https://www.listennotes.com/e/ae9ca9912f2c4e8f88f1c860efe5cefa

This.

Is Feed youd Brand with hosts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard.

Welcome back to Feed youd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard along with my co-host Tracy Hazard. Today we're going to talk about cause amplification for nonprofit podcasts. Now, many of you may not have a nonprofit podcast, but I still think there's some things you can learn from this episode that might be valuable to you. But those of you that do have nonprofits, there's some great information you're going to hear today and also some good information from other nonprofits that we support, including one for ourselves within our own organization. But we've been supporting nonprofit podcasters for a long time now. I want to say six or seven years. We've had some very long-term nonprofit podcasters and some even that started a podcast from scratch with a vision, a mission, and not an official nonprofit created yet, but then creating podcasters created a nonprofit that's incredibly successful. It grew out of the podcast. It all went together. So lots of great stuff to share. And Tracy, I know this is a particular area of interest of yours.

Well, it is because, I mean, look, there isn't a better way to amplify a message than podcasting, right? Because if I'm choosing to listen, I'm going to deep dive, I'm going to you really hear the story. There is no other media type besides reading, which we know is at an all-time low across the, I don't know, maybe, I hope it's not across the world, but it's definitely across the United States, that reading is at an all-time low. And so the only way you can really get that whole story, that whole message across is podcasting. You just don't watch the hour, the minutes of video or the hours of video that You would expect we don't consume as much TV and broadcast media and general radio. None of the, all of those things are down in terms of number of minutes or time spent listening, watching, viewing, whatever you want to call it, but not in podcasting. In podcasting, the amount of minutes is increasing. So that means that this is a great opportunity for you to get that long tail message, that big story out, and that's what Building a mission requires. If anyone has had a mission of some kind, it isn't just a quick fix answer, and then everybody joins, right? You pitch them for quite a long time. You get them excited about the mission. You tell stories about what your cause is. So that kind of amplification of a cause requires something that allows a deeper dive.

That's a great point, Tracy. I mean, really independent podcasts are largely driven overall, whether it's a nonprofit or not, by a cause when you think about it, a mission, a vision, a purpose, right? And you have this incredible opportunity to bring your message to the world. But what are some of the- well.

I wanna say one other thing here, and this ties into that very first most important thing, the other thing about podcasting is that you're rewarded with consistency, right? If you're consistent, you always grow on the apps. If you're consistent, your audience grows. When you're consistent and constant in it, it works best. It's just the, I'm gonna call it the algorithm chaser that happens across all kinds of digital media, but it's more magnified in podcasting because the newest stuff is the most important. It's what the listeners are drawn to. new information, especially if you're in some kind of cause that has to do with world events, current events, current health care system, whatever it is, you're in that currency of current, that's important. And that means that you probably also need your sponsors and donors to be donating all the time. You don't need to just do, I mean, when we were kids, you know, you'd have the big, Labor Day, I think it was Labor Day, right? You'd have the big Labor Day, Jerry Lewis.

Oh, Telethon thing.

Telethon, right? And so it was like an annual event. But nowadays we have our causes and our nonprofits need require consistent funding. We have staff that we have to support. We have deliverables that we have to have happen for whoever we're supporting and sponsor, you know, the sponsorship money is going to, right? the idea that it is not a year round donation model just doesn't work anymore. And especially if your nonprofit or your cause might be unended by the disappearing grants or any of those other things, it is even more critical that you continue to put in front of your donors your need without being pitchy about it all the time. So you need to continue to show them that you're providing consistent and constant value that you're here, your story hasn't ended, that you didn't deliver everything and it's done, right? That it's a constant need and it is a constant service that you're creating. That's really where we get much more stable funding and donation model. It's really critically important that it has a focus for sponsors and what you would call donors, small dollar donors, right? So you might have your corporate sponsors and you might have your donors on a small dollar level. So you might have both of those, you might have one of those. It doesn't really matter. It still requires you to demonstrate to them that you're delivering on your promise.

That's a great thing you shared with us, Tracy, about the idea of consistency being important. Because you're right, nonprofits need donations all the time, not just once a year or twice a year or whatever it is. You reminded me as you were saying that I was having sort of a flashback memory to when we were kids trick or treating on Halloween and What did they always send home from school with us was the little UNICEF box that you would carry with you and trick or treat and hope also some people would donate some change and put it in the little box. That was like a oncE-A-Year thing. But I'm also thinking recently there are lots of food establishments and other retail establishments, grocery stores and stuff that seem to constantly be asking you, do you want to round up your change to the nearest dollar to donate to the local children's hospital sort of thing? You know, they have a lot of that stuff going on.

