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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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B
Welcome to the Arcady Group Thinkers Podcast. I'm not laughing because of our guest. I'm laughing because Ronnie has now like teased me into submission that I'm going to make noises near the microphone. So for the listening audience, that's why I'm laughing. Welcome to the Arcady Group Thinkers Podcast. I'm your host, Justin McCord. Sometimes I make noises and with me is the noiseless Ronnie. Richard.
- [00:33]
C
Perfect elocution.
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B
Yeah, thank you. So, Ronnie, we just wrapped this conversation with our guest and I knew going into it that we were going to get some great stories. I knew that we would because our guests has been in the sector for a long time. He's a great storyteller in general. What I didn't realize is that I was going to walk away with a new perspective on him as almost in some way like the Paul Revere of leadership in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. So tell us about our guest.
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C
Yeah, Kevin Gentry. He's a, he's a seasoned fundraiser. He's got a podcast called the Going Big Podcast and I'll come back to that in a second. He's the CEO of 10X Strategies and he's, he's raised over $3 billion for, in fundraising for, you know, a variety of causes over a decades long career. And like you were saying, this Paul Revere aspect of he's, he sees this need for Going Big like the name of his podcast, but it's really, it's about taking risks. And we talk about this in the podcast where sometimes there's this scarcity mindset in our sector with tight budgets and, you know, these, the, the way things have always been done and it is, there's hesitation to take these big risks. And as he interviews people on his podcast, the most successful things that we see, whether it's a business or whether it's, I don't know, a campaign or whatever it is, it always involves taking an element of risk to reach that level of success.
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B
And the Paul Revere reference for me is that I, and we deeply appreciate that he is on a mission right now with a thirst for sharing leadership examples and the same way that iron sharpens iron, leadership can sharpen leadership and raise up new leaders. And so it's a fascinating conversation that goes through some of the annals of direct marketing and fundraising and even further back, some of the annals of wine. So that's a nice tease. So here is Kevin Gentry of 10X Strategies and the Going Big podcast on the RKD Group Thinkers podcast. Kevin, I want to start with the figure 3 billion. And that figure is significant as a part of this conversation because as a part of your bio, you have raised over $3 billion. And I'm. I would just love for you to unpack and kind of reflect on what that looks like and feels like as a part of your career.
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A
Well, cool. Well, thank you. I want to be clear, I've helped raise 3 billion.
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B
Sure.
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A
And, and also, you know, to be clear, it's. It's very generous. People gave that. And really, at the end of the day, what role I had in it, I guess could be questioned. And I don't want to be presumptuous with respect to this very gener giving partner that I was so key to it. But I've been involved in efforts that ultimately raised well over. Well over $3 billion a number of years. But if I could, I'd like to start with three quick stories about getting to 3 billion.
- [04:23]
B
Let's do it.
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A
One was when I first fell into a fundraising role. A nonprofit fundraising. And I say fell into. I don't know anybody who didn't fall into a fundraising role because of the whole nature of the business. I went to a training program that the Heritage foundation was hosting, and I went to a session on how to do a major gift ask. And this British guy was giving the presentation. And he was very British and he was, he was, he was pretty sure of himself, pretty self confident. And he was talking about the ask. And I raised my hand and said, I've got to say, I don't see how I could even ask somebody for $500 because I can't even conceive of ever giving $500. And he said, well, maybe you don't belong in this room. And so. Okay, well, so that's sort of the context that laid into it. Well, a couple years passed. One of my first big asks, I went to a donor who had given as much as $2,000 through direct mail to, but was pretty consistent. He gave a couple times during the year. And we were in a building campaign. This was my first big ask. And I was going to ask him for $50,000. And I had a colleague with me who had a great sense of humor, and I was very nervous about this. And I asked the donor for $50,000. And he was obviously pretty wealthy. We had this beautiful lunch in his office. But he reacted, he leaned back and he said, $50,000. I've never been asked for $50,000 in my life. And I was panicking. And my colleague said, that's okay. Kevin's never asked for $50,000 either. So I say that to really lay a foundation of tremendous humility. And then I want to say sort of one of my next best steps to just show all the brilliance that I had of this is I. I was with a donor and I ran into him and I've been working with him, and he said, you know, started talking. He goes, well, what are you looking for? And I hadn't made any plans whatsoever to make an ask, but I had been sketching out on a piece of paper the plan that we were working on, and he was looking at it and he said, what are you looking for? And I didn't have the courage to verbally say it, So I wrote 50,000. And perhaps it was an act of God or what have you. I didn't put a comma in, but I added an extra zero and it became 500,000. And he looked at it and said, I'll do it. And I said, you will. So again, I want to make clear that there's not some brilliance behind this, but I was really fortunate over the years to be involved with just some extraordinary people. I worked for nearly 30 years for the businessman Charles Koch and his family, and especially his efforts to engage a lot of other business leaders and philanthropists in efforts that he was working on. And got to work with some phenomenal people, many of whom became mentors. One of them, Rich DeVos, the co founder of Amway, taught me so much. And really, in partnership with Rich and many others, grew efforts that were raising 10 million, 15, maybe 20 million a year, ultimately to 200 million, 400 million. And that's how it grew. I'd love to say it all originated in direct mail because I'm a big believer in the pipeline. But a lot of this actually started with just a lot of major gifts, occurrences, opportunities, which I can go into, because a lot of it happened not only from what rich DeVos taught, but what I learned from people like Mal Warwick and Roger Craver and Richard Vigory.
