← We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
681. Shift 11 — Story as Infrastructure: How Narrative Shapes Culture + Drives Impact - Carolina García Jayaram
00:34:07
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- [00:01]
A
Hey friends, we have exciting news. If you are looking to build capacity, clarity and momentum in the new year, we hope you'll join this community at our first ever We Are For Good Summit on February 12th.
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B
It's a free one day virtual gathering for nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, marketers and the everyday change maker who's looking to elevate.
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C
Good.
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A
Yeah. You can expect more than 20 speakers across three tracks, plus live workshops and working sessions and roundtable conversations on building trust, partnerships, people power and what leadership really requires in 2026.
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B
Save your free spot at weareforgood.com summit and let's learn together. Then turn that learning into action.
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A
After the summit, we're returning to local by activating in local impactup meetups so the ideas shared during the day turn into action together. If you want to host a meetup too, all the details are over@weareforgood.com summit. Let's kickstart the year in community.
- [01:06]
C
Over the last couple of years we've been able to track that our winners are fundraising 65. I think it's actually over 70% more after having gone through the two year fellowship with us. So visibility equals fundraising. Now we have no doubt about it. Like it was very much a theory of change that we had at the beginning. Now it's an absolute requirement of change.
- [01:32]
A
Hey friends, welcome back to the 12 shifts. We are storytellers. We love and believe in the power of story and we had to carve out what we were seeing, how story is shifting right in front of us and we wanted to have an elevated conversation and calling this one story is infrastructure. How narrative is shaping both culture and driving impact. And y', all, who is doing this in real time? Oh, just casually our friend Carolina Garcia Jayaram, the founding CEO of Elevate Prize Foundation. She is no stranger to the podcast or this community, but they show up and actually live and breathe this work and how they fund and how they show up and how they dream. And so we are going to invite Carolina in today to talk about this. I mean their mission is to make good famous. They're bringing world changing leaders together with their work in the mainstream so so more people can see it, so more people can support it, so more people can join in and elevate just celebrated 5 years of doing that. I mean we are getting Carolina just days after leaving Sundance where they are working with creators in this space. They're working to create films that don't just tell story, but they're driving impact. So Carolina has a front row seat to how these stories break through, what is shaping trust today? How is collaboration being built? And where's the long term investment opportunity too? So today we are talking about story as an organizational infrastructure. It's not a marketing function. We have to get that out of our head. I'm so glad this is when leaders, I know this is where leaders can really shift as we center this, as we protect this and we use stories that can strengthen our whole organizations. Carolina, always a joy to have you in the podcast. Thanks for coming back.
- [03:08]
C
Thank you so much. It's so great to see you guys.
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A
Well, I mean, y' all have built massive visibility for the winners that have come in. Elevates orbit over the last Times Square level of visibility. Yeah. I mean, I'm just so curious, what have you learned about what makes stories actually move people to action?