Look, every cause, every non-profit every mission has usually some big events, some big fundraisers. Like, even at a small level, I'm a booster's mom. I'm a cheer booster's mom. And I handle all the funding for our high school cheer. and work with a whole bunch of wonderful women and men who really support that mission. But besides being, we have three big fundraisers each year. We also have to have constant contributions to keep the coaching dollars flowing, to keep being able to fund, you know, I mean, we just discovered they need new boxes for football season. You know, there's always something that you need, no matter what type of organization it is, there's going to be year-round funding needs, basics, contributions that are necessary. And we gotta stay in front of people in order to get those contributions. And we gotta provide value to people in order to get those contributions flowing. And that's the difference here. We can provide value and provide our marketing messages, our mission messages at the same time. And that's how I wanna sort of focus today on when I call cause amplification, I wanna Focus on the stories and the delivery and the change and the impact we're having to borrow from our good friend Wendy Lipton-Dibner. It's all about the impact at the end of the day. And if we're not having an impact and we can't demonstrate that, then we're going to have a hard time keeping those donations flowing.

Couldn't agree more, Tracie. And I want to just share a very, very brief story to segue into what you're gonna share, because this is something that's very current that I experienced this weekend. I mentioned it to you at the time, and I'm sure a lot of people hearing this may remember this if you're a Costco shopper. So I was at Costco this weekend checking out, and throughout the whole time I was in the store, I kept hearing these bells and cheers going on. I'm like, what is going on? This is not a normal Costco experience. And I got up to check out, I'm like, Can you tell me what's going on with the bells? I don't understand. It's like, oh, anytime somebody decides to donate some money to the, again, the local children's hospital, we ring a bell and all the Costco employees cheer. And I'm like, okay, can I donate some money and not have you ring the bell and cheer? Because I was like tired of the bell and the guy completely respected that. Anyway, but this is another example of something Costco doesn't do every day. Plus it's random. And this is the key difference. It's random, right? An organization decides they're gonna ask everybody who checks it if they wanna donate some money to this cause. Okay. you're not really thinking about that cause, you're thinking about your shopping, you're checking out in this busy line and how frustrated you are, and you just want to get out of the store at that point. But there's a difference here for us podcasters when you have a cause. And you said it, Tracy, when you provide value, when your episodes provide value every week, your listeners are going to be more likely to be willing to donate, to keep you continuing to provide that value. on a regular basis. And we have some customers who achieve this. Absolutely.

And I think there's, we have to think about it as that we're putting messages out, but they can't always be a webinar, right? They can't always be a sales message. They can't always be a donation pitch. It gets tiring in the, even the telethon model. And, my sister did some work and, and with Jerry Lewis, and that's why it refreshed my mind. Yeah, because we'd watched him on TV when we were kids, and then all of a sudden she was doing some work for him. But it is this model of they would put stories in between. So you would have the telethon and Jerry Lewis doing his wild stuff, and then you would have the relief of some kind of story. And they had all different kinds of stories from different perspectives. They might be from somebody supplying something that was much needed. They might be from somebody who benefited from it, who was an immediate benefit, or they might be someone who grew up years later and then donated their time back to the organization again. So we gotta think about it in a very well-rounded standpoint because we have usually in our nonprofits, we have many stakeholders. I'm gonna just analyze and give you a little breakdown of Podcasters United, which is this podcast is donated by Podetize, Thompson, my company, to Podcasters United. So we're also on the board of Podcasters United. So like there's a little bit more tie in and that's one of the reasons why But we donate the full production services and all the content is co-located on podcastersunited.org's website so that podcastersunited benefits from it. PodKasters doesn't. We gave our content, all of our great keywords, all of the value. We gave it to podcastersunited because it's more valuable if more people see it. And that's why we decided to do it. We thought, this makes more sense for us. We have to keep feeding that. That's why Feed youd Brand has to have a weekly call and has to have content added to it. We have to add that and it needs to provide value to our primary stakeholder, you, the podcaster, the podcaster who needs expertise and information. But we also have the stakeholders of the other sponsors, the other corporate sponsors and the other members of the board. on Podcasters United, we have to provide them value too. That's why you get our coaching crashers like Juliet Clark and Fran Asero. You get those people to come in because Super Brand Publishing and Senior Tuber are sponsors of Podcasters United. We also have other sponsors and websites and, you know, all kinds of different things, consumable and ad services and different things like that, where they provide something different that's maybe behind the scenes and not so much in front, So they're providing production value or other things like that. Do you remember when we were kids and you would watch Sesame Street and they would be say, Sesame Street is sponsored by, and you would sometimes hear the case where you have production sponsorship. Tom, don't you think that's a great way for someone to have sponsorship? We see that sometimes on the PBS News, if you ever watch that.