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B
You the. So the seminar that you walked into, why were you there?
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C
Yeah, that's because I was going to want. How did you get to that point?
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A
Yeah. So I, straight out of college, started working for Morton Blackhawk. Well, at the Leadership Institute, I think there were three or four employees. Then I ran his training schools. And it became immediately apparent that no matter how hard I worked, we were not going to grow substantially because we were resource constrained. We just didn't have that much money to spend on things. So I was young, brash, Morton I think I could raise money. I think I could do this. I think this would help us grow. And he said no. He said, because I'd have to train you how to fundraise and I'd have to train your successor and how to run the schools, and I don't have time to do that. But he relented and let me move into this role in fundraising. Well, he was a tremendous mentor, which I can go into as well, but I had to get some training, and so I went to this Heritage foundation training. Just, I've got to learn some stuff. By the way, what was enormously fortunate to me was I went to a training program that Mal Warwick did in Washington, D.C. and that's what was probably one of the most formative moments in my fundraising career.
- [09:56]
B
When did you, you, you also referenced that you fell into the sector. And by the way, we totally agree with you. It's rare. I think Tim Kirsten, our CEO, shared with you on your podcast that, you know, he was intent on. On getting to the sector because he had seen an ad from Russ Reed, the man, you know, for a position. And, and it's one of the many ways that Tim is a rare bird, that he had sought out this space as opposed to falling into it. So you fell into it. When did you feel like this was. This was going to be your thing?
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A
Yeah. And by the way, with respect to Tim Kirsten, you know, we worked together 30 years ago when I was at the Leadership Institute, he a package that was a breakthrough package and led to just transformational growth. So got to do a hat tip to Tim. You know, I think it's worth noting that still, this has been the case for 40 years. I've been involved in this stuff, and it's still a problem, maybe even more of a problem. But no young person is given any expectation that they could be involved in a professional career and nonprofit or fundraising, with some just rare exceptions. And my friend Tyler Cowan has also pointed out, he goes, you know, if you're going to change that, you got to make the role sound a lot more glamorous, too, because particularly in direct response, who wants to go into that, right? There's so many negative biases about junk mail, so to speak, and everything else related to that. But there's, you know, you. There may be, we'll say in college, higher education, an expectation about going into some nonprofit work, but it's mostly on the front lines of the work itself. Maybe it's in policy change or what have you, possibly management. You could be trained even in accounting or, you know, other roles. Marketing. Although I question a lot of the marketing education that is offered to young people today. But there's nothing with respect to fundraising. You know, you get. Indiana University has set a program for a while. You have a couple little programs. So there's just nothing. So how would you even know you could do that professionally? I fell into working at the Leadership Institute because I stupidly hadn't thought, what was I going to do after college? And it was kind of a fluke. Had a conversation with Morton Blackwell. He offered me the role. And I'm like, yeah, I'll take that, because I didn't have any other plans. But it was in that role that I realized if we were going to grow, I wanted to do the fundraising, but I had no planning whatsoever I'd ever do that or continue doing it.
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C
Frankly, Kevin, if you were thinking back to when you walked into that seminar and felt like you didn't know anything about fundraising, and you think about what you were just talking about, these people coming in out of college and not having any training tools or expectations for fundraising in the nonprofit space between when you walked in that seminar now and what you've learned, what some of the things you would share with them, just maybe just at a high level, some things you've learned about the fundraising space.
