heart, spend the time you know, do all the cool technology stuff, but don't have it replace the relationship you know. Have an automated welcome series. Have an automated thank you, but don't stop talking to your supporters you know, and knowing them right, and you want to start to since your community is small, that's perfect. You don't need to do a huge survey, you know, and do all that stuff. The organizations that do that, it's because they're huge, and they don't know why, and then they don't know what's, what's going on, right? But when you're smaller, just start and sketch out a picture that goes with the name and the email address. And as important as it is to ask people why they supported you and which of your programs they're most passionate about, ask them well supported in the past. Find out, you know, what inputs are, you know coming into their lives. Where do they get information from? You can, you can have your social person. This is a tip. Go into the profiles of your followers and find out who they're following. You're going to get so much good insight from that to really round out these people in your community. And then you can start to develop personas and theories, and you can test them out, and you'll know, as you're growing, why you're growing, where you're getting traction with whom, where you know where you're having, like, what kind of people are dropping off, and why and and you can, you can figure all that stuff out so that when you're huge and you're doing your ad campaign and you're doing the influencer stuff, you kind of know, you already know what's going to appeal to people. You know what you're trying to get from them. And I want to say this other thing, just for the smalls, okay, your power as a marketer is not in it's it's not about the technology that you have or your ability to be on trend, you know, and put together this perfect strategy. We're marketing people. Our power is our ability to know people right like and to talk to them and kind of know intuitively what they're thinking and how they're feeling and and to know how to adjust right, to get them to think and feel differently, and so you never want to get so lost in the channel and the medium and the tactic that you kind of forget that. Do you know what I mean? Does that kind of make sense?
100%.
I feel like you've taken over the role of hype squad for everybody here, like it's a superpower, like we all are sitting on superpowers of having small communities that we're in tune with and in community with, we can build together instead of for, like, it's so much of a better way to show up. Okay, this is so good. We've got about 15 minutes left. I want to talk about really turning up the heat, innovating, trying new things. We call it trying stuff, which is one of our mantras around We Are For Good. We're gonna end up at the tattoo on it, on our arm at some point, probably. But Jeff, okay, you've come in and taught us this phrase that we love so much to empower, not interrupt. And I think that you know you've already said this once, but I want you to break it down. How can we kind of implement this through our storytelling, through how we gather community, and really, how we seriously build solid content that lives on and on?
Yeah, I actually, I'll answer that through the lens of a couple points that were made by Kelly and by Dr B, who actually circled around this point in two different directions. But I think what Kelly said is, you know, stand for one thing, have one key message. And you have to realize, from a macro perspective, there's 500,000 brands around the world, all desperately seeking the attention of your audience. The typical person you may have seen this data sees 5,000 branded messages every single day. We ran a study on this. That's a branded message every 2.7 seconds that you're awake when you're on social media,
Holy smokes.
It's one every 2.1 seconds in, all of the data shows that these numbers may be doubling. It's more than the human brain could ever possibly handle. So the whole key to is have one key point. Have one key message. There's going to be different flavors and different variations to net is point you're going to pull you're going to pull people through the funnel with different techniques and whatnot. But you have to have this one key point, because if you're all over the map, you're literally going to be invisible, and that's the secret sauce. If you look at like Procter and Gamble as an example, or Coca Cola, some of these guys, Procter and Gamble is a great one. They own 17 different brands that are each worth a billion dollars, not their revenue, just the logo alone, a billion dollars, just a logo, right? And the reason the way that they do it is stand for one thing. Now, if you take that and you transpose that over to what Dr B. was talking about, which is, learn how to tell great stories, is probably the single most powerful force in the world of business, in non profits or anything right now, because you can get all the information that you need through artificial intelligence and technology. But the truth of the matter is, with storytelling, I think anyone who sees Dr B. telling a story, it's like, whoa, you are way gifted in this world, like you can tell a story, and a lot of people can do incredible things, but they're not going to be able to tell a story like that and it becomes pretty scary. And what I've learned is, for those folks who maybe don't have that gift or it doesn't come naturally to them, telling a great story is not about what you say, it's about what you don't say. In particular in business, meaning, everybody's suffering from information overload. So if you can strip out all of that extraneous information and get to Kelly's point. What is it that you do? Why is this so important? And how can you help this audience like that's at the key to it? So you strip it all away. If you can get to the point of being a great storyteller a dark and stormy night, capture people's attention, that's lovely. But when you're doing it, scale and trying to grow your organization, do the hard, hard tone. And trust me on this one, it's so much harder than it sounds. Get your story down to a very short paragraph, like two to three sentences, and you'll be shocked how hard that is to do. When you start, you're like, what's my organization? All that? So we're like, this multiple pages. Edit it and get it down so everything is reading off that same super short brief.