- [03:27]
C
So much, so much over the past, you know, now it's been over six years since I started it, five years. We celebrated last year with a wonderful report about our findings, which is worth reading for your audience members who are interested in this particular path around storytelling and the impact it can have on an organizational and the views, the vision and the mission and where you're going as an organization. And like you pointed to John at the top of this conversation, how this is a center of the work. This is not a nice to have. This is not an afterthought. This is not like the earrings you put on at the end of the outfit. Like this is the whole shebang. Like you have to start, start with this. And more than ever, funders are understanding this, the media is understanding this, that this story, it begins with the story in order to shape the culture. Right. You can't move the needle on the culture and really change people's behaviors or what they care about, what they prioritize in their lives or as volunteers or if they're in their giving at the end of the year, whatever it is, if they don't connect with the story of what that issue is and what we've learned, which is so important, is that people care about people more than they care about the issue. And so if you can center the issue in a story of the people that it impacts or the leader that is Char, you know, leading the charge of that issue area, you're going to grab people. It's like any movie, think of the greatest movies you've ever seen. I just saw Song Sun Blue and I can't get it out of my head. And now I'm only listening to Neil Gaiman non stop. But the first 10 minutes of this movie, you're immediately drawn in to these two characters, right? It's the two people leading the movie. If it was just a biopic about this great singer, I don't know that I would have been as interested. I was really interested because the two people who were cover singers of his music and what their story was, it's the simplest formula of all time in history in terms of Hollywood. But we haven't really brought that to the impact space. If you think about historically, the impact space, it's always data. It's always like, well, we saved this many lives. And it's all very general and abstract and hard to wrap your head around and designed to impress one very specific group of people, which tend to be foundations and funders. And what it did is dehumanize the impact, right? It took it away from the stories of what was actually happening on the ground. Because to really do that, you have to focus in on one person or one community or one group. And that's sort of antithetical to the humongous impact model of the storytelling that we're used to in our sector, Right. So I think what we've learned over time is to center the person, the people that are impacted and are also leading it, which tend to be the winners of the Elevate Prize. And to do that, you have to build trust. And so we've talked about this a lot on this program together about trust based philanthropy or unrestricted funding. I've evolved that thinking and I no longer just call it trust based philanthropy, I call it relationship based philanthropy and the importance of the friendship, of building those friendships. You cannot get to the vulnerable story of a leader and what they've been to. So oftentimes these are proximate leaders who have lived very close to the issues that they're working on. To get to that vulnerable, gooey story that's going to really pull people in. You have to build trust. And trust takes time. There's no other way around it. You have to spend time as your team and to get those stories. So I think we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot in answer to your question about the importance of story. But also it's not just as easy as saying, let's tell a great story. You know, you've really got to get the ingredients of how you get to that great story.
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B
You know what I love the most about this work, John, is like the evolution that we're all in. I remember you talking about trust based philanthropy in One of our themes and trends a couple years ago. And I love that you are talking about evolution right here. And it, you, you are evolving. We are evolving in real time. The way I look at story today is so much different than I did three years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago, and its role in this. And I. I also want to say that the thing I think that makes your storytelling so fabulous at Elevate is how deeply human it is, how raw it is, how much agency you give to the person on the front line. And I love that you're talking about trust. Our number one trend this season was trust is the work. Now we just had an incredible episode with Abby Falick about it.
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C
Love it.
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B
She's so fabulous. And so thank you for tying it back because I want to know these shifts that you're seeing in this evolution like you talked about. Trust, attention, urgency, community, all of these elements that make storytelling even more essential for nonprofits and funders. What are you seeing right now that we really need to pay attention to in storytelling that. That gathers people, that gathers community and makes the story a bigger story?
- [08:35]
C
That's actually a great question. I think a big challenge we have in the world right now is segmentation, is the polarization, right? So oftentimes we are talking to ourselves, and that's a problem. You. We're not going to get very far if we're just talking to our favorite people who agree with all of our values and hold the same things to be true and all of that. So how do we cross the Rubicon, right? Like, how do we get over there to the folks who aren't really convinced by what we're, what we're so passionate about and build these bridges? And I think what I'm seeing is a real opportunity, especially around distribution and how important it is to own and have, like you said, the word agency over where and how your story is being distributed. And that's no small feat, obviously, for Elevate. One of the ways that we've evolved our program and our investment is we're investing really heavily and very excited about YouTube. And many people are because the algorithm, the revenue share model, the way that YouTube has been structured up until today, and hopefully it will continue this way, is the most friendly in terms of creators and being able to own and sort of share your content with as many people as possible. That being said, we're only to a couple hundred thousand subscribers at this point. I want to get to millions, but it's going to take time and some investment to get There. But I think for storytellers to really think about who are they trying to reach, and that they may need to get into spaces in places that are a little foreign and uncomfortable even for them in order to reach those audiences. So one thing we've done to great effect is partner with content creators who have really big followings. And, of course, even us, you know, we. We may have more of a budget than some small nonprofits around the world. We recognize that, but even our budget is limited. So year you brought up Times Square, you know, we were able to take out billboards in Times Square for, you know, 48 hours in Times Square for less than $10,000, you know, for 10 of our winners.