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A
Yeah. Well, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this as well. I think it is the most. It's the most exciting field I know of. Because if you think about it, at the end of the day, a good cause is working on getting to the root causes of some of the biggest problems in our society. It could be related to education, could be related to poverty, could be related to criminal justice reform. It could be related to animal welfare. It could be related to cancer, whatever. These people are trying to get to the root causes, solve a big problem. And then these wonderful people who have mostly, not exclusively, but mostly built a great business in their life, have developed the capacity to give generously as a result of what they've created, but they don't know exactly how to do it, what to do it. You have these people who are doing these great causes, but they don't have the resources. And it's connecting the two. And when you connect those two in partnership, what I found, and this. This took me a long time to find out, to discover, and it's really only in the past five to eight years that it really hit me, mostly because I'm a slow learner, but it really hit me that many people can get a much greater sense of meaning and purpose in their lives in working with a partnership to solve a big problem than. Than maybe even they did in creating a great business. I've met some wonderful philanthropists who told me some before they passed away that they got greater meaning out of their giving than they did out of the significant discovery they did in their industry.
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B
That's powerful.
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A
So I think it's that partnership. Yeah. I mean, it's huge, right? It is. And it's a twofer. You get meaning and then you're addressing a big problem.
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B
You know, Ronnie and I both fell into it from some like, but also a little bit different spaces. So he and I actually we crossed paths and worked together at the Dallas Morning News. He was on the editorial side and I was on the marketing advertising side.
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A
I did not know that. That is awesome.
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B
So. So he fell into it from really a journalism, you know, journal journalism funnel. And then I fell into it ultimately from marketing and advertising and from sports franchises that I worked with. And so there is something about that seed whenever it cracks open and then you feel that twofer, as you said, that punch, you know, it's. It's so powerful. I was looking as you were talking. We've got a person that joined our company recently, entry level. She graduated from college in, in December, had spent time working in churches as an intern on like marketing and media, had spent time working with some ministries.
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A
And.
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B
And so when she applied and got the job, and she's a family, family friend, she was so excited. And after a couple of weeks, this is what she sent me as a text. I still don't feel like my job is real. Wow. I still don't feel like it's real. And after learning more and more about what I get to do, I just love it so much. And so to your point, like exposing the next generation of leaders to this important work, but also this fulfilling work is. Is crucial for us.
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A
Right? But here's the challenge. Okay. First of all, we've heard a gazillion times, you know, follow your passion. Find your passion, Find your gift. Follow it. Great. A lot of us can't always do that. You know, what is, what is our gift? What is our passion? You know, I'm still looking in some ways. I know many people in their 50s, 60s, 70s are still looking. Right? And how does a 20 year old or an 18 year old or 25 year old know that? And then of course, you don't even know what you don't. I mean, you don't Know what you don't know. And so it's, you know, sort of like in a survey or a market test to say, you know, what would you, you know, what kind of product are you looking for? I don't know. I didn't know that that product existed. So how would you even know about this career if you don't know that it's there? And so we can say, yay. Look, I've come across this notion where you can find tremendous meaning and purpose by connecting your passion, your interests with this area. But still it's a lot of unknown and people just go with what they do know.
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C
I think I've always thought it's unfair of us to ask an 18 year old when they're headed to college to pick your major, like, who knows what they want to do? And there are some people, I've always been blown away by people who are like, you know, ever Since I was 6 years old, I've wanted to be a doctor. And I just, I don't understand it because I never knew what I wanted to be, even going to college. So, Kevin, I wanted to shift course a little bit to ask you, as we're in the philanthropy space right now, we're seeing a lot of change, we're seeing a lot of turbulence, but mostly I'm thinking like over the last five years, the space is changing and really fast.
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A
What do you see?
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C
Like, what is your philosophy around philanthropy and fundraising and where do you see us heading in the future?