Get into ChatGPT, put all of those paragraphs and tell ChatGPT to get it down to three paragraphs. Then make sure they're human. You are so good at this and
You're very good for the ego. Let me tell you wherever I go in the rest of my world.
Friend, I got you every dang time, we are Your hype squad, and you out there, we are your hype squad as well. And I really appreciate just grounding how important the story is, because when people can see themselves in that story, something really magical happens. And when you take them through that experience, then it's not just Ariana Grande retweeted our tweet, and we brought, you know, 5000 new people in they need to have an experience when they're here. They need to understand why they are here. Spencer, I want to validate your question here in the chat about, what can we do if we only have one or two stories for the for the entire year? I thought Natalie gave you great sound advice, because storytelling is about connection, and so source that story from your community. They've got incredible stories to tell. You're going to get cognitive diversity, because different lived experiences and stories and voices are going to be coming into that and guess what? Then your community feels empowered. Back to Jeff Rosenblum. I just want to quote all you guys all the time, but I want to talk about to Kelly. I want to kick it to you, because I just think Unshattered's story is so powerful. It is so succinct, please listen to Kelly's episode on the podcast, because we cried when she was talking about Kintsugi. And these women in this community are literally putting a prayer or a wish into these bags. They sew them into the bags. There is a story within the bag. And I want to hear about your dreams. I want to hear about where you want to take media's impact, how you want it to sort of light up Unshattered. What are you looking forward to in the future?
Yeah, you know the genesis of the story is that I used to be the person who thought that people that struggled with addiction just needed to get their act together, be more responsible, get a job, until I met somebody who was in recovery, who had started at eight years old. Average first use on my team is about 10 years old, and I had no idea that addiction is actually a story of pain, not a story of substance, but when you can give women purpose, safe community, something meaningful, that they can contribute, they are going to thrive. We just had our second one, who was named a 40 under 40 business leader for the Hudson Valley. Yes, June, we will celebrate eight years we've had one single relapse for our employee base, and this summer, we will hit the milestone of having put $2 million in wages into the hands of women in recovery since our Genesis. So we say recovery, when you give the right conditions, is not just possible, it's probable. And my dream is to be able to change the narrative around what addiction is and how we are all affected by it. Maybe for us, it's not a substance. We can change the narrative around it. Get rid of the shame, invest in people and really raise them up to thrive at their highest capacity because of the most creative, most tenacious, most loyal, most hardworking group of people I have ever had the pleasure of being with. I think a really interesting opportunity for us is that often when I do events like these, the sort of highest level professionals will come to me quietly afterwards and say, me too. I struggled too, however many years ago I had this issue. I've never really spoken about that publicly. I would love to be hosting conversations with top tier individuals who have a history of addiction, who are now ambassadors of possibility, doing amazing things in the world to say that was not the end of my story. That was me dealing with pain, but when I was able to handle it in the right way with the right support, it was the same tenacity and strength that brokenness is a very thing that now makes my story beautiful.
Come for the media, stay for the humanity, right?
I know we have to, like, keep this applause track with us wherever we go. I just, like, always want to play it on the podcast. I mean, y'all, I'm kind of grieving looking at our clock because we have about seven minutes left. Each of you has such a story that in such a I don't know, pulse on the community what we need to hear in this moment. And so I want to kick you a one good thing and ask you to just say you've seen the chat, you've seen the love you're in this moment. What do you want to share, you know, as kind of a takeaway with a one good thing for those listening today, we've got nonprofit leaders that have a narrative to rewrite in a lot of cases, or a story to step into or to own. What would you share as a one good thing? Jeff, I'll start with you, my friend.
That's interesting, because it became clear as crystal as I was listening to that story, the one thing that I would share because I think there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are on this call that I passed along to all my friends that are starting a business or running an organization, which is when you when you were brought to your knees, not figuratively, literally, you're on your knees and you're crying because whatever you're doing just isn't working, and you think you're screwing up whatever campaign, whatever initiative, maybe your entire business, that is the moment where you're doing the right thing, and what happens is, most people at that moment, they're done and they can't get back up. And I've learned this just because I've done a lot of entrepreneurial endeavors and all the good ones where I've had success, I've literally been brought to my knees crying literal tears, like the real stuff coming out your eyes. And if you can get up off the mat, that's where the amazing stuff happens. So I know we're here to talk about marketing, but I think everyone here is trying to build something. And if you find yourself at that point, know you're in the right place and just keep going. Don't give up at that moment.