Yeah, but PBS does the same model all the time, like you were saying with the Telethon, where they're also providing, like when they do a whole seasonal drive for donations. They'll do the stories, the special interests, the good reasons why you may want to donate, but the special programming they get. But then also, yes, you do see individual programs, you know, you know, this show is brought to you by this corporation and, and, you know, and that sponsor. And it's, you know, it's less of a salesy ad. In fact, some of the ads on PBS, you know, I watch them. I'm like, I've seen this ad a number of times, or this sponsor mentioned a number of times on a show, and I still have no idea what they do because they're not being overtly selling. They're really just promoting their brand, which hopefully gives them some value. But anyway, yeah, we see this a lot, but again, still, I think the PBS model and, and the sesame street thing you mentioned, maybe when they play a program, it's pretty consistent where every time they're saying it's brought to you by, but. the drive, the seasonal or annual drive is not as consistent as we podcasters can be. So you're right, Tracy, in the beginning of your show, maybe in a prerecorded intro, you have a nonprofit and you have a sponsor who's donating, saying that, you know, this show up front, you know, if we were to do it, which we really are not trying to, we could say, Feed youd Brand is brought to you by whatever, you know, donate podcasters could be, sure. But, I mean, it's already a close tie. I don't think it's necessary. But anyway, we just choose not to put those kind of ads within our show for any reason. And podcasters United has its purpose, which is really just to raise awareness and provide a lot of support for independent podcasters that's completely free. And that's great. But there are lots of nonprofits. I mean, I've been monitoring with great enthusiasm. One of our podcasters, her name is Tina and has this nonprofit and a podcast called Widowhood Real Talk with Tina, really supporting military families, especially when a spouse has lost their other spouse due to serving in the military. And there are families to support, there are children that were young and a lot of those families to support. And they always do toy drives at Christmas and they do other things. and that podcast started as just a podcast, an idea to serve people that had a need first in emotional support and other kinds of support through their podcast, but then became a nonprofit and they do events periodically. I mean, there's all sorts of things. And guess what? The donations come in to that organization through the podcast that not only completely support production of the podcast over the course of the entire year, but also to put on these events and they have bigger goals. They're continuing to get more and more donations and then they can achieve more things with those to serve the community of people that are serving with the podcast. But if they didn't show up every week publishing that episode, telling those stories, then they wouldn't be achieving it. So that's just one good example of a nonprofit podcast. I know you have some other specific things regarding laws, but Yeah, I just.

Want to lay some groundwork. Nonprofits and there's a lot out there, right? And there's also this sort of idea of like, I'm donating money, so I'm never going to see it again, right? Is it going to go to who it needs to go to? So there's a trust factor that has to be built with a nonprofit also. And there's no better way to start trusting someone than listening to them and hearing their passion about something, hearing the stories that are told, hearing stories from people who've benefited from, the nonprofit's mission, you get that thoroughness to it and it builds the authority and trust that is required for someone to make a donation and to send their money. So that is critically important as well to have that consistency because this happens all the time, right? We vet companies that we're gonna do work with. We require, when we hire employees, right, we do check the references. But nonprofits are harder. You can check the registries of them. You can check Google, but is the money really going to who it needs to be going to is not apparent unless the stories are being told. And so that's really where we need to pull it all out. But the other side of that is I want to know when I write that check to you that you're going to be here for me tomorrow. And when you've been here week over week over week giving on your podcast, I have a higher confidence level that you're going to show up for me tomorrow too, and you're going to put my money to good work. that is also something really important. When we show up for others, that has a greater message that it sends than a promise that we make.