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A
Yeah, I think it's changing and it's not. I mean, the whole world is changing. It's changing at an accelerating pace. And a lot of that's driven by new technological innovations. I mean, just, just think, you know, in our lifetime, just the past several decades, we can look at things and say, you know, things haven't changed that much. You know, our houses, they, everything looks kind of the same. But yet consider in communications technology and artificial intelligence, healthcare, all these areas, it's just phenomenally different, right? And it's going to be even more phenomenally different over time. So we live in a dynamic world, thank goodness, and there's going to be changes. But with respect to giving, I do think we're learning a lot more and we're able to exchange information much more quickly. And I mean, you can you see that in everything from LinkedIn to whatever, there's just a much richer exchange of information where we're learning what others are doing, which would have, we just wouldn't have had that opportunity before. But people still want to live a life of meaning and purpose, and they're trying to figure out how to do that most effectively. I think many people are finding that philanthropy is an effective vehicle to do that on the one hand. And I think many people are also seeing, look, I can be a social entrepreneur, I can do some great stuff, and if I can marry that together with the right financial resources to go big, this can be a big deal. I think that's where the moment is. I think that's where the opportunity is. I do think philanthropy is going to change radically, but in a way, I want to say I don't think it is changing as much. And here's my proposition. There's a lot to say, like, we're moving away from the sort of model of transactional fundraising to relational engagement fundraising. Well, I don't think we're moving from that. It's always been the case no one wants to engage in transactional fundraising. We use these terms like hitting people up and twisting their arm, and it just doesn't work that way, although that is in many ways the image that people have. But we know that the more someone is engaged in solving the problem directly, the more generous they're going to be. Of course. And by the way, it's not going to be just generous with their, their treasure. It also is with their time and talent, too.
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B
It's. It's a great way to think about it. What would you say? Similar question, but about direct marketing, specifically. So the evolution of direct marketing is now at maybe the most rapid pace that it's ever been in terms of how it's evolving and how do you wrestle with that?
- [21:57]
A
Yeah, and, you know, I, I was fortunate to learn direct mail when I got involved in fundraising because I, as I said, I went into a fundraising role with Morton Blackwell, who had worked for Richard Viggory. And Richard Vigory not only had mentored Morton on direct mail at the Vigory company, but Richard brought in all these greats, you know, of the time to come in and from the professional world to teach the team at the Vigory company about direct mail direct response. So I learned all these kinds of techniques at an early age. I'm a huge believer in direct mail and broadly direct response, but I think about it more strategically, and that is, look, the most effective means of asking someone for support or working with someone. Support is a direct conversation, one on one. All right. There's some other related things which maybe we can get into in terms of event dynamics, but that one on one is everything. And if you Get a meeting. You have a pretty high likelihood of success if you do the basics. But what limits that? Well, time and related resources. The best major gifts fundraiser in the world can't do but 200 or so real visits and a year. I mean you're, unless you're just going, you know, house to house with house, right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
If you're a national organization, you have to travel, you have to do all these things. You can do things maybe by video and stuff, but still, you know, you can't do that. So you got to figure out a way to leverage it. And direct response is that, that's all it is. Direct response is leveraging that one on one meeting. And however you're utilizing continually innovations in communications and marketing, although the marketing principles stay pretty constant. That's how it works. And yeah, are people who respond through the mail, are they giving less and less? Because those tend to be older and they're changing or they're. Well, look, they're always going to be changes. But the concept, the strategy of direct response is merely leveraging the one on one.
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B
Because you've had proximity and access to some of the legends of our craft and our field. You know, you mentioned Richard Vickery and Morton Blackwell and Mal Warwick and, and because you've had decades now of experience, what are some of the, the direct mail packages that live in lore in, in your mind? Like what are some of the ones that either caught you off guard or that you're still, that you still admire in terms of their effectiveness or potential?
