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- [00:04]
A
The truth is, I wanted to throw up before every donor meeting. Fundraising is high stakes and deeply human, vulnerable and tender. What I needed more than anything was a place to practice. So I created one. Practivated is the first ever donor conversation simulator where you have a private and safe space to put in the reps, refine your messaging, and build your confidence. Learn more@practivated.com.
- [00:34]
B
As a leader, you've got to ask yourself, what's the change that's looming that I'm willfully ignoring such a powerful question? And yeah, we sometimes willfully ignore the hard truth, which is, yeah, there's these few things I've got to go after. I think potentially we could, as leaders, build a better dashboard for the decisions that we make. And we could be saying, unless I'm hurting from saying no to five things per week. Well, let's take a list of the five things that hurt most to say no to this week and keep track of that. And on a scale of 1 to 5, how much did it hurt? And reframe that as a bad thing to actually, well, this is a sign that I'm on the right track. So I think there's a way to reframe the things that we wish we could do.
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C
Hey, my name is Mallory and I'm.
- [01:17]
A
Obsessed with helping leaders in the nonprofit space raise money and run their organizations differently. What the Fundraising is a space for real and raw conversations to both challenge and inspire you. Not too long ago, I was in your shoes, comfortable with fundraising and unsure of my place in this sector. It wasn't until I started to listen to other experts outside of the fundraising space that I was able to shift my mindset and ultimately shift the way I show up as a leader. This podcast is my way of blending professional and personal development so we, as a collective inside the nonprofit sector, can feel good about the work we are doing. Join me every week as I interview some of the brightest minds in the personal and professional development space to help you fundamentally change the way you lead and fundraise. I hope you enjoy this episode, so let's dive in.
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C
Welcome everyone. I'm so excited to be here today with Mark Dobkins. Mark, welcome to what the fundraising.
- [02:16]
B
Thank you. It's such a thrill to be here. And yeah, thanks for all you're doing in this space. We've learned lots from you.
- [02:21]
C
Oh, thank you. Well, I was saying to you before we hit record that this feels like one of the longest overdue conversations on what the fundraising. And there's so much we could talk about today. But let's start with you just introducing yourself, your work, and what brings you to our conversation, and then we'll. We'll get into it for sure.
- [02:39]
B
Yep. So, Mark Domkins. I live in Wollongong in Australia. So it's kind of like what Santa Cruz is to San Fran is what Wollongong is to Sydney on the coast. Gorgeous spot. Live here with my wife Anna, and our six beautiful kids, three of whom we adopted during our years living and working in Tanzania. So I'm actually a maths teacher by trade and was teaching at an international school over there, and Anna was a boarding parent. And yeah, during our time living working there, we fostered and eventually adopted three more beautiful kids. And that was our connection to initially starting Forever Projects. And our mission is to end the Tanzanian orphan crisis through income creation for women.
- [03:12]
C
Okay, I want to talk about. There's so many things we could talk about related to Forever projects, and we'll get into some of it. But I first actually kind of want to talk about your nonprofit leadership journey and some of the things I'm really inspired by, the way that you lead and the way that you of think about growth of your organization. So talk to me a little bit about, like, what have been some of the, like, hardest lessons along the way or things that you've really realized in terms of how that have led you to how you show up today.