That's a very, very good point, Tracie. And, you know, there's another example I can share that speaks to that a little bit, just in a brief way, if you'll allow me, is that There's another nonprofit podcast we've been supporting, meaning providing production service for here at PodTice. I want to say five or six years at least. And the organization existed before the podcast. I thought the podcast would be a good way to serve their community. Ended up being so. And, you know, some nonprofits will go on and grow and exist for decades and decades. And others, you know, depending on the people that are there doing the work in it, can tend to wane and stall over time. And this one I'm thinking of is one of those that sort of has waned and they're maybe are trying to decide what the future is going to be and are they going to continue. But the one thing they come back year after year and tell us is that we have to continue the podcast because it's the one thing we hear from all our donors and all our community that keeps people engaged and keeps them coming back. It's really giving life and voice to the nonprofit and giving it meaning.

And that those nonprofits that follow that model of stories to continue to tell, right? Where progress is being made, it's really important that you're out there amplifying that. You know, I think to Frank Shankwitz, founder of MakE-A-Wish Foundation, and he passed away a couple of years ago, We used to speak on the same stage, so I've met him a few times, and he's quite brilliant in his thinking about the whole model. But how easy it is to satisfy a wish and then tell that story afterwards. That is an easy donation to get. It's an easy next. I want to continue to be a part of this organization. I want to stay a part of this organization. I want to deliver more wishes. You know, it has an ongoing life of its own. That's why it did so well. It had a simple message. and then beautiful stories to tell that just touched your heart every time one was told. That's a great model for your nonprofit messaging. If you can find that thing that's gonna touch the emotions and the hearts and be able to tell those great stories, you wanna put them into your podcast. Because every time you go and say, I just need money, it's not going to deliver what that story is gonna deliver.

Yeah, it's not enough. I mean, I do think obviously economic times, at least in the United States, this is obviously our perspective being in the United States is here. I know there are worldwide needs and organizations, but in our country we go through ups and downs economically in times where people have more to donate and are willing to donate more in other times when they maybe have to cut back a little bit and can't donate as much. what do you think makes the difference between where people are going to spend some of the money that they might have, even if their budget's reduced, they may make more careful decisions. They're probably still gonna donate. There are tax advantages for people that donate. You get tax deductions for these things. And where are they gonna donate? They're gonna donate to organizations that they are believing in, that they believe are serving a need that they care about and how do they learn to care about it? The stories, right? That you have to reach people on an emotional level first, I believe, and share that, wow, here's an organization that's really doing something good and I want to support them. So I'm going to donate some money to them. And you and I have had some of these conversations ourselves. with who we're going to donate some money to. Sometimes things we see on television or stories we hear and all that. And we have conversations about this. And I'm sure individuals and families and organizations all over the country are doing that too.

And there are some really great models out there because it doesn't really matter what your cause is, there's always a great story somewhere. So Tom and I, when we did our 3D print podcast, we had this great organization that built drones that would go into disaster zones, and it would fly over disaster zones and be looking for survivors or looking for hot spots if they needed to put out fires, whatever it might be that they were always in some disaster zones. And they would have 3D printers back at the core wherever the drones were launched from so that they could replace the parts. And it was a brilliant, simple model, and they just needed ongoing support for keeping the drones and the 3D printers running and, you know, all of that. We could promote that. We did one single episode about that, but then another disaster occurred and we got in touch with them and were able to give an update about what they were doing in this new location that just had had a hurricane or a tidal wave, or I don't remember exactly which one it was, but it was one of those. And they just had it and we could give a quick update. They didn't even have to come back on. They could just give us the information we could tell people about what they were doing right at this current moment in time with this crisis that is happening, but they're in the field and they're busy. and then we could replay the episode. That's not common. We don't usually replay episodes. You've probably heard Tom and I say a dozen times, don't do replays, but that's actually a perfect time to do replay. When you give this new context to what's current and what needs to happen, and if they've already heard the rest of the episode, that's enough for them. They'll just stop right there and make a donation.

Or if they forgot what it was about. Sure, but for those people that are new, you have the current context and the need. And then people want to know the backstory. Okay, what's the history? So replaying that episode works. And I know this is not a episode about podcast replays, but if you're ever going to do a replay, making it current with some new information, current context on the front of it and sharing the good reason why you're replaying it with your audience makes all of the difference in the world. And there are some good reasons why you can do that. and that's, that's a great example, Tracy. I almost forgotten about that. In fact, we've touched a lot of nonprofits in our podcast, even though our podcast was never a nonprofit podcast. We've interviewed a lot, right?