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A
Yeah, I'll tell a couple of quick stories about some of those. One was the package that Tim Kirsten was a part of. But I also want to stress some of these strategic lessons I learned especially from Al Warwick, but I also learned some from Robert Cialdini. Bob Cialdini, now you mentioned these greats and things I do want to say at the outset. I'm a big, big believer in mentors, in finding mentors, seeking them out, tackling them. If necessarily I'm exaggerating. But you know, it was Sir Isaac Newton who said, you know, I stand farther when I see, when I see further when I stand on the shoulders of giants. And I have learned also as I've grown older that I find more and more mentors who are younger than me, who are teaching me in other areas. You can have mentors in all different kinds of areas. Bob Cialdini, by the way, and his techniques of persuasion, the psychology of persuasion. Years ago, when I was working at the Mercato center at George Mason University. I worked with Tyler Cowan, phenomenal economist, one of the most important and influential economists in the world. He was our general director. And he said, you know, you're. With respect to all this marketing you're trying to do, have you ever read Bob Cialdini? And I said, no. I looked into it, read Influence. And my assistant at the time was just kind of curious because she heard me talking about it and reached out to Bob Cialdini and said, would you meet with my boss? And he said, sure. And so I had a meeting in Arizona. So I went over to Tempe. He was teaching psychology at Arizona State. And we went to coffee at the Arizona Inn. And he told me then about what he was using with the hotel industry. Testing about the rules of reciprocity and getting people and social proof to get people to reuse towels rather than have them washed every day. Phenomenal. All kinds of stuff. I learned so much from that that I could go back and apply and same thing with Mal Warwick and others. I read a lot. I continue to read. I'm a slow learner. Sometimes I have to read things 10, 15 times to really see it. I still got a lot of conferences and training, but I cannot underscore enough the importance of mentors. And it just helps you apply the lessons and ask questions about the stuff that you encounter. Now, with respect to that, I'll answer your question about a letter. I will say that when I was working with Morton Blackwell, everything that I've been taught in my English classes about writing, he was trying to disprove with respect to direct mail. I felt like I was a good writer. I wasn't. But he also made clear I didn't understand how to communicate effectively and persuasively with people. I would get so angry when he would edit these letters with all this red ink and just say, this is terrible. I was like, you don't know what you're doing. But I learned so much from him, but I was still resistant. And we did a letter on this new building. We're going to buy a building for the Leadership Institute. We're going to move out of the offices that we. That we got heading the National Right to Work Committee in Springfield, Virginia, and had this great new property in Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia, on the Metro was going to be a national training headquarters. And. But we were direct mail based at the time. And so we wrote a letter, essentially, sort of Morton laid out his vision and it did well. And then we tried having, at the time, Congressman Dick Armey Signed the package. And at the time, he was very popular in conservative audiences. And the package did really well. It was the most effective package at the time for the Leadership Institute. And Richard Viggory got the letter. He was on the House file. And he called Morton and said, hey, I saw this letter. It was interesting. How did it do? And Morton said, it's the best letter we've ever had. And Richard said, well, you know the rule. You prospectize your best House file or you house fileize your best prospect. Are you going to try to prospect on it? Morton said, wow, that's a great idea. I hadn't thought about that. He called me and said, just talk to Richard Vigor. He thinks we should send the Dick army letter as a prospect. I was like, morton, that's the dumbest idea. Why is anybody who gets a letter from Congressman Dick army about buying a new building for an organization they've never heard of going to give to that? It just makes no sense. He goes, well, I think we should try it. I was like, oh, enough to do. Why do we have to do this to. Well, it was a phenomenal breakout package. 60% of all the donors who came to the entire effort of that campaign came in on acquisition through that Dick army letter. And then, of course, it was Tim Kirsten's letter that he did with a video package that Stephen Klaus conceived of. That really was the breakout that took things to an even higher level and really began to inform my sense of really what motivates people. And by the way, back to direct mail, direct response. The video packaging that Stephen Klaus pioneered was another breakthrough with respect to how to leverage the power of the individual meeting through direct response. I'm sorry. Last thing I'll say is, no, this is great.
- [30:21]
B
Please. These are awesome.
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A
When I went to the Mal Werwick training, I just started in the role at fundraising, and a friend at the Heritage foundation sent me a Mal Warwick brochure that he had found and said, hey, ha ha, you should go to Mal Warwick's training. Mal Warwick was a. Was a progressive before we even used the term progressives. He'd been Ron Dellum's finance chairman in Berkeley, California. Really, you know, some sort of causes on the. On the political left. And I looked at the brochure and I was again desperate for training. And I was like, well, it doesn't say I can't go. I'm going to go. And I went. And I learned so much about how then Greenpeace was sharing this case study about how they were making so Much in prospecting, mailing millions of packages and, and they were calling every $100 plus new donor to thank them in order to boost retention. Phenomenal stuff. I went to a lot of Malwarevich's training, but he taught me the power of giving clubs. And the argument was that yes, that individual meeting is so important that you have with the donor. But consider a generous giver might have 40 or 50 or 80 of those kinds of meetings over the course of the year. And how do you really differentiate among all your others? Other competitors will say, but let's say that you have some kind of recognition society, a giving club, and your donor attends the event, physically attends the event, sees much more broadly what you're able to accomplish, meets many more of your staff, something that you could never accomplish in their office. And if you can make that an emotionally engaging experience, you're over the moon. Well, that took. So I started testing that. I tested it through direct mail, did it through some political candidates and campaigns, saw the appeal of it, tested it the Leadership Institute, tested at the Mercato center, other places, it's great. But it was the recognition that an idea that Charles Koch had had to host a seminar for business leaders. I'm like, wait a minute. The convening power of Charles Koch to invite business leaders is much greater than a nonprofit organization inviting its donors to come to a meeting. What if we essentially applied these rules to that? And that's what was just incredibly transformative. And it became such that many people would come to a meeting like this and it could be a peak moment for them. Emotional like, okay, I'm directly involved in solving a big societal problem. This is life changing for me. But again, this is, this is, this is grounded in elements of direct response. In fact, many of the people that I, you know, we invited these meetings started as direct mail donors. So it all comes together, it speaks.