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B
That is, sure, it's a lot of.
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C
Money, but you're in Times Square for four, like, the kind of content you can build around that and the campaign you can build around that. So some of these things are more accessible than people think. And I think the idea of where and how you capture people is so important. And to. If you're going to make this investment, be cognizant of not just speaking to your biggest fans. You know, be cognizant of how you tell that story and reach other folks. And so the content creator piece, we wanted to partner with this great account on Instagram called Dude with a Sign. You probably know this guy.
- [11:05]
B
Love dude with a Sign.
- [11:07]
C
Well, dude with a Sign was too expensive for us. We couldn't partner with him. But Dudette with a Sign, there is also Dudette with a Sign much more affordable. We were able to do it with her, and it was a huge success for us and for her to do the announcement of the winners last year on her platform and ours. So it's like, it's just playing with how and where you're showing up. And it is an investment. I'm not going to tell nonprofits that this all comes for free, but it's negotiable. You need to be really creative in who you're partnering with. And the name of the game is, like, distribution. Like, how are you getting it out there?
- [11:42]
A
Okay. I just love hanging in your orbit, because y' all just dream so much bigger and beyond what I think the traditional playbook is. And I love hearing kind of the chapters of this unfold, because it's almost like we operate in our own silos. Like, I think we dream of what we think is possible instead of what is actually possible. And we think about getting into the places that we spend our own personal time. How do we get into those Spaces and y' all find ways to be the insurgents, to be the message breakers that break up the ads, to be the light. Like, I just love this so much and I'm so curious, Carolina, y' all work with so many amazing organizations that come through your program that not only get funding, but get surrounded by relationship and what that unlocks for them. Could you kind of take us through a case study of some elevate winner that's used storytelling to really scale their visibility and impact lately? Who's on your mind?
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C
Well, we have a wonderful winner and this, this is gonna. There's a few parts to this story in this example, this case study, but she won last year. Her name is Hannah Fried. She runs and founded an organization called All Voting is Local. So very important to what's happening right in current events and really on the ground thinking about everywhere from voting rights and what's happening there to poll workers and very much like on the ground localized stuff. Her story is so national in scope, but it's also so localized in impact. And so like, how do you think about a story that's going to do both of those things? We were able to secure an op ed for Hannah in Time magazine last year. It was really importantly timed. It was talking about, you know, the importance of freedom of voting. Really kind of educating, but through a story lens because it was Time magazine and it was very mainstream culture. It was, you know, this length of an op ed, so that wasn't like, you know, a 5,000 word essay in the like, it was much more digestible. I think that was very important. So it started in getting Hannah that kind of exposure and, and she was really ready for it. You know, she's a seasoned public speaker. She's very comfortable telling her story. But again, she was kind of like singing to the choir over and over again. So how do we get her somewhere bigger? We've been developing back to YouTube a series that we launched last year called Nevertheless. The first one was, was Nevertheless She Persisted. And it was about three of our Women leader winners. They're mini documentaries, seven minutes each. They're fantastic. They had millions of views each. So it was much more successful than we had anticipated. The second season, we are focusing on democracy. So it's Nevertheless Democracy Defenders. And this is where these pieces, like your point, Becky, about evolving have been so important to us. Like how do these disparate programs that we have build off of each other and really strengthen each other. So we named Kerry Washington, the great, wonderful actress, producer, activist Kerry Washington, as our latest Catalyst winner. That's why we were. It's part of the reason we were at Sundance was to give her that. Well, we didn't just give Carrie the Catalyst Award. We then put her on stage in a conversation with Hannah Yordanos, who runs Kaseb, which is a global democracy organization. And a third winner from our first year from South Africa called Kuketso Moti. And the three of the four of them had this incredible conversation about democracy and where we are as a global conversation in democracy. So it was a really wonderful way for Hannah, for us, almost to build like a scaffolding of storytelling around her. So she's on stage at Sundance. She's making now a documentary with executive produced by Kerry Washington. She's in time 100. She's given, done this op ed for Time, and there's a number of other examples with her. But it's helping her show up in a lot of different places in a lot of different ways and always putting her at