← Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
How to Grow Your Organization by Being Relentlessly Committed to Your Brand
00:46:23
Dr. Rob Harter welcomes Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends Animal Society, to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. In this inspiring episode, Julie shares her remarkable journey—from employee #17 with an $800,000 annual budget to leading a thriving $180 mi...
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- [00:02]
A
This is Dr. Rob Harder with the nonprofit leadership podcast, Making youg World Better. What does it take to be an effective nonprofit leader today? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest obstacles? How should nonprofits fundraise in an economy that is constantly changing? All these reasons combined led me to start this show. And it's my hope that through this series people can learn not only what it takes to be an effective nonprofit organization, but to hear from effective leaders who are who are successfully making a positive impact in their communities. We hope you enjoy the show as together we hear how they are making their world better. Well, welcome everybody to the show. My name is Rob Harder. I'm the host of the nonprofit Leadership podcast. Thanks for tuning in. So glad you're here. And I'm really excited to continue this series focused on all things fundraising. Now here we are. Quarter three is wrapping up soon and the fourth quarter of the calendar year was just around the corner. Now, now many of you are primed and ready to go for year end giving and others of you are still getting nervous and not quite there yet. But this is why I wanted to have this special four week series in order to help launch you into the year end giving season with a renewed sense of clarity and excitement. And I'm so glad for my sponsor Zefie who is all about supporting you as a nonprofit leader, your organization to make sure you have the tools and the resources you need to succeed all year round, but particularly during the fourth quarter of the year. Now onto today's guest. The guest today is really a remarkable leader. She is a social impact veteran and has seen tremendous growth in the organization that she leads. She has seen the nonprofit organization that she is now the CEO of grow from 800,000 as an annual budget to 180 million. Let that sink into you. 800,000 to $180 million each year. I mean that is remarkable growth. Well, my guest is Julie Castle. She is the CEO of Best Friends Animal Society. And as I mentioned, I've had a lot of guests on this show over the years during my podcasting and many of you of course been listening for a long time. And you know the wonderful, amazing guests we've had on the show. I think what makes Julie stand out is the depth of knowledge and insight she has had from hands on experience leading in this social impact sector. Like the way she talks about how she makes decisions and how she's built her culture and, and how she does marketing and how she picks up the phone and calls and thanks donors no matter what amount they give how she writes handwritten letters. Still to this day, as big as they are with a thousand members on their staff now she's still writing handwritten notes. She just does so many things. Well, I think we're going to be really impressed with what she has to say today. In fact, I think this is one of those episodes you'll probably find yourself hitting the pause button to write down what she said or re listening to this episode again and again because there's so many insights that she shares from how she has been so successful in her organization as a team because she quickly, by the way, applauds her whole team. Not just her, but her whole team. There's just so much to what she's talking about, how they've grown it from. Again, as I mentioned, they have a very strong brand. They're very clear on their mission and even with all this growth, they're more committed than ever and laser focused on their mission. I mean, really, when you hear about the story, they grew from just a small rural nonprofit in southern Utah to now an international nonprofit that's leading the conversation around animal welfare. So I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation with Julie Castle. Thanks for being here. Now onto the show. If you run a nonprofit, here's some good news with ze. You keep every cent of every online donation. No platform fees, no credit card fees ever. My clients have used it. It's quick to set up, super clean to use and and it just works. Check it out@zephie.com register and make sure every dollar goes where it's needed. Most. Well, welcome everybody to the Nonprofit Leadership Podcast. So glad to have you tuning in. I've got a special guest, Julie Castle from the Best Friends Animal Society is here with us. And so Julie, first of all, thanks for taking time out of all the busy things you're doing to join us on the show.
- [04:11]
B
Oh my gosh. Thank you for allowing me to be here. It's such an honor. Big fan. Really appreciate the invitation.