Yeah.

Interviewed a lot of them, but we had sponsors, but we also were able to donate and decide, all right, we're going to do an episode on this and help shine a light on it because it's a good cause that's needed. There are other ways. Those of us that don't have nonprofit podcasts can help nonprofit podcasts. be heard, raise awareness of them. What was the one, Tracy, that was helping animals that had like amputees, you know, missing legs and things?

Oh, we did one on, she had a book.

And there was a book about it, and they were using it again, because our first podcast for many years was about 3D printing. That's why there's this sort of common thing between them, but they were actually making prosthetics for cats and dogs and, you know, animals that other otherwise would not be mobile and able to get around. And that was a great nonprofit that we were interested to help raise awareness of. But obviously we're talking today more about if you have a nonprofit or you want to start one, there are a lot of people with causes. And Tracy, we have the mayor of our city here in Southern California who's in his 70s and he's wanting to serve and give back and he has some causes. he's trying to shine a light on and we're talking about, you know, how he could do that and, and podcasting is one way. There are lots of different things you can do using podcasting, this modern media that you are right is getting much more attention and reaching more people than the older conventional ones. I would not bother with terrestrial radio these days, that's for sure.

Yeah. And that's kind of what I want to touch on is like, you can do a multi-part, you can do an update. What, you know, I mean, to go for a for-profit, Shark Tank, one of the most popular episodes that you'll ever get on Shark Tank was when they would come back and tell you where they were and what they're doing now. So that is always a great model of like, so you save somebody, you did something great, like, and the story is Sophia the Bionic Cat, by the way, that was Carolyn Smith was the author, and she was a veteran who also had a prosthetic. so, like, they identified with each other. It was a beautiful story.

So there's a whole another tie-in because there's lots of non-profits around supporting veterans with equipment and Prosthetics and things that they need that maybe the medical system isn't providing as much of. So, boy, those are great.

Exactly. So there's always a way to cover these and. And to do these tie-ins and then tell stories later. How are you progressing? How are things going? What's happening now? Like the updates on the drones, I was just saying. So there's, you know, a current event that causes you to remind you of these stories. Now, if you don't want to replay them, make sure you're linking back to them because remember, cost linking in your catalog is just as good because you're going to get someone to dive into the current episode, hear what you're talking about, and then want to go back and listen to the older episodes and go through your catalog. that's the way you get someone to binge on you. And if once they binge, there's no way they're not gonna donate because they got tremendous value out of listening and coming forward and buying into your cause, trusting you more, doing all of the things that are going to be a high likelihood for donation.

And this is truly a win, win, win proposition. Okay. Everybody really listening and watching to this, you need to understand that. I mean, Tracy, what you were just saying, linking back to an earlier episode that provides great value to the podcast because you're having people explore other older episodes, realizing that, wow, you've got some great content. I didn't find your show till later. I'm going to go back and start listening to those early ones and keep listening through. That is value for you and your show, but you're giving a lot of value to who you're amplifying the message of and shining a light on. and then you're also, you know, encouraging people to consider, you know, what these people are doing. And then there's probably going to get people more donations. So, I mean, there's no negative aspect to this that I can see anyway right now.

Right?

Right.

So there's a lot of, and I call them stakeholders before, but just think about them as there's a lot of people you must serve. That's probably the better way to say that. So you have obviously the recipients of whatever the funds or the services or the products that you're providing. There's those people, which is really important. That's your mission, right? Your mission is for them or for that cause or for those animals, whatever it might be, right? There's a recipient side of things that have stories. There's the sponsors that we talked about before, and those typically a sponsor writes a bigger ticket dollar item, encouraging them to get a profile, get featured on occasion for this, why they're doing this, why are they donating to you? That's what people want to understand and know. That's what, when Tom was referring to that thing that we see on PBS, we have no idea why they're donating and we don't even know what they're doing or what they're for, but they seem to have a really important message that they're trying to give out. We just don't know what it is because it's not tied together clearly with the foundation that they're supporting. So Make sure there's clarity in how the two things connect together. And it's not just a money. It's not just I need a tax write off. I have a reason I chose you. What is that? And make that clear.