the center of it. She's speaking for herself and her organization and her beliefs. But we are very much sort of putting her in those spaces and stages and sort of cultivating, crafting the story and creating the conditions around her so that it's not just fluff or very shallow. I mean, that was a really deep and meaningful conversation about democracy. And now we have all this, these great sound bites and all this great content that she can repurpose now throughout the year. So often, you know, back to that point, John, about the investment, it's not that it's not expensive, but if you're really smart and strategic about it, this content can last her for, you know, through the midterms, which is what she needs. You know, she needs that, that kind of gas in the engine to get to the midterms, to reach millions and millions of people with the importance of voting rights. Right. One, we're thinking about what she brought up that we might get rid of. The administration is trying to potentially get rid of mail in ballots. That doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people for whom mail in ballots are not a reality. But if you think about how many veterans are using mail in, Americans are using mail in ballots. There are states where that's the predominant way of voting. This means many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of votes are going to be impacted. So it's a story that needs to be shared beyond just inside the democracy conversation. So Sundance gives us that platform. Wow.
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B
I mean, John, I know you're geeking out because John's 2024 or 2025, word was scaffolding. And we've said this many, many times on the podcast. The gala is not just a gala. The video is not just a video.
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C
That's right.
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B
The letter that you send saying thank you is not just a one and done. And you have illustrated this so beautifully with, with the story about Hana. And I just think making sure that there is not one and done to anything.
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C
Right?
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B
You didn't just have one conversation about democracy with Hana. You have. You have turned the lens on the kaleidoscope many different ways, adding different voices in, adding different experts. And again, that is story evolution. We are looking what Hana is doing from so many different angles, and it is all driven by a story that just keeps evolving. That was such a good example. And we want people to take away practical examples. And if there's a nonprofit leader sitting here listening right now saying, I want to build story infrastructure this year, what are those first two to three moves you'd recommend? Like, knowing that so many of our listeners come from small teams. Is it in systems, is it roles or tools, or what's. What's perkling up for you?
- [18:06]
C
I think first, because story can be told for so many reasons. Right. And so many ways to tell the story. So I think first, it's really important to think about the why. Why are you telling the story? Who are you trying to reach? And so an example is that, like, connecting it to your current objectives. Is your objective fundraising? Well, it's always fundraising. That's always part of it. But that may not be the main objective of that story. So think about that. So with fundraising, it's like you want to grow the donor pool, you want to grow trust, you want to retain the donors you have. Like, you're thinking about what's motivating the story. It's very much like a brief that you want to create about that, or maybe it's about partnerships and you want to reach more. You want to build your credibility. So this is to people who don't know you, that's going to shape the story very differently than an audience who already knows you. You also want to influence through that story. If it's about partnerships, because you want to make a partner feel like they can't live without you, you're going to help them. Or is it about talent? You know, is it about reaching more constituents or the kinds of people that your organization is trying to reach? So these things are really going to shape the story in terms of connecting it to an objective. You Also want to think about what it looks like in terms of the tools and the systems you need. So a story or content library that's connected to the program that you're trying to tell a story about. So it's really important to think about where that library lives. If you have Salesforce or if you have what is that place where you want to store. And trust me, we are always grappling with the size videos that we have to, that we have to write. So even these practical concerns about, once you start building these stories in this content, make sure you have a place to put it. Campaign briefs are really important because this is where you're going to clearly define your audience, your objectives, your strategy. Every project that is a story needs a brief. And I've learned this. This is not something I knew coming up because I didn't come from the marketing world. But all marketers do this this way, right? They always create a brief and it seems simple. But if you have it for every single story and piece of content that you're building, it's also going to start to create a consistency of cadence of storytelling, of point of view, of