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, where 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. That he went, what's happening and happy Friday.
I'm like grinning this Friday, because we have somebody coming in to the podcast who's been with us for a long time. And we're such big fans of his to.
Absolutely. And really, he is so instrumental, and even the series that we're pouring into right now coming into focus. And so if you're joining us this Friday, you're picking up in the middle of the funders mindset series, because we wanted to create space, you know, our community welcomes all and we really mean that when we say everyone matters, but I was talking to Sean couch our guest today, a few weeks ago. And he really illuminated that, you know, we need to have more conversations about opening just the relationships and the transparency between funders and grantees and just trying to get more and more people into this Impact Uprising. And you know what we couldn't agree more. And so that was really the genesis for wanting to have really open conversations about what is it like on the funder side? How can we better empathize and understand and uplift each other. And so today's conversation, like we've been counting down the days to have it and we are so delighted to have Sean couch, he's the president and CO trustee of the JW couch Foundation, they just have this really incredible story. And it dates back to Sean's grandfather, who really his values is actual funds, but his heart and heartbeat is in every part of how this foundation moves. And we just love the way that they show up in the world. Not only is Sean plugged into the community of we're for good, but it's also in how he selects and finds the charities to lock arms with. It's really all of the values that we talk about get uplifted here, using the power of community using the power of media to really fund in really creative ways. And I mean, some of the investments or organizations that we all know and love from the farm link project to Charity Water to even the Center for humane technology. I don't know about y'all, but we were all brought into the vortex of that documentary film, the social dilemma that they don't really got in the ground floor of creating as well. So there's a lot of connectivity to making movements. And that's how Sean thinks he thinks at a bigger level. And it's got to be from the Swiss Army Knife digital marketing mind that he is bringing into this foundation in its day to day. So it is a huge honor. Sean, you're joining us literally from the road of Florida today. On the podcast. It is a delight to have you in the house, though. Thanks for being here.
Yeah, guys. Thank you. And thank you for the marvelous introduction. I, I would like I want a copy of that. And what that type. That was beautiful. Thank you.
Well, I mean, we've gotten to know you offline a little bit and know more of your story. But I'd love for you to catch our audience today up to just share a little bit of some of the defining moments of your life and catch us up to the good work that y'all are doing now at JW couch foundation.
Right? So the Jamie couch Foundation, we're entering our sixth year of operations. And it's been an amazing rollercoaster ride for us. We of the last five to six years, we've donated around $10 million of grants to organizations across the country. And it's been the most humbling experience for me. And for somebody who has a entrepreneurial spirit. It's been a remarkable journey to learn and to evolve with such a remarkable community of people who are doing such amazing work, and to learn about private foundations specifically, and how they help move the needle for so many people around the world. And what we can do to think differently, to continue to evolve and move with these people who are doing such amazing things.
Yeah, I want to just compliment you, Sean because, you know, after 20 years in the sector, Jon and I are working through marketing through major gifts through annual giving, you get to meet a lot of foundations. And you're just one of those that just sort of rises above because you're thinking differently. You don't see walls. You're getting creative with your funding. You're open handed and we're just really curious about your Inception story. Tell us a little bit about your incredible grandfather and get in just talk about what his vision was and what he wanted to do with this foundation.
Yeah, absolutely. So my background will go way back. So my background was I graduated from Texas Tech with a undergrad and advertising a minored in English, and went moved on to Austin, Texas, where I basically worked for various different tech startups for almost 10 years. And my grandfather passed in that time. And he was a very amazing man, he was very charitable with his time and very involved in the communities that he invested in. And he played with things very close to the chest also. So really, the foundation was nothing. It's something I knew nothing about until he passed, and his estate was used to create the foundation. And it was remarkable for me because I inherited something that coming from a tech startup, my own startup, but the the model of it was reversed, right? You know, it was about giving money and helping people. And it was an industry I knew nothing about. And so I spent a lot of time researching about, you know, how do private foundations operates, you know, what are the things we can do, and also aligning that with our family's values and our history and things that we find to be interesting and are passionate about helping. And it's just kind of continued to evolve. I mean, the first year was very easy. We, we gave grants to organizations that we knew and loved and Houston, where I'm from, where my grandfather's from, and really kind of took the time to just marinate and bring myself up to speed on all of the things that we could do. And getting to wear my marketing hat and creating a brand and a website and an application process, that I wanted to be easy for people and make us feel accessible and not have to jump through too many hoops. And it's been it's been it's been a process, because we've for to jump forward. Now we you know, we've the floodgates have opened this past quarter, we've gotten about almost 500 grant applications, and I think over $30 million worth of requests. So
congratulations, you've arrived, you are fully integrated into nonprofit.