- [33:24]
C
To the power of community. Right. I mean you're which the power community.
- [33:29]
A
Is the one you asked about the trends and things. I think the power community is the greatest untapped resource that is still out there for us. And my big personal mission is to build a community of principled fundraisers. I think there's so much value that can be gained by that connection.
- [33:49]
B
You're approaching the one year anniversary of the launch of 10X Strategies, your newest endeavor. Right. July will be one year for you.
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A
Wow, you knew it, I think better than I did. Now you're scaring me a little bit.
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B
You're right.
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A
It is the one year anniversary.
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B
Ronnie, we Got a ca. We've got a cake. Ronnie, do you want to bring out the cake?
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C
And.
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B
Yeah, so. No, but so. And so you've got, you've got this new venture and, and you've got a clear vision and you've got a podcast that is just a rocket ship right now in Going Big. As we mentioned, Tim appeared on your podcast and you've had some. Some fascinating other guests, including Alexander Hamilton, appeared on your podcast.
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A
Patrick.
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B
Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry appeared on the anniversary.
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A
On the 250th anniversary of his liberty or death speech. Yes.
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B
Yeah. So the. So talk to us about the community that you are building through the combination of 10x strategies and going big. And now that you're a fellow podcaster, what you're learning now.
- [34:52]
A
Well, thank you. Well, I'm learning mostly that I don't know anything. There's still so much I don't know or my preconceived notions are wrong. But, but thank you for asking and for noting that I have believed for well over 25 years at least, that we've got to address this gap, that there are these phenomenally good causes, and the number one constraint to their solving the problems is that number one constraint to growth, because growth is key to solving the problems. That's what we want them to help them to do. Right. The number one constraint is talent, and we've got to address this talent deficit in the manner that we laid out, because none of us even knew that there was a career opportunity here. So I am determined to address that. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. The podcast is one starting effort, and what I'm doing there, trying to do is tap the power of thinking big. And, and there's so much about that. You know, my friend Stephen Klaus made a point years ago to take me to Union station in Washington, D.C. and show me the plaque, you know, with the famous quote, you know, make no small plans. They have no ability to stir men's souls. And we know, you know, that Martin Luther King had a dream. Mahalia Jackson called out from the crowd when he was about to read his prepared remarks at the March on Washington. And he pushed it aside. Mahalia Jackson, the great singer, had heard him share his dream. And she said, tell him about the dream, Martin. Tell him about the dream. You can hear her say that from the recording of that speech. He said, and he shares his dream for a colorblind society in America, for the world. And it's one of the most consequential speeches of all times, there are people we know, Dr. Sidney Farber, who when approached by a group of philanthropists and one of his colleagues said, if I had access to additional resources, I'd buy another microscope. Dr. Sidney Farber runs out of his office in 1947 at Boston Children's Hospital and said I'd find a cure for cancer. And of course, the rest is history. The Dana Farber Cancer Institute has just done extraordinary work. It is, you know, casting this big, bold vision, as we know in the Bible, the book of Proverbs, where there is no vision, the people perish. People are looking for leadership, people are looking for vision. I think if we can encourage more people to think big and go big, I think we're going to get to the root causes of more of the problems in society today.
- [37:36]
C
There's a certain element about going big and 10x that's about taking risks. And maybe, maybe you've seen this too, but sometimes the mindset in our space is this mindset of scarcity and we don't have enough resources. We don't know when, you know, how long our revenue is going to last. Budgets are tight. Is it a shift in mindset that's necessary to get to a place of abundance big time?