maybe things that are in the room every time. If you think about the hooks of stories and why you go back and over and over again, it's sometimes simple things about the lighting or like where you have something or maybe a line that you always use to start the thing or end the thing. Like these all comes out in the brief. And it helps you stay sort of wedded to a certain system so that the storytelling doesn't feel like random in anywhere and that it can feel like it's really associated with you. And then you want to think about the afterwards. Like after you've told this story, after you've done this campaign on Instagram or YouTube or in times Square or whatever it is, you need a really honest assessment and a postmortem of that story. Like, how did it go? Were those objectives reached? And what learnings can you bring forward? It really is a learning process because the storytelling is so unique to every organization, to the people who are telling the story. So be not brutal with yourself, but really honest with yourself. Like, did this story do what it needed to do? For us, it's not just telling the great story of the organization is did I reach the audience and did it lead to what I wanted to? And just finally great tools out there that are designed for efficient, effective story capture and distribution. So your phone, your phone can be your best tool for capturing raw lo fi, but invest in like a good little tiny microphone. Like the little, they look like little blush brushes. Like a little brush, one of those. Invest in that, Invest in a good light, you know, like invest in a holder for the phone. This is going to be a few hundred dollars, but it will make all the difference in the polish and feel of the story. That's really important. And great tools like Canva or Da Vinci, which are out there for editing and they're low cost, sometimes even free or very low cost for nonprofits. So I'm thinking about that and then just again going back to YouTube, I think it's so much about. I forget how you put it earlier, but almost like that fake it till you make it ideology of like, don't be afraid to like start your own YouTube channel. Deserve your own YouTube channel. Like make it mean something to your organization. Like you're making this a priority in your organization. And then others will follow that. Again, it's not like an afterthought. And that's how we started, you know, we started very low cost like that. And now we're, you know, investing in films with Dwayne Wade. We just got our first film into south by Southwest with Dwayne Wade. Oh my gosh, I could have produced. But that, you know, that's five years down the road. It didn't start there. You know, it started with with on our phones, telling stories on Instagram. And now we see one of the things in that five year report, which was so exciting is over the last couple of years we've been able to track that our winners are fundraising. 65. I think it's actually over 70% more after having gone through the two year fellowship with us. So visibility equals fundraising. Like there's no now we have no doubt about it. Like it was very much a theory of change that we had at the beginning. Now it's an absolute like requirement of change is to have the visibility, the storytelling. All of this be a top priority. And if your listeners, any of them are board members, you know, they really need to get behind their organizations in this way and encourage them to invest in these tools and even bringing somebody in house eventually on your team who could do the storytelling. The good news is it's all really young people and you know, they're starting out so well. You can afford, right? You're the best ones are telling these stories.
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A
Carolina, I don't know what I expected you to bring us. I know a couple of places to get started.
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B
Incident.
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A
Holy.
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C
I thought about these things, guys. I know this is important.
- [23:52]
A
Can I say a couple things that just really jump out at me? I think I mentioned it a couple episodes back, but I'm going through the 10x is better than 2x or easier than 2x book right now. And I think it's super interesting because if you're looking at breakthrough kind of growth, you can't just put in reps. And I think this is my old mindset is like it's not just about the reps. If you look at we are for good story, it's like we just kept going, kept going. And that is part of it. But what you said is the differentiator. It's after the rep. Looking at it, how did this compare to the brief? How do we do what's something we can tweak for next time and. And iterating and it's like the amount of iterations that you can go through is the only way that you can like actually get there. So I think it's so empowering to look at where y' all have come from to look at your story of growth. And now you're creating films that are in south by Southwest. And it could have started with just holding a camera in your hand. So this is how it happens. This is the playbook that is cutting through. I'm so happy to have this conversation with you. And you know, we can't not ask for a one good thing every time you come through our house. Carolina, like, what is a piece of advice, maybe something that our listeners could do today to just get active around this topic.