There's got to be one. I mean, they're certainly creating a little curiosity in me that is wondering, what do you all do? You're talking about all the, you know, what they're doing to help people, but we don't know in what. So, you know, maybe at some point, but interestingly, I have not taken the time to go look them up yet, because I mean, I don't know if they're a human resources company or what they are. It's some kind of big seems to be a big business company, but they're definitely I think if there's one criticism of an ad, I don't think you have to be overly salesy to just make it clear what it is you do sort of fundamentally.

Right. Well, and that's what I'm saying here, Tom, is that it's great that you say it's so and, you know, my show is sponsored by so and so, or there is a little ad that runs in it and you've sold those spots, but when you don't take the time to tell the story about them, it doesn't work as well. When we even did in the for-profit model, did the advertisements, did a whole entire series sponsored by Hewlett Packard and our 3D print podcast, we actually did interviews with people behind the scenes at Hewlett Packard. We got exclusive access to people who'd never been told their story, never talked about their divisions before. So we got something special in there that delivered for our audience, but also gave showed the company in a brand new light, showed the sponsor in a brand new light. So I want to highlight that, that that sponsorship model can be looked at in a multi-level also, you might have service providers and other things that you're servicing there, but most of us depend, most non-profits depend on volunteers. And that means that why they're volunteering and the multifaceted level, the stories that those volunteers can can tell, if you're donating your time, it's even greater than your money. Do not forget about those volunteer stories. They could be even more important than the donation police. They're the ones who are on boots on the ground doing something to help you. So if you want, and all of us depend on more of those. Like I could say that from my, my story about being a booster mom, it's the volunteers that make that all happen. It is not the money.

Yeah, I agree. But interestingly, I don't think the boosters are a nonprofit organization, are they? It's just, but there is donations needed in order for them to operate and provide everything that they do for the students, right?

Absolutely. So there's a few models of how to fund your podcast, right, with nonprofits. And I want to touch on that right now. And one is that you get like production sponsor, right? A production sponsor to the show. This show is sponsored by so and so. you give them an ad, you might give them a feature episode so that they could utilize it on their website, and it's featured on your website as well. You might give them a profile page over time. You might do a recurring thing where they come back every quarter. That's kind of what we do with Fran and with Juliet Clark. We have them come back frequently. We actually have them come back more than four times a year because their topics are so valuable to our audience, not just their sponsorship and the value that they add from that standpoint. So we invite them back frequently by demand. And so you wanna keep an eye on that as well. So that might be one way that you do it and you help support things. Another way is of course in kind, right? You know that you can do in kind donations when you do an event, somebody might donate the meal or might donate part of invitations, might donate these types of things where you're donating an in kind thing as well. why not look at your podcast as a part of that? Have someone donate equipment, have someone donate production services themselves. All of those things could be aligned with what you need to. Someone who might be providing the volunteer to be the assistant for your show and make it happen, lining up guests, doing all that stuff for you. You have a volunteer who's there, make sure you give them credit for that because that's going to encourage somebody else to step into those shoes eventually.

Well, you know, we've done things like that, Tracy, when, for instance, the Podfest community does regional events that tour the country at times. And, you know, we're in Southern California, so we would provide a donation. I think Gordon Firemark provided a donation who's the podcast lawyer and has his own show and we like him and he's not too far from us.

He's going to be coming up in June, by the way, so coming up in the future episode.

He'S coming up in June. We're doing something with him. It's going to be a great episode. But, you know, in order for the, you know, podcast, I believe, I'm not sure if it's a nonprofit company, but there is a community and some Goodwill opportunity to reach people through that. So we would make a donation that helps put on that local event, like you said, help pay for, you know, event space or food and stuff like that. And it's not as salesy of a promotion as getting a trade show booth at a trade show. It's not like that. It's engaging with the local community around podcasting. And they do that all over the country, but similar anyway, you get the idea of what you can do there.

Yeah. So the other thing is that I don't, I wanna remind you all, 'cause I see this to the podcasters all the time, don't forget to tell people about your show. Well, we don't want you to be salesy in the whole content delivery, but don't forget to tell people that you take donations. Right? Don't forget to tell them how to donate, how to contribute. If you receive value from this show, And you'd like us to continue to provide this value. We really need your donations. Go to our website. You've got to ask. You've got to remind them that that's how they can support you. It needs to be front and center that they need funds.