- [04:19]
A
Well, thank you truly. I'm excited to talk a bit more about, first of all, your organization. You help lead, you've been with it a long time. And also though, we're going to dip into fundraising a bit because I know that as this podcast episode airs, it's right at the end of the third quarter looking and having eyes on the fourth quarter, which is often go time for all fundraisers, all executive directors when it comes to that big push for year end giving. So I do want to talk about that a bit. But let's start. Let's talk a bit about. About your organization and the one you're leading. Tell us a little bit about what you do, first of all, and how did you get involved with the organization to begin with?
- [04:56]
B
It's kind of a crazy story. I'll start with how I got involved. And I'd finished college. I went to Southern Utah University, gotten accepted into the University of Virginia Law School. And my friends and I knew that that summer was kind of our last summer to be totally irresponsible and, you know, goof around. So we decided to hop into my 1979 Dodge Colt, which every pound was a different color because I'd been in so many accidents. And even for then, the car was kind of a piece of crap. But we. We ended up driving all the way down to Puerto Vallarta, and we spent a lot of time down there.
- [05:39]
A
Yeah, you made it.
- [05:41]
B
We made it all the way down. And we woke up one morning and realized we had just enough money for gas and a candy bar each to get back to Salt Lake City, which was. I don't know, it's like 2,000 miles or something. So we piled in the car and we drove straight through. And a friend of ours kept asking us to stop at this animal sanctuary in southern Utah because she'd been sponsoring a dog there, and none of us wanted to. We were tired and hungry and, you know, annoyed with each other. And we pull into Best Friends Animal Sanctuary at the time, and it was this magnificent red rock canyon that in any other state could be a national park. And we took a tour with one of the founders and drove around the sanctuary and then had lunch with them. And I remember them talking about the no kill philosophy, and I didn't know what that meant. And the only exposure that I'd had to an animal shelter was in college. And I went into the animal shelter full of cages down by the city dump. Most of the animals had been disposed of, and that's all I knew. And so to go from that to what I was seeing before my eyes just blew my mind. And I was so taken by the whole experience that we pulled out of the sanctuary in the nearest gas station. I stopped and put a couple of quarters into a payphone, and I called my dad, and I said, hey, dad, I'm not going to law school. I'm moving to Kanab, Utah. And I did.
- [07:31]
A
How did he respond?
- [07:33]
B
There was this long pregnant pause, and he was not happy. I think it took him about 10 years to get over that.
- [07:44]
A
10 years. Okay.
- [07:46]
B
And, you know, back then, it was here I was. I'd been accepted into one of the best law schools in the country and great reputation.
- [07:56]
A
Sure.
- [07:56]
B
And instead, I'm living paycheck to paycheck, and I would show up to work every day and I'd show up to the welcome center and I'd get my assignment. And it was one day I could be cleaning cat litter trays at Cat World or, you know, doing dog feeding at Dogtown or giving a tour, or I fixed fences and put in irrigation lines because it's a very large working ranch, really. And so we were a very hand to mouth organization. And I was employee 17. And back then, 17 million animals were dying every year. Seriously, the shelters? Yeah, I mean, just. And they weren't counting the number of lives that were dying. They were measuring by the weight, by the pound.
- [08:55]
A
Okay.
- [08:56]
B
That's how tragic it was. And that wasn't that long ago. 30 years ago. And so our entire goal over the past 30 years has been to get every community and every shelter to no kill. And so over that period of time, we've gone from 17 million animals to just over 400,000. And that is still too many. But, man, I think about that and I think about all the great causes out there. There's so many noble causes, but a lot of them don't have a solution or a cure. And we actually know how to do this and get it done. And I think there's an appetite from the public to let's finish the job. Let's not kill animals in our community. And it is a very nonpartisan cause. We get people from all walks of life that support us. And it's been a really remarkable sort of magical journey for me personally, thinking about when I arrived, we were an $800,000 organization, and today we're 180 million.
- [10:12]
A
Well, that is remarkable. To think you went from 800,000 to $180 million budget. Now, that is remarkable. I mean, there's very few nonprofits out there that go that big of a growth curve. So tell me a little bit more about how did that happen? Like, what were some of the key things you put into place over the years that has helped you thrive to the point where now you're just such a large organization.