I'm glad though, I mean, I'm feel prepared for it. We built the very robust custom kind of application process that makes it easy for me to navigate that, and I spent the time reading each and every one of them. And it's incredibly difficult to have that level of power or, you know, ability to say yes or no, and it's terrible. And that's kind of always been my train of thought is how can we help organizations other than just the monetary ways. And it's something I've learned as someone in my role is that inherently it's, it's kind of a part of the nature of the beast, but you meet so many people from every spectrum of this sector. And if we can't give money, then we obviously sometimes know people who maybe can step in to help. Or we have other ideas that we come across in those kinds of application process where they have specific needs, and maybe they weren't thinking of this from from this lens. And so I love going through that process and having those conversations and maybe fulfilling the grant request that they have, or taking it and evolving it into something better and bigger. Just it all just it always kind of serendipitously works out.
I mean, I love that your pillars are just so clear. You know, on your website, you're so transparent in the things that light show up as an organization. But there's also just this unique perspective. And you've been so candid with us too, about how, what's the mindset inside of an granting organization like you and I love to just, you know, welcome us into that conversation and get us a peek into what's it like to try to live that out in real time and try to navigate these big decisions?
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, obviously, I think every decision we make are, the pillars are huge, because those are really the compass for us, and for the organizations that apply for grant applications. And that's the starting point. And now that we're getting so many applications, it it really, it really is amazing to me how we, we try to budget every pillar the same across the spectrum. And every year it's remarkable that somehow serendipitously, there seems to be always a reoccurring theme that happens, and it's because of the application Since we read, so we have various sets of focus and each of those pillars, and all of a sudden, I may get one specific grant, for example, we can use FarmLink as a great example. Because that we that year was remarkable how that happened. So we have a waste management, specific focus and our preservation pillar. And I first heard about the farm link project, and learning about educating myself, because that's really what it's about. I mean, you get educated and all of these different issues, and all of a sudden, you're just like, wow, I really want to focus more on that I want to learn more about that topic. And the FarmLink project were such an amazing story, where they came on board, and that just kind of queued things up for next applicants. And it also opened the door that later that year for the upcycled Food Association, who were all about taking them recycling food, and upcycling them to create new entire products. So I really kind of spent the whole year learning about an industry and a need, that I had no, I wouldn't say interest, but no knowledge of and it just completely just sent us down this rabbit hole of focus for that specific year. And so really, that's kind of what happens every year is that an applicant comes to us, who sees our focus, and maybe even has an insight into previous grants that we've done. So they tried to, you know, fill that niche. And it just works. It's well kind of organically. And I mean, of course, we have to look into other variables in terms of where we are in our budget, and all those kinds of traditional things that you need due diligence things that you need to do. But in terms of selecting grantees, it really the first round, I would say is key for us, and how that dictates the year because we always get around with people who just, it's such a fascinating thing, that problem they're trying to solve. And we just want to learn more. And we continue to kind of just go down that road until the end of the year.
Okay, I gotta I gotta lift an observation here that I know that we're all having here. And it's that Sean is completely disrupting the funder, power dynamic by literally saying, I'm a student. And you have such a humble approach that you're coming in with curiosity to learn. And I think I'm going back to my past 20 years and saying, Oh, I mean, it just felt like foundations had all the power, all the control. And you just delivered, you know, it was about compliance. And what you're saying here, and I am here for the evolution of this, is, we got to partner and tell these stories, we got to give, you know, funders access to this information, we need to bring them in to the education because I think that is your great gift here, Sean, is that you are so deeply curious about it. And I know that you all have some some really interesting ways and mindsets and modes of operation that that help you break out of what is really a historically tedious grant system. Can you talk about a couple of those?