There's no better current example of this than the show I mentioned before, Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. And I think that's actually the weburl.org, we'll have a link in the blog post for this episode. Just so you can go check it out and see as an example of that website. is structured in a way that on, you know, any page you go to, an episode blog or landing page, the main podcast page, the main homepage, it's not done in any kind of a cheesy way. It's very genuine and heartfelt, but you cannot go anywhere listening to a podcast, looking at the description or, you know, of each episode or the show itself or going anywhere on the website without realizing, oh, this is an organization that's a nonprofit and you can help support this organization and here's how. It's very clear throughout everything. And it wasn't always that way. This podcast started, I think, two and a half years ago and Tina supported it herself to get it going because she had to and she was passionate about it, but within a year was having donations that she didn't have to put it out of her own pocket anymore. so. And she still has a full-time job. This is on the side of what she does for a personal living. Right.

So I, having started a non-profit podcasters United, it's now been a year and almost four months or five months or something like that, that we've had the non-profit having started that, there's a couple of things that I would say. Don't start a non-profit until, you know, you have a message that's resonating with your audience or with a potential donor base. if you don't have reach for that. I love that Tina started after she started her messaging, right? So she knew what was gonna resonate, she knew what was going to help drive those donations, she knew where the services she could provide was. So it's okay to not have a nonprofit, but have a message-based or cause-based podcast, and then start a nonprofit afterwards. That's perfectly good. I think sometimes- In her case, she.

Needed to serve first. Right. That's what we always say, serve first and then it will come.

And then exactly then build that. That's going, we always say the same thing is like, not everyone should have a corporation for their podcast. In some cases it makes sense, but very few of you need a corporation for your podcast. There's very specific situations for that. Same thing with the nonprofit. Don't, you don't need a 501c3 for everything that you're going to do. There's a time and place when you're ready and you're really going to get donors and you're really going to be bringing in, income from that that is going to then directly go to recipients and to your cause and to your purpose and your mission and what you're going to do with that. You have to have that plan in place. So that that's the first thing that I want to say to you. The second part of it is, is that you really should also be clearly thinking about how that skepticism that you might need to overcome about your cause, about your delivery to that cause, about the services that you're going to provide. Where do you need to build the trust? It may not be that you need to build the trust with the corporate donors. They get it. They understand it. Maybe it's the small dollar donors you need to do it, or the volunteers that you need. So where do you need to build the trust the most? Because that's gonna really help you craft the messaging of what you're doing on your podcast and where you're going with that. As you move forward and you start to form this 501c3 or you form that nonprofit organization, Make sure you've got someone in your corner who knows what they're doing. It has to be formed properly. You have to follow all the rules. You have to make sure you're doing all the annual filings and all the different things like that. So those need to happen. Make sure you're using someone reputable. Tom and I absolutely love, we tell all of our clients, anyone who asks us about forming a corporation and a nonprofit is inherently a corporation, we send them all to Laughlin USA. they are, are, I mean, I just adore them over there. They are so full of fantastic information, checklists, anything you need. I think they do a fantastic job on nonprofits as well as for profits, and they'll help make sure that you have that checklist and guide. So I highly recommend them as well over there. That being said, if you want to take your, you want to go up a level and you want to qualify for certain things, did you know that a nonprofit on certain social media platforms can qualify you for a higher influencer status or a higher where you get, you know how you get check marks and other things on some sites? You don't have to pay for that when you're a nonprofit. You can get special circulation of some of your content. If you've registered with YouTube and other and Google and other places, you can get them to recognize your content and treat it with a different model of scruTiney if you wanted to look at it. It treats it with less skepticism when you prove to them that you filed and you have a 501c3. So this is really important to think about. There's also like our nonprofit has a free Google workspace. We use Google Gemini for free. It's a part of you have to go through the registration process. You have to have all of the things that you need to do, but you can also qualify for Google adds that for a nonprofit. That's a totally different model. And Tom, would you, I don't remember the proper name of Ray Perez's company and Ken Crelle, but it's a nonprofit. We'll have to look it up, but we'll definitely link it in the blog post for this episode.

I'll look it up because I was actually just sending Ray an email this morning, so let me see if I can find that.

So look it up and add that, please. But yeah, so they help specialize in sort of in making sure that you can qualify for ads. So you can get Google to advertise for your nonprofit and it can be as a maximum of $10,000 a month. So it's really valuable if you can get it to that level. Now the key is your website must serve and it must have content. So your podcast can become a critical factor in providing that. So there's a lot of other ways to help fund your nonprofit and help get exposure for it.