- [10:33]
B
Well, it's a really great question. And we get asked this a lot. And I think it really, really comes down to, in my head, three things. And when I started here, we were the founders didn't start the sanctuary thinking, oh my gosh, we're going to be this national international movement. And we've got this strategy and whiteboard and blah, blah, blah. And they just went about doing the right thing. And the right thing in their minds was to save the lives of animals and deaths in the shelters across the country. And so essentially what led to this, if you track back in our history, to me it was kind of best of breed practices that they started implementing without sort of understanding that that's where it would lead. And the first thing that we did, and this was when I arrived, we were, as I said, a very hand to mouth organization. My first paycheck was $183. You know, I was employee 17. We didn't have an HR department. You know, it was just incredible. We were just surviving and we knew that if we didn't do something, we were going to be toast. And so we started to go to different cities around the west and we sat in front of grocery stores gathering names and contact info and asking for donations. And that really wasn't the nugget. The nugget was we would take that list of names and those would immediately get entered into our database. And within 48 hours, we had one of our founders calling that person. It didn't matter if they gave 25 cents, they got a thank you call.
- [12:26]
A
That's awesome. Love that.
- [12:28]
B
Today you can walk through our cafe. We have a. A little lunch room where we offer a $4 lunch for any visitor. And it's really a great experience. It's very communal and we still have tons of people that come through that say I met you 25 years ago in front of a Mrs. Gelson's or a Mrs. Gucci's in Los Angeles. And they remembered the phone call. They remembered that it was from somebody who had an English accent because some of our founders are from England. But that was such a powerful touch point. And so rule number one in my book is you can't invest enough in that high touch contact. It's so important and you know, it. It leaves an impression on people unlike anything that you can do, especially in today's day and age where there's so much loneliness as an epidemic.
- [13:34]
A
That's right. I love that. Julie, thanks for sharing that because we've had a lot of conversations about AI and the impact AI is having on nonprofits. Right. And just set aside that whole discussion. But one of the key points is as our world becomes more high tech, we as nonprofits need to become more high touch. And so that phone call, you're way ahead of the curve. I Mean, you already were implementing. To me, one of the most important aspects of any nonprofit is that high touch. I'm going to call you if I'm a founder, if I'm whoever, and it doesn't matter what size of gift, you're going to get that call. And I love that. I think that is so well done. And obviously it respond, people responded and it was really a part of your DNA. It sounds like it wasn't just a marketing gimmick or a fundraising technique. It was literally just how you do business. And so anyway, I love that, that. And obviously you're still doing that today.
- [14:23]
B
Yeah, we still have a group of founders who are calling donors. First time donors who give $25 are getting that phone call and it creates this stickiness and we're building a community. This isn't just about, hey, open your wallet and give to a great cause. You know, we've had people come here who talk about it as a lifestyle brand and how they tattoo their logo on their shoulder or because they have, you know, they've gone so deep with the organization's DNA, which is larger than just animals. It's kindness and generosity and community and positivity. And I think that that zeitgeist is really what we tuned into in those early days. So I think that's number one. Most important, especially today. I think number two is when we were first starting out, I can remember we got to 5,000 names and we were so excited.
- [15:30]
A
Okay, you're like, this is huge.
- [15:32]
B
Okay, it's time for us to start mailing to people. And we did that in house. And then we got to a point where we hired a firm out of California and we sat down with him and he said, you, messaging is wrong. He said, you need to describe in graphic detail the problem. You need to provide the sorrow and the suffering and that urgency to get people to really care. And we said, it's just not who we are. We believe that people are going to get behind something that's good and positive and not this negative. There's so much. Even back then we said, there's so much negativity in the world. You see it on the news every night. We want to tell the stories of positivity because we believe that positivity begets positivity. And so he said, well, good luck. And so we, okay, we said, started a mailing operation in a more robust way and our returns were off the charts. And at that time, I didn't really know of any other nonprofit that was messaging positively like that, and we just kept getting these letters pouring in from our members who were saying, I don't open anybody else's mail but yours, because I know if I open their mail, it's going to be sad and depressing, and I just don't want to do that. And so to me, that messaging and your photography, all of the visuals, your branding, we have never outsourced any of that. We do all that in house. And it is very curated. The team that works on it, many of them have been with us for 24, 20, 18 years.