Sure, absolutely. So in terms of our grant process, we try to make it as streamlined and easy as possible. I mean, anybody right now can go on our website and apply for a grant as long as it's aligned with one of our charitable programs that we have listed there. And we have specific deadlines around every year. And I mean, after that, it's, it's, I go through and read every one of them. And that process is always such a emotional experience for me, because there are so many amazing people doing things. And that mean, just, for example, a really great example, that happened this past quarter, one organization called adventure for all they are based out of here in Florida. And I went to visit their website. And I started doing my own due diligence and research. And I came across a video that they had on the homepage, and just got completely immersed in what they were doing because of the amazing storytelling that they were sharing with me. And they had a grant request for a reasonably small amount. And once I kind of saw their budget and what they're doing, I was compelled to give more. Because I thought how they presented themselves the stories that they were telling and how they were really making me empathize more. And putting me in a headspace that I was not familiar with was such a remarkable thing. And that happens to me a lot in the process of this because it's not just being educated. It's it's being inspired by the people that are doing some amazing things. And that kind of segues into what I've always believed is that all of us in this industry in the nonprofit world, I think one of the most powerful assets we have is our ability to tell stories. And that's what helps people connect. That's what helps people, you know, roll up all the supporters and community around them. And that's something that we've wanted to, we've been doing over the past, you know, few years is doing specific media grants, to help people tell their stories, because those investments have a shelf life that could go far beyond any grant an organization can give. And that's been a remarkable process for us that we've been going through. Oh, we got to talk about
that. We do have to talk about that. Because I remember, we know, I think we had met FarmLink project before I'd first met you personally. And I watched the video that y'all actually funded. And I had, you know, the experience, our team had the experience to watch this and feel so moved, and just excited and eager of like, how do you get plugged in. And it's like, that's the power of media when done, right. That's power of storytelling, that gets you your changes, mind changes perspectives. And then to find out that y'all actually fund that, to me, as a marketing minded person is like, next level, because it's more about what can this spark, it's not the end all be all, it's like a spark for a much bigger movement. And so talk a little bit about what that investment looks like maybe thread a story of somebody that's taken that and applied it, and what you're seeing as a result,
we had an idea when it comes to creating videos for the farming project, and others. And it was really about me leveraging my marketing background and my marketing skills to help these amazing teams mazing people help tell their stories better. And one of the best ways I can think to do that was through the power of video. And through that process, I met the team over at tectonic and working with Doug and his team really just took everything up to another level. And really, a lot of the credit goes to them, because this is something that they have been doing for years. And we said dependently found each other because I was reading news on some specific nonprofit website and saw an ad for their organization. And so it really, really formed this amazing kind of partnership where I would help essentially facilitate or produce the film's by introducing these teams to Doug and his crew. And they would go through the entire process of kind of we all would sit down and talk about their goals and their objectives and what these assets mean to them and how they can help. And we cranked them out. And the first one we did was with a farming project. And watching that process was so remarkable because we created three specific videos, one for different audience, one for each different. So one was an overall brand video one was for targeting farmers specifically and the last one was for like brand partnerships. And it went extremely well to the point where I don't want to take full credit for this, but I think it helped when a producer came across them. And they're doing such amazing work. And then I got to watch you know, Aidan go on stage with Ellen DeGeneres with our video footage playing in the background and then watch her give them a grant onstage. I mean, that was just it was so amazing to watch and I think that's a testament to how hard and the amazing things that they're doing and just the power of storytelling.
Sean I got to give you some background perspective on this because it's come full circle that video for me because and I want to make sure that you and anyone who's pouring into media and into storytelling and marketing understands how powerful this vessel is. So yes, we saw that FarmLink video you know we love the FarmLink guy so much height and and Ben but my 12 year old daughter, little environmentalist, you know follows Mr. Beast I've talked to him about bout him on this podcast before this YouTube influencer. He ends up seeing that video. This is a person with over 100 million social media followers. He ends up sharing it she shows it to me I'm like I've already seen it. And then I watched later that Mr. Beast does a fundraiser on Instagram and I think Facebook and I don't even know where else on all of his channels and it's like one click you know if you like this will give $5 to farm link if you leave a comment we'll give $10 to farm links and when and so I want you to know that even though your core avatar initially Lily may have been deterred target that farmer, it may have been to get brand awareness, investing in median story like that has a compounding ripple effect to the hands of a 12 year old, you know, on her device in Oklahoma. And that, to me is the great, extraordinary story. Because who can tell where else that's that video has been. And so on behalf of nonprofits who are really trying to elevate that story, thank you so much for being open minded and open handed to go that route.
Thank you for sharing that about how they're that there's aspects that are really impacting people that I had no idea about. And that was, that was the idea. Like, yeah, the idea was to create assets that could withstand so many things and have a long shelf life and surprise you in ways that you've probably never even thought were possible. I mean, that's and that was the idea. And I'm so glad that that's happening now. And I look forward to doing many more of those. Because we've only done to the date, we've only done about, I think we're on four or five right now. And so if I could do more, I could do more. But unfortunately, it's a process. And it takes time to get these things together. But they're well worth the wait. Well,
I mean, we just love the way that you approach this work. And you kind of alluded to this earlier in the conversation, I want to circle back to it. You know, storytelling, remembering that there is a human reading these grant applications, you know, is everything. And I think it's easy to get into, like filling in the box and realizing that you're building this case you're trying to connect with a human being storytelling is core to that, you know, what would you impart as wisdom of someone filling out a grant application? How do you use and thread storytelling into these asks, and what's some of the best things you've seen?