Yes, it's called 123nonprofit.com and then there's another one that I'm looking up for Laughlin's link.

I think it's laughlin-usa.com, I think that's what it is.

Well, but we also have Podetize link that will get people to the right place and I'm going to find that here, but we'll add it to the blog post.

Try pottetize.com/laughlin.

I tried that, and that one didn't seem to work. I thought that was it.

It didn't work. Usually it works. I try to create that because I can't remember anybody's name. So I'll usually do like, you know, pottetize.com/laughlin, nonprofit, and then it'll go to 1-2-3 nonprofit. So I'll make those happen. I try to at all times. But these are some ways for you to help fund what's going on here. Remember that the most important part, and this is what I'm gonna say, when you're a founder of a nonprofit, you have a reason you started it. You have a mission. You have something that's really critically valuable and important to you. And while that story is important, it's not the only story. And when you make everything about the founder, the nonprofit will eventually fail. It has to move on to more than just your reason for starting it. It has to move on to the people you're supporting, the people you're helping, the mission, the impact that mission is having is more important than you. That is the same message we give to all of you podcasters out there. This is not the Tom and Tracy Show. This is feed your brand. This is about you, about how you can fill your feed with things that are really valuable to growing your brand, amplifying your cause, this is critically important that we move on from that founder model to everything to moving on to the service model. And there's no better way to do that than week over week delivering something of value, delivering a story, delivering a message, highlighting someone that is important in your cause, in your area that your nonprofit is covering. That has a reward in and of itself. It's I personally, I get a tremendous amount of reward from just recording, right? Interviewing people and researching topics and being able to bring you the information has a tremendous amount of personal reward in and of itself. You know, I always think back to that Funny Friends episode where there's no good deed, right? You can't give something and not get something back. It's not possible, right? The world is reciprocal.

It is. It truly is. the law of reciprocity is a real thing. And I think when you're a nonprofit, since you're not selling anything, it's the most valuable currency you may have. Right.

Your service is that valuable currency. Your amplification of this cause, that's why I say don't forget to tell them how they can reciprocate. That's really, really valuable. So how can you reciprocate for us? I don't want your dollars. I have a donation button on our site, and we don't really need the dollars because we have enough sponsors. It is not as critically important to us that we get small dollar donations. I'd rather you fund your podcast. I'd rather you stay podcasting than give us money. But what we really could use, other podcasters. The more we have on here, the more we serve the sponsors we have, the more we serve the podcasting community, the more people who keep podcasting because they have the support of our community. That's where we all benefit because a rising tide lifts all boats, right? And that's what we're looking to do. We wanna, our ultimate goal is to make sure that more than 300,000 podcasters can stay podcasting, that we could get it up to a million podcasters who stay podcasting. That's our ultimate goal, that there are more than 10% active podcasters. So the more people you tell about our coaching calls each week that are live, our live streams, the more that you tell about our AI newsletter that is just sending out all the information about this and all the resources and other tips and tools and resources that we have for podcasters, the better off we are. That's all we ask of you. And you can find that@podcastersunited.org, all you have to do is fill out the little contact form. Super simple. Just let us know who you are and you'll get into the information. That's it.

We're not going to share it.

Yeah.

Doesn't cost you anything. We're not asking for too much personal information. Just a way to contact you and you can receive our weekly newsletter where you hear about the topics coming up on this weekly call. Cause we do those way in advance. We let everyone that's on that newsletter know in advance. But other real helpful information just help you make progress towards your own podcasting goals. Right.

So before we go, that's the final thing I want to remind you, that content that you build in this podcast is extremely valuable. Fill your website with it, fill your newsletter with it, fill your annual report to your donors and your sponsors with it, fill your letters, tell the story in a letter, send them to something else, fill your YouTube with it. Make sure you're using this content everywhere you can and repurposing it. fill your social media with it. Continue to use it and reuse it because it is your valuable currency to provide additional services, to provide additional content, to provide additional information, to amplify means that you have to keep broadcasting it. So send it out everywhere. And that's how you're going to get your cause amplified and get your nonprofit consistently and constantly funded as well.

Let's drop the mic there, Tracy. I think it's a great way to wrap up for today. We'll see you next time on Feed youd Brand.

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