- [25:08]
C
Well, you know, I'm going to bring up what everybody brings up every conversation I have everywhere, which is AI and there's. It's such an existential crisis for so many of us in the creative field at the impact field. It feels so dehuman. It feels unhuman. You know, it feels so disconnected. It feels the opposite of so many ways of what we need in this moment. Moment. But I really urge people not to be afraid of this thing A because the world is using it. And once again, the nonprofits and. And the people doing the impact world don't need to be left behind because that's often happening with us. But also it can do so much of the work that then allows the space and time to do the deep thinking, the real systems change work. I think so many leaders get caught up in the doing and doing and doing and doing and doing. And they have. And this goes to the whole leader work that we do. Right. Elevate. There's very Little time for being. And the being is where all the magic happens, right? Like, you need the doing, but AI can do a lot of the doing. And so I think my good thing that I would really encourage people to do is to carve out some time with their teams, do a lunch and learn, you know, make it a fun thing that people on the team can start to put play with. Like, how can we automate some of the parts of our work so that we can develop more time for the creative thinking, for the culture, building for the trust, for the relationships, for the stuff that really does make the needle move in the world. But we don't have time for it because we live, especially in our sector, in such a lack mindset that we don't have enough time or people or resources. So don't be afraid of parking some of that work in a place where hopefully that's the way AI will go, right? We'll allow humans to be more human again. And I think if anybody has a chance of training these models the right way, it's us. It's this sector. And it really is an invitation for organizations to think about this. And I think back to your point, John, about, you know, don't be afraid of looking at what's wrong or scary. You know, in that same vein, like I always say to my team, like, there are no sacred cows. Like, you cannot let your ego get in the way. Oh, AI is so evil. Like, does it have to be? If it's not going to be, it's up to us, right? So let's take that on. Let's take it on as a sector. Let's support each other in taking it on. Let's not shame each other for using it. Like, let's really use it because it could be a real game changer for especially really small organizations that are strapped.
- [27:44]
B
I'm so glad you brought that up. I'm so glad that you're. One good thing, because we. We also had one of our trends, which is like, beyond the prompt. AI fluency. How we need to embrace AI fluency and retaining your humanness. We had this conversation with Elizabeth Kelly over at Anthropic and Woodrow Rosenbaum at Giving Tuesday. And I just think what you're saying has resonance not just with trust, not just with story, but across the board.
- [28:12]
C
Can I tell you a really cool story?
- [28:14]
B
Yes, please.
- [28:16]
C
So when I was at Sundance last week or a couple weeks ago, so it's really fresh in my mind, but it had such an impact on me. One of the panels that we Helped organize was a conversation between our winner, Dave Flink, who you should have on the show. Like, this guy is incredible.
- [28:31]
B
Come on over, Dave.
- [28:32]
C
He's the founder and has been running for 25 years an organization called the Neurodiversity Alliance. The biggest neurodiverse community had them on.
- [28:40]
B
We love them. As a neurospicy person, I love them the best.
- [28:46]
C
So we had this conversation with Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar winning documentarian who's made like an incredible, you know, documentaries for many, many years, who is dyslexic, unknown to many, many people. And Dave also is dyslexic. So they had this conversation about the connection between dyslexic and creativity. Okay. And you know, we all know and you know you're neurosex spicy. I was gonna say neuro sexy also.
- [29:12]
B
Neuro sexy and spicy from your lips to everybody's ears.