- [17:37]
A
So you've got good retention with your.
- [17:38]
B
Spouse, really good retention. You know, they understand the message. They understand the core of who we are and what we're trying to achieve and that, you know, we know that animals make us happy and we need to be telling those stories that make people happy. And so that's number two, is you really need to understand your brand and who you are and guard your messaging and your imagery with your life. There are a lot of great firms out there that do great work, but I'm telling you, you know your brand better than anybody, and you are your best focus group because you're meeting your donors all the time, and they're going to tell you exactly what they want.
- [18:25]
A
I love how you had that positive message, even though at the time, most nonprofits were going more for the almost a guilt message or a really heavy message, depressing message, in order to hope, create a response. Right. To people to respond, oh, I got to help with this need. You did just the opposite. You're. It sounds like you're very positive and direct with what your DNA was all about, what you were doing with animals, and it worked. And I would say there's a lot more nonprofits doing exactly what you're doing. And so, again, you've been on the cutting edge, I would say on the front end of that, and way to go. But I also love. Let me dig a little bit more into this branding, understanding your brand. We've had a lot of conversations on the show with different people talking about brand. How did you begin to know and articulate specifically what your brand was? Sounds like you did things that were intuitive, but I'm guessing there was some time along the way. You were like, no, this is it. This is who we are as organization. Was there a moment or. Or a period of time where you're like, let's just write down our operational values. Let's write down our DNA, because we're doing it, but we need be really explicit about it?
- [19:29]
B
Yeah, I think that we really occurred to us, you know, we started after we developed our mailing list, we started a magazine that we sent out to our members, and that proved to sort of start becoming the voice of what's known as the no Kill movement. And it was very, you know, it was written by one of our founders, and a bunch of our founders contributed to it. And we had the good fortune of the fact that they were really great writers and they knew how to tell stories and they knew how to share the life of an animal and the life of saving the animal and the reward of an animal in the perfect storytelling fashion. And in fact, they used to talk about it's the hero's journey, you know, the Joseph Campbell teachings, that every great story from Star wars to the Goonies to, you know, maybe that's not a great story, but you know what I.
- [20:31]
A
Mean, throw some great stories.
- [20:33]
B
These are throwbacks, you know, Indiana Jones, whatever great story is out there, they all have the same elements. And that storytelling became really important to developing our brand. And basically when we realized, oh my gosh, we've created something that we didn't really mean, the intention wasn't to say, we're going to create this national movement and blah, blah, blah, but that we started to get people who would come to visit here and they talked about it as a bucket list item or their nirvana or they wanted to be part of this community that was telling stories that really resonated with them. And we heard time and again, I thought I was the only one that felt this way. And meaning, I love animals. I don't want to see them die. So when we realized this was. We had started to turn the tables a little bit to say, okay, we're starting to get our legs under us. We're in the $8 million category. We can start helping other organizations that are smaller than us, that are struggling. What we didn't realize that we were tapping into with that generosity of just being free with, here's how you write a news fundraising newsletter. Here's how you build cat housing. We were giving away all of our state secrets, anything that was going to give us a cutting edge. We felt like the world of animal welfare needed that. We were also very transparent about what didn't work for us. And so what started to happen is we organically started to build this network of other organizations across the country. That is what propelled our brand into a national brand, is that suddenly we had these rescue groups that were relying on us for information, best practices. We had the space and the resources to start doing things like housing cats that had a certain type of medical condition together that everybody before had said they can't live together in the same space. So we were sharing all of this freely. And it was. We were organically developing this network, not because we were offering some corporate sponsorship or whatever, but it came from a place of, hey, we want to help you succeed. Because if you do, everyone's going to succeed.