You know, I have for me, personally, I think storytelling when getting grant applications and talking about storytelling, visually, I'm very visually driven. And so when you can show photos and you know, presentations that give me more insight into what the community that they're you're trying to help as an applicant, and really provide those kinds of assets. That helps me a lot, because reading 500 grant applications in the span of three months, is a tedious and time consuming process. And it's really shocking that more people don't do that, because, and I understand it too. I think a lot of people as grant writers kind of get in the mode of autopilot. And they put together kind of the same deck or the same pitch, and they're trying to raise money, and they're trying to hit a mark. And I think the monotony of that can do harm. And I think that it all kind of ties into how people also probably prospect and the time and dedication they're giving to each, you know, funder all plays a role. But if there's anything that you can do for me, I find that the more visual you can be the more descriptive and dynamic and the way you tell your story, the better. Because that really sets you apart from others. And I think it's very obvious when I'm getting a grant application or a proposal. And it was probably the same one sent to 20 different people, but they just changed the title and the address. And so I think that's and it stinks because I get it. I know how hard grant writers are working. And it's it's a process. But I think that's really something important to remind all of us about is that, you know, those personal touches go a long way.
You heard it here first, folks bring those adjectives out from the back of the drawer that you were told to put away and to be buttoned up and PC because your funders want to know that humanity. They want to see the picture of the human at the end of this work. They want to feel connected to the work on a level that's beyond what can fit in this one little text box about this question. And so I think this is the great evolution of what we're seeing in grant making and grant writing. And I'm really here for it. And, and I thank you for being so open. And in really being one of those that's shepherding in Sean, this new way of interfacing of storytelling of granting. And I gotta ask you, you've been a, you know, a student of the podcast for a long time, I got to ask you about your one good thing and I wonder if you could put your one good thing through the lens of what you've learned as a funder or what you'd like to see in the world.
I think what I've learned as a funder actually is more of a call to action. option for other funders that are out there. And that is, don't look as if you're a person running a private foundation or a corporation who gives money, I think that it's important to take a step back. And don't make it such a lot of other expression for it is turnkey, or, you know, autopilot, but dedicate more time to it and get more creative and think about ways that you can help, whoever it is you're trying to help and whatever your goals are. Because I think that there are a lot of people out there who are trying to help people. And it's intimidating, and it's overwhelming. But if you can start small and build your way up, I can guarantee every one of those people that there's so much reward in this work. And it's more than writing that grant check. It's more than your annual meeting that you may have, and any other reasons that I feel like kind of make the process to a lot of people maybe not so compelling or engaging. So I think for me, that's my biggest good thing. And if I could do anything, right from learning this is to really help other funders. You just step their game up and gauge more and be more creative. Because there are more things that foundations can do than just write grant checks. They can build things on their own, they can do more. And that's what I want to do. That's my goal. That's, that's, I want to help advocate for more of that in the world.
Sean is the freakin Impact Uprising like embodied I love every bit of that.
I mean, from knowing you, I know your heart and this is that you want to connect with people you want to connect with other funders to find community you want to connect with nonprofits. So point is to all the ways y'all show up online. How can people best reach out to you Sean and foundation specifically,
the easiest way you know go to the website, but you know, if you want my personal email is Sean sta n at JDB couch foundation.org. I love I love hearing feedback from other people I love hearing. But more specifically, like I said, I want to get I want to build a community of funders people that we can really help move the needle because it's it's they're out there and and you know, a lot of them fly under the radar. And they all have various reasons. But I think there's an opportunity there to bring more people together to help all of these communities who are all trying to make the world a better place.
Well, if we could be a part of igniting that you just let us know. And if you are out there and you're a funder, and this is of interest to you, please reach out to Sean This is the first time in my life I've ever had anybody on the podcast who is a funder, give their actual email address out and not hide it somewhere back up their website. So thank you for that. Thank you for your open mindedness. I will say as a marketer your website is so beautiful and so well done Bravo you Red Raider, even though I'm an OSU, we're rivals well done. I just I just really am so glad to know you in this work. And in this lifetime, Sean Couch, you are a treasure and we're just rooting for everything that is happening within JW couch and it feels like your momentum is just only beginning. Awesome.
Thank you guys so much.
Thanks such an honor. Thank you my friend.
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