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C
So you know this already. But it's so interesting, the science and the data coming out. They were speaking specifically about, about dyslexic folks. So if you think about the word, you see the letter S as a non dyslexic person, as a normie, as they call us, you. You immediately make the sounds in your mind, right? For them, it takes this like, I think of it like a pinball machine, like this crazy circuitous route around their brains to get to that same conclusion, which was thought of as a, as a disability, right? Like as a problem to solve, when in fact these other ding, ding, ding, ding places that it's hitting are actually really useful to the final result. One of those thought centers being hyper empathy. Okay, stay with me here. So they were saying, which was fascinating. Right now it's believed that one in five people in the world are neurodiverse. I think it's more than that. And I think the issue has been that for generations we have been trained to think a certain way. And those of us who are very good at rote memorization, at learning something, spitting it back, were very successful in a capitalistic structure, right? Like we went into finance, into law, and into the Ivy leagues, all these places. And those who couldn't, took other paths. Some, many artists, obviously many creatives, but definitely not valued the way those were if AI. And this was all on this conversation, but these were like the dots I connected if AI were to take away the need over time for that rote memorization kind of learning. And this goes back to my good thing, and then opened up the possibility that many more people could live in this very kind of spacious, creative space, right? This is what becomes much more powerful and important in our society. Much more valued. And these folks who have this circuitous way of thinking are more valued in the world, and they are hyper empathetic. And also another ding, ding thing that it makes there is that they have almost a compulsion to connect with other humans. Like when they're out in public, they have to talk to other people. I mean, what's the skill? We need more than ever. So to me, it was like one of the most inspiring conversations I've ever heard in terms of opening up the aperture for what is truly valued in society and to going, you know, moving us in a place that is just far more deeply human. And to get there vis a vis the promise of AI, it just to me, left me in a much more hopeful place. That conversation was magic, really.
- [31:45]
B
Thank you so much for saying those things. I have been saying a lot of those things, just trying to make sense of how my brain works for years. And I agree with you, because there is a creative center here, when paired with that empathy and community.
- [32:00]
C
Right.
- [32:01]
B
That creates a connectedness between us all. And. And I think that's the beauty of building scaffolding around AI and not just relying on AI, because the opportunity is pairing fluency with values so technology can scale the mission without losing its soul. And that is why you are so important and your humanness is so important in this. And I just want to say, as we're wrapping up this incredibly powerful conversation, your story as infrastructure is a very powerful tool. We look so externally in our work in nonprofit admission and impact, when really the story begins inside.
- [32:48]
C
That's right.
- [32:49]
B
And thinking about where your story begins and how it pairs with this moment, with this mission, I can assure you sharing that story will bring others in. And so use that story as infrastructure. Build a heartbeat around it. I follow Carolina, follow the Elevate Price foundation because we follow them so closely, because what they're doing isn't shiny and flashy. I mean, it is, let's be honest, it. There's so much shiny and flashy, and that's the least cool thing about it. The heartbeat inside of it is what is so powerful. And watching that heartbeat just scale into new missions, it is the way. So, Carolina, tell people where you hang out, where they can find you, where they can find Elevate Prize. Let's keep this story going, I think.
- [33:38]
C
Thank you. Thank you. And just before I do, just that is such an important note that you said about the story is within us, you know, and I think that's another advice to leaders is to not be afraid to be really personal in telling your story. That is how people are going to connect to the why of what you're doing. I can be found on Instagram under my full name, Carolina Garcia, JRM and LinkedIn as well, obviously. And then the organization is really active across platforms. Really look for us on YouTube because that's where we're going to be doing some very exciting content coming up. But monthly, we do a really fun award on Instagram. So if you follow us on Instagram, you can be part of that. It's called Get Loud and it's all about the community nominating. Great. Usually more like grassroots organizations around the world doing everything. Right now we're doing one around community safety to honor the incredibly brave people of Minneapolis and across the country right now. And so many organizations that are keeping folks fed and safe. So that's a great way to follow us too.
- [34:39]
A
So grateful for you. Always love our conversations and just love the work that you're putting into the world. We are here to make good famous right along with y', all, my friends.
- [34:47]
C
Thank you. Yes, you are.
- [34:48]
B
And I'm about to go subscribe. Let's get to the millions right there with. Come join subscribe on YouTube. Thank you, my friend. Thank you for being such a light. Thank you for evolving with us. And we'll keep watching and sharing that incredible work that you're doing because we want it to scale in other missions as well. Thank you.
- [35:07]
C
Build that scaffolding together.
- [35:08]
B
Let's do it.