- [23:26]
A
We'll be right back. If you run a nonprofit, you know how fast fees can eat into donations? Well, with Zefie, you keep every penny. No platform fees, no credit card fees. Donors can choose to tip Zefy, but your organization pays zero. You can set up a live form in just a few minutes. It's super easy. If you need donation forms, event ticketing, or donor management all in one place without the costs, go to zefy.com register and give it a try. I think that's so fascinating because in many ways that's opposite of what a lot of nonprofits and businesses for that matter do. What I'm hearing is that you essentially said the bigger cost. Animal welfare is such a big mission, bigger than just your organization. We're going to share all of this to impact all these other great people doing good work around the country, as on internationally. And through that, you actually furthered your brand and actually became bigger and more of a. Like a thought leader, if you will, in that space. That's what it sounds like, yeah.
- [24:31]
B
I mean, I think it was an unintended consequence of just wanting everyone to succeed on behalf of a cause that was bigger than all of us or a mission that was bigger than all of us. And it wasn't. Again, we didn't expect that suddenly we would be placed in this position of a thought leader, but that's exactly what happened. And that one thing led to another, and we ended up hosting our first national conference in 2000, and we had about three or four hundred people show up from all over the country. And we had people that would follow us from conference to conference. Like, it really became. It was very impactful to see what high touch contact with people who give to you does, to really see what being generous with people who are in the same field as you and sort of competitive. And the other thing is really thinking about protecting your brand, developing that story yourself, and really realizing that you know your brand better than any consultant. And if you have the means and the talent internally to harness that, to me, I think it's worth the investment because it's not just another rote activity that you outsource and.
- [25:58]
A
Right.
- [25:58]
B
And it just, I can't stress that enough. I mean, I think that it's such a no brainer for us.
- [26:04]
A
Well, let's dig into that a little bit too. It sounds like from what you've shared, you were fortunate enough to have some really high quality people that were skilled at various things. Like you mentioned, people were good at telling stories, but they were, of course, highly committed to your mission. Like they were in. They're still there today. Like, that's a great combination, but somewhat rare to have Both people fully 100% committed to the mission and really good at various things. You need to build a nonprofit. Did you ever get to the point where you felt like you needed to start hiring people outside that really brought a specific skill set that you were missing? And if so, how did that work to match the DNA you already had within the community?
- [26:43]
B
That is the million dollar question. And I think that is that you could write an entire book on that. You may have already. If you can crack that code. That is where in terms of fueling your mission and powering it forward, that is where your success is going to come from. Because I'm really into culture. Very, very into culture. I think the employees that you have are absolutely the only thing that is going to propel your mission forward and to bring you to that point where you're going to be 10xing things. When other organizations are growing at 4%, you're growing at 27%, which is where we're at right now. And it is because that investment in your people and that investment in the DNA of your organization and making sure that those two things match when you hire is unbelievably important. And it doesn't always work. And we have, we've had some epic fails when it comes to that. But at the end of the day, I think we have a. You know, we're very intentional about how we interview people there. A lot of people are part of the interview process. We bring most people to the sanctuary when we hire them. And we have had to, you know, like I said, I was employee 17 and we have over a thousand people now. So we've had to really be.
- [28:24]
A
It's a large staff.
- [28:25]
B
It's a large staff. And I think those key positions are really important. They can make or break who you are.
- [28:32]
A
Yeah. So would this be accurate, that when you hire people, would you hire chemistry over competency?
- [28:39]
B
A million times.
- [28:41]
A
Okay. And tell me more. Yeah. About that. Where say you get. Someone has the right Chemistry, but maybe not as competent as you need. Do you then invest in them so they get their own training? Because, you know, they're going to match well with the team and they're going to thrive. Do you just need to provide ongoing training for them? Like, tell me more, how does that work practically?