Neda, I'll kick it to you next. What's your one good thing?
I'm going to focus on mindsets. Um, because I think that for all the people who are here, they probably have, like, a mindset where they're trying to learn and grow. But we know in marketing, like, you can't do it on your own. You need the other people when to also have that same energy, so they have to see the opportunities you see and the gaps you see. And so my one good thing is to incorporate the practice of bringing people along with you. And so as you're learning things, make sure that you're sharing that with people along the way. Don't just go in with the idea, you know, or the thing, right? And so sometimes it can happen really quick, like, you just tell people, like, hey, let's focus on this. And you just focus everyone's eyes to an area, and they're like, oh, yeah, our auction, boom, yeah, okay, we gotta do this. And other times, you know, if you've been doing it for a while, you've, you've, it's been where you're like, let's focus on this. And other people look at it and they don't see what you see. And so you're like, how do you not see? This is a problem, right? Um, and so that's where I think you as the marketer. It could be frustrating for all the people on this call. You're going to have all your energy and your ideas, but at the end of the day, you're in marketing, you can't do anything by yourself. You need other people with you, so you might as well just build it into your workflow. And I have been in some very failure, fearing places hostile, you know, and we don't want to change. And I feel like that energy is completely undermined when you have an open, handed approach where you're sharing information, you're sharing your thought process, and you're open to learning yourself, and people can see that in you. So that's my that's my practice.
Kelly, kicking it to you.
I mean, first of all, Dr B, Neda, Jeff, Jon Becky, well I'm like furiously taking notes over here from everybody. So thank you for everything that you guys have shared, amazing. And I think I would just reflect back Becky, you mentioned Kintsugi, which is we have three secrets in every one of our bags. One is the secret message. Another one is that there's a gold seam in every bag, which is a nod to the Japanese art form of Kintsugi. When pottery was broken, they would use gold in the cracks to put it back together, so beautiful that it became a form of art. And that term loosely means more beautiful for having been broken. And so just remembering, for all of us, there was a moment when life cracked us, but the way that those pieces came back together, those scars remind us how strong that we are and can be our beauty and our superpower. So see that as your strength, make that part of your story, lean in and be an ambassador for others to help them embrace that part of themselves.
Okay, you're going have to wheel us off the stage Julie, sorry about this. Dr. B, bring us home, my friend first
and for. Most. Jon Becky, I love you, Julie with all of my heart. Thank you for making me a better human. Thank you for making all of us better humans. And Kelly, as you mentioned, Kelly, Jeff, Neda I thank you three for the inspiration that you are to me today, and finally, for every person that is listening. Thank you for making this world a better place. Thank you for giving your heart, your passion, your life, to nonprofit organizations, to or other types of businesses and organizations that are going to make this world a better place for the future generation, for our children, our children's children's children, and for those of you who might feel like Michelle, Michelle wrote in the chat, she said, I'm so burned out and feel at a crossroads. I want to encourage everybody here to, first and foremost, take care of yourself, because it's not it doesn't matter how fast we go, it matters how far we go, and if we don't take care of ourselves, we won't be able to go that far. Mental, emotional, spiritual, physical health is so important, but also I want to encourage you all that you are powerful, you are incredible, you are seen, you are loved, you are needed in this world. And when you think about the person that inspires you the most, MLK, Nelson, Mandela, all these other incredible people, you are standing on their shoulders, and you are able to do far greater than what they were able to do, because you have their inspiration, and you've got all forms of media make sure that you take care of yourself and know that you're changing this world, and you're making it the world that we all have hoped and prayed for.
You guys, thank you for the strategy, thank you for the tactics. Thank you for the mindsets. Thank you for the love. Thank you for the community. We are overjoyed. We are ready to get out there. I hope we have broken through the wall of fear. If you feel any about this modern media, love yourself first. That's my one good thing. Love yourself believing your story. We are waiting, and we're going to be watching your media play out. Tag us when you have it, tag We Are For Good. We want to see it. And right now, I just want to thank all of our panelists for what you do in the world. Thank you for your joy, your humanity. Please go follow them on LinkedIn. If our panelists, if you have that at the access please drop it in the chat so people can come follow you, and y'all go do great work. We're going to see you on the main stage, so head over to main stage, and we are going to close out today with a bang. So thank you guys, and keep going. You've got this from rooting.