- [38:03]
A
Well, I do think, and Richard Vigor has made this point, I raised this to Tim Kirsten in our podcast, did he think. And he was very diplomatic and kind. But I do think a lot of people drawn to the nonprofit sector tend to be more risk averse because it seems like it's, you know, the for profit world that's, that's, you know, it's kind of, kind of rough. And I'm not sure I want that level of stress and competition. I think also for a variety of reasons, leaders tend to be risk averse. And we've seen that in direct response, for sure. Why are more nonprofits not going big? Oh, I just don't know what's going to happen if I do this. But those who do, we've seen do big stuff. But I got to tell you, what was transformative for me was for a number of years, not only working with Charles Koch, one of the greatest business leaders of our time, still not appreciated. I mean, to build a business that has over 125 billion in annual revenue operating all over the world, extraordinary growth. Extraordinary growth. Has always thought big. And these other entrepreneurs I ended up working with through that network of supporters, they were all risk takers. There's so many great stories, but one of my favorite people I work with was Art Sioka Art was the CEO of Coca Cola Bottling of New York who had the Franzia Wine Group and they were going to sell Franzia. Actually, Art was head of that company because the public earnings, the stock market and public earnings pressures didn't feel like Francio was making the mark and they wanted to get rid of it. And he said, look, this is a damn good company. If you don't want it, I'll buy it. And he said, you know, without really thinking through the consequences, decided to leverage himself. He had some friends 26 to 1 to buy the Franzio Wine group from Coca Cola Bottling of New York and then quickly discovered afterwards that he would lose the price advantage they had because they had to deal with corning glass on the bottles for the wine. And he was like, oh my gosh, I'm dead. What do I do? And so he, through a process of discovery, learned that in Australia they were using the concept of sheep's bladders to use plastic bags that would keep milk fresh. And he said, could we do that with wine? He developed Vox wine out of necessity and created the number one wine brand in the world, Franzia. And that company is the second biggest producer of wine by volume in the world. Huge risks and everything. He told me, he told me he was banned from Safeway because initially the boxes leaked. There were so many times it failed so many times. He wanted to give it all. These people these enormous success stories almost always go back to thinking big and risk taking. And if we can somehow marry that in the non profit sector, I think some of the biggest problems we face in society, I think they're at risk of being solved.
- [41:27]
B
Kevin, we are. Ronnie, I'm going to speak on, on your behalf if that's okay.
- [41:34]
C
I don't know what you're about to.
- [41:35]
B
Say, so you kind of, you kind of don't get a choice. I'm gonna say it anyway, but like we are, we are so oppressed. Appreciative of your thirst for solving that great chasm in our space. And there are not enough Kevin Gentry's and. And so we want to just tell you thank you and echo your vision for the empowerment of leaders and of the abundance mindset. It's incredibly refreshing. And so thank you for doing this work well.
- [42:15]
A
Thank you. And I'm just embarrassed, as you know, to my one year anniversary, that I don't have more progress to show. I'm questioning myself, have I taken enough risks? Have I thought big enough? But based on just this conversation, I think I'm going to be back in touch with you all and a lot of other people. We know there's a lot more to do and I look forward to working with you all. And anybody who's listening that believes in this, let me know. But let's address this. Look, let's just go back to the problems in society, whatever they may be. And there's so many, right where we're so depressed about the failing education in America, we continue to slip away. There are still too many people who struggle economically for a variety of reasons. What is it like 60% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings? You know, it's mind boggling. Many could just not afford a basic thing like a car repair that might happen or something like that. And these drivers, you know, whether it was, you know, prisoner reentry and criminal justice reform or financial illiteracy or substance use and addiction, all these things that are holding people back, not to mention regulatory burdens, all these things, how can we address this stuff so that people are just in a position to lead a better life with their families? So these problems are there, they can be solved. We know that there are people that are working to address them. So the proposition is if they had more and better resources to do this, they'd be able to do it. And so that's why people should go into this field. Right? And if we learn, if we all learn, learn how to be better fundraisers, we're all going to do better at solving these problems in society.
- [44:06]
B
It's good stuff, man. It's really good stuff. Thank you for hanging out with us today and we're thrilled for the conversations to come and both to watch what you do and to be a part of it.
- [44:19]
A
Well, thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Ronnie. Thank you, Justin. Look forward to seeing you. Hopefully I'll see you at some direct market marketing event soon.
- [44:27]
B
Absolutely.
- [44:27]
C
For sure.
- [44:29]
A
Group Thinkers is a production of RKD Group. For more information, including how you can partner with RKD to accelerate growth for your fundraising and nonprofit marketing needs, visit rkdgroup.com.