- [29:00]
B
You know, in our naivete as an organization, and we were. We were very naive and are naive in many ways still. Where in terms of, you know, you start out, nobody's really been schooled in the practice of nonprofit management. You grow. Right. And we made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I think our. One of our biggest mistakes was thinking, okay, we've hit this certain point. We only have certain capabilities internally. We need to start looking for people who can really take us to the next level, which is the right idea. But the way that we went about it was totally wrong. And it was, oh, yeah, look at this resume. This person worked for, you know, the Disney Corporation. And this CFO did this and worked for this high powered company. Somebody came from Ernst and Young. And we bombed out on a lot of people initially. You know, we hired them in. The cultural fit didn't work. You know, they were used to a certain way of doing things. We were still developing. I think there were a lot of signals to us that I think if we hadn't have been as naive, we would have been a little more astute towards. So we figured out really quickly that the number one thing to hire for is chemistry. And that most of the time, if you do that, they're going to be a really terrific fit. And internally, look for those doers, look for those people who may be in one role, but have the skills and aptitude to learn a different role and can grow into that with a little bit of training and coaching. Because, you know, I always say you can teach management all day long, you can't always teach leadership.
- [30:54]
A
Okay.
- [30:55]
B
And so that's powerful.
- [30:56]
A
You said a lot of powerful things.
- [30:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of examples of people that we have internally who are doing vastly.
- [31:06]
A
Different things when they're first, except compared to where they first were.
- [31:10]
B
Yeah.
- [31:11]
A
And that's probably why you were able to keep them too. They feel like they're growing, they're expanding, they're in new realms of leadership, so to speak. And you're getting someone who's fully committed, connected to the team. The chemistry is right. They fit the culture. So there's no. Yeah, break in culture. That's fascinating. Okay, so as I mentioned, we Want to talk a bit about fundraising? You've been very successful, obviously. And again, as I mentioned at the outset, you know, this is a time of the year where starting in October, this is the fourth quarter, a lot of people really start ramping up their year end giving. Talking about, you already mentioned the high touch thing. I think that's so powerful and you can't say that enough. That's so important. What were also some of the things along the way that as you look back now, were like, these were key moments in your fundraising strategy. Actually, when I think about it, you mentioned another thing, telling stories, telling really good stories, and I think sounds like you've done a really good job of that. Let's talk a bit about that magazine you mentioned, because that was an interesting thing. How did you convince your CFO that it was worth the cost? Tell me a little bit more about that. Like how did you utilize that magazine as a kind of fundraising source, if you will?
- [32:14]
B
The magazine is priceless.
- [32:16]
A
Okay.
- [32:17]
B
We started the magazine I, I think in 1991 or 92, and it continued to grow. At first we did it in house as sort of a little newsletter thing, and then we decided to make it a full blown magazine and it actually ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize.
- [32:39]
A
No way. Oh, my goodness. Wow, that's impressive.
- [32:43]
B
In the early days of the magazine, we had animals telling the story. And so one of our personality animals was named Tomato the cat and Tomato won the Pulitzer Prize. So that's great. I love it. And so, you know, it became just a huge fan favorite. It was part of building that brand and it was part of building that connection with our members and it became part of our DNA. And I think it's an incredible stewardship piece. And at this point, whenever I travel, I'll give you a really good, good example. I was donor visits in Florida about six months ago, and we were having a dinner. There were probably 14 people sitting around the table. This couple showed up and we had another woman with us who didn't know much about the organization. And I had forgotten to bring a magazine. And the couple that was next to me was said, oh, I keep a bunch of them in my car where I go, I want to share it with people that I know. And I leave it at my dentist's office and I leave it at my veterinarian's office and I leave it at my doctor's office. And this is a story again, we hear time and time again because it is well produced and we invest in the production of making it a Quality publication that people look forward to reading.
- [34:21]
A
Okay.
- [34:22]
B
It doesn't matter how much it costs. I mean, it's an investment. That is.
- [34:26]
A
That's what I hear you saying.
- [34:27]
B
And every year I have this conversation with our CFO where he's like, well, our printing costs are really high.
- [34:34]
A
Exactly.
- [34:35]
B
And I say, I know. And here's the evidence I have that this is a beloved resource. Even though web is an incredible tool. Again, it goes back to the old school, high touch stuff.
- [34:51]
A
Yeah. And do you do the magazine once a year?
- [34:53]
B
No, we do it every two months.
- [34:55]
A
Okay. Well, that is very impressive. Okay. There's so many more questions I want to ask about that, but that's good to know and I'm glad for my listeners to hear that. There's a lot of organizations, I believe that because of the cost, they've whittled it down to maybe one magazine or one newsletter, however you want to put it. That's a full print, full color send out to everybody through mail kind of situation where they do that once a year, maybe because of the cost. Again, do you also do digital in addition? Like, are those magazine publications? Are they also a digital version of those? Or how do you kind of enter into that digital world and do the same kind of storytelling, same kind of branding? Or do you not you just do the old fashioned, just print only?
- [35:37]
B
Well, we've gotten really good at segmenting our donor and support base. And so the magazine we like to think of as more of an exclusive. This is an exclusive thing that you're going to get in the mail. And the web has totally different content that's geared more toward a different audience. But there is a lot of crossover there. But we do understand our different markets and our different demographics that, you know, look, people who are longtime members and donors, they want to see and touch and feel that magazine. And it is, as I say, it's an incredible stewardship piece. So it's one of the benefits of becoming a member. We do not do tchotchkes. We don't do, you know, socks or handkerchiefs or necklaces or whatever is out there. And that we decided a long time ago. I think we've tested that.
- [36:42]
A
Tell me why. Sorry, tell me why that you didn't do that route because so many nonprofits do. So. Yeah. What was your reasoning?
- [36:48]
B
You know, we decided a long time ago that I think that people would appreciate something like a magazine more than a pair of socks that most people are going to toss in the garbage or they're so cheaply made that they're going to last for a month to our members. And we were just listening to member feedback because we get a lot of it and we read everything and we respond to everything. And sometimes I write handwritten notes to members and it doesn't matter what level they're at. And a lot of the feedback was please do not send us any of your tchotchkes. We would rather that go to the animals. And we listened to them.
- [37:38]
A
So yeah, that was some of the feedback directly.
- [37:41]
B
Yeah. And we just never adopted it. And so far we'll never do it as long as I'm CEO or never.
- [37:49]
A
Sounds like. Yeah. Another thing you said, very powerful. You listen to members feedback, you respond to all of it. Tell me about the time involved. That would take a lot of time. How do you divvy that up? Sounds like you off. You're literally writing handwritten notes, which again I think is so powerful. Well done on that. How do you divvy that up and how do you. I'm guessing you're a large organization now. That's a lot of feedback that you're responding to. Give me a sense of how much that is. And again, who all does that for your organization?
- [38:20]
B
So about 15 years ago, we decided to institute a core group of volunteers who their only job for us is to respond is correspondence. And it's phone calls, it's note cards. It's that high touch that is so important. And so sometimes it's that core volunteer group, sometimes it's our somebody on our communications team, sometimes it's a founder. It depends on what the correspondence is but. And it doesn't matter if it's a letter or an email or a phone call, we respond to everything. Obviously nobody's perfect and things fall through the cracks and you know, we may miss something. But our tenant is we respond to everything. If I get a piece of mail and it doesn't matter what it is, it's responded to by me. And so if somebody from, if Fran from rural Ohio sends me a note, I'm responding back to her.
- [39:30]
A
Okay. Really impressive again. So my listeners, if you want to send Julie some comments or a note, you'll hear back from her, which I think is really, I love your commitment to that. It really is. That's impressive. So one last question. Perhaps we could talk forever. This has been such a fascinating conversation and you've given us lots of ideas and principles that obviously are working well. You've got well run organization. Is there any kind of last bit of advice for those who are listening they're either executive directors, director of development. They're thinking about this, really trying to ramp up their fundraising this year with all the federal cuts. There's a lot of people that are struggling right now. There's more pressure on foundation foundations to give than ever. Is there any last bit of advice you'd give to our listeners who are in, you know, the trenches, so to speak, of nonprofit leadership that you would say, okay, in addition to what you've shared already, I want to give you one bit more of last advice, so to speak, when it comes to fundraising.
- [40:25]
B
Well, I'll just say one thing and then I'll close with a final thought. And that one thing is all this stuff that's happening in the world, everything that's happening with social media and how that's growing and splintering channels, everything that you see in digital marketing and fundraising, nothing trumps a good story about the work that you're doing. Nothing. Because that content is so people are hungry for really good content, really strong content. So all this other stuff, in my opinion, and I was over our marketing, communications and development for many years, and so I know this world upside and down. You can layer it in with all these gimmicky things and all of that stuff, but you are going to get people who don't stay with you as a community. But that storytelling element and really that powerful content wins the day every time. And so there is a story about a dog, an individual animal. In my opinion, what's worked best for us is telling individual story. You know, you can layer in data and facts and a thing that happened to a town or a community. You got to find that individual story about that individual animal, about that individual success. And whether that's you're working in the disaster response space, every part of our nonprofit sector has that individual story and really honing in on that and taking the time to develop that and share it with a little focus group and see what their feedback is. If you're small, you have volunteers who know you, who are going to give you the honest truth about this doesn't resonate with me. I would not open my wallet for this. So I will say maybe get your head out of thinking about all the noise around you and really focus on telling that story on that individual part of your work. So that's one. The second thing is I see a lot of times in my field and other fields that a lot of nonprofits get excited about all the things they can be doing. And I call it the boiling the ocean effect, where you Have a Nonprofit that does 80 different things and they've got 30 different initiatives and they've got this and that and the other. And everything is so spread so thinly that you aren't doing any one thing well. And I think one of the secrets for us has been laser focused on ending the killing of animals in shelters by the end of 2025. And that has been our drumbeat for the last decade. And it's been really successful, not only in the life saving front, but the fundraising front, the volunteer front, all fronts. If it doesn't fit in that bucket, we don't do it.
- [43:56]
A
You just gave a masterclass on how to stay completely committed to your mission. No matter how much you grow, no matter how much money you raise and how big your staff gets, you've stayed true to your mission that you started with so many years ago. So well done with that. I mean, everything I read and experience personally is exactly what you are doing. It's much easier to say than do. It's much harder to actually put that into practice, particularly when you grow and you have people that want to fund different things, different initiatives, which I think that's where a lot of nonprofits start getting too spread too thin, is because they get money from somebody that has a pet project they're really excited about. And it kind of fits into your mission, but not really. So anyway, I applaud the fact you've stayed focused. You've stayed really laser focused on your mission and obviously you've been tremendously successful. Well, again, Julie, thank you so much. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thanks for all you're doing. For those who want to find out more about you and the Best Friends Society, where would you send them? What's the best way to connect with you and your organization?
- [44:55]
B
Well, you can find us on the web@bestfriends.org, you can also visit our social channels. We're on all of them. LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. And that'll tell you a lot of real time fun stuff. So you can check us out there or come and visit our sanctuary in beautiful southern Utah or one of our life saving centers. And we've got them all over the country. And so, you know, it's a lot of different avenues and ways that you can get involved with us. And I just appreciate you so much. Your voice is really important to the nonprofit sector. And, you know, you do amazing things. So thank you.
- [45:35]
A
Oh, thank you. You're very kind. Well, thank you again for taking time to be on the show and sharing your insights. Hey friends. Well, I wanted you to know that this podcast can be found on itunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Podcasts, and wherever you listen to other podcasts. I also want to encourage you to like subscribe and share this podcast with others. This will actually help us get this great content out to more nonprofit leaders just like you. You can also join the nonprofit Leadership Podcast community, find other resources and interviews of past guests, all on my website. Nonprofit Leadership Podcast well, thanks again for listening and until next time, keep making your world better. This podcast is sponsored by DonorBox, DonorBox, helping you help others with the best donation forms in the business.