- [03:42]
B
Oh, so much. There a book in the back of your bookshelf by Seth Godin. He's been incredible for us. I'll talk a little about Seth and his leadership, but I think the principles that have really helped have been the naivety. You know, as a math teacher, who am I to even start this and to really be clear on who our audience is? So, you know, our story really started as adoptive parents, as I'd said, in Tanzania, and asking ourselves, like, what would need to have changed in the lives of our kids, but Also, you know, 57 other kids we walked past that day. We started the fostering process who weren't going to a family. And fortunately, the team we'd adopted through was already piloting a project to keep women and families together through a really great intervention. And so we recognized early on that our role was to raise funds and awareness for the work and that luckily their teams could get on with it. But how. How do you kind of captivate people an ocean away with a story that they've never heard or whatever? And so we kind of initially connected with our friends and family back here just to kind of get some more funding for the project, and you don't want to show up to your friends and family and, like, shake a bucket and say, hey, you should feel guilty for your privilege. Give. So a great friend of mine, Ben, is an incredible designer storyteller, helped us curate this first event with 16 beautiful stories of the pilot project in Tanzania. And we invited friends to our other friends cafe that said food and beverages on us, the events on us. And we just said, hey, this is what we're seeing. And without taking you to Tanzania, the next thing we can do is tell stories. And here's some stories go around, and we treat it like an art gallery and just give as you feel led. And people gave so generously that night. Sixteen grand. All the money went to the program. And then a year later, we invited that same group back and said, remember last year, you gave generously. Here's where your money went, and all 16 new stories. So I think the first thing we learned through that experience and just seeing their, like, immediate connection to where here's where my money went, and here's the difference that it made, we were like, okay, early on, that's something we need to hook into. And so that led us to starting forever projects, you know, after those annual fundraisers. And really, I think the big thing we learned early through connection to work, like Seth Godins, was like, my role as a leader is to make sure I'm very clear on telling that story. And then I'm surrounding myself with people who can do the things that I can't do that we need to do that they can do much better. For example, storytelling, marketing, creative. So that was the first thing. And then I think the second thing was definitely around who we're learning from. And so as we were just being aware of what are our current obstacles and who is solving them in interesting ways. And so a couple of years in, we needed some funding to kind of put some staff on and grow the work. We were getting some traction. And I heard Scott Harrison on a podcast, and he was talking about their 100% model and their well. And it just came right at the perfect time. I'm like, okay, we've got friends and family who trust us, and they can see the potential. So we said, hey, there's this charity in the US They've got a great business model. How about you become the well for us? We call them our core donors, and then you can fund the first couple of hires at forever Projects and help us scale. And so I think that idea of number one Getting great people around you and number two, getting just be curious about the people around you in the space, who you can learn from, who are already ahead and have solved that problem has been the two biggest lessons for me. I think that the main obstacle has been a couple of years in learning the hard way that you need to create future demand as well as convert existing demand for whether it's a nonprofit or a for profit business. And a few years in we're like, oh yeah, up into the right and then wait a minute, what's going on? And then looking under the hood and going we haven't been building brand. We've been relying on those early adopters and that kind of part of the curve is running out. Yeah. And so I think that's kind of been the last couple of years of the season we've been in trying to think about how do we captivate people who don't know us and bring them to the best reason to give.
- [07:13]
C
Yeah, okay, there's. I'm going to hold myself back from talking from asking questions in a different direction, but there's so much in there that we could talk about. I'm curious like how you're thinking about that today. Like how do you continue to kind of build community and demand and desire and help people be hand raisers and sort of how you think about that in a way that feels like sustainable and manageable to you as a leader and to your team and making sure that it's still core to who the organization wants to be.
- [07:47]
B
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I think again, learning from people in the space, Victoria Harrison ran and I think that's how we got introduced was ran an incredible course called Critical Mass and it was talking about that exact thing. And she had a line that I'll never forget which was instead of expecting donors to come and meet you where you're at, hey, here's the Tanzanian orphan crisis. You have to meet them where they're at. And I recognized that the stories we were telling and the kind of marketing activity top and bottom funnel was pretty like as an organization self centered. We were talking about the mission and not necessarily having the empathy to stop and go. What's it like to be a working professional in a cost of living crisis, raising a couple of kids, reading news that is mainly western centric and isn't really about the areas we exist in. And so how do we meet them where they're at and actually to them. And so the last four months we've particularly been, we were kind of also Having a partnership with a VC firm, and they were talking about building their own brand and talking about community and events in real life. Activations and digital activity around that is a great way to grow awareness of them as a brand, as an investor. And so we're like, well, let's pick. Donors are like investors. How do we build that same principle? And so we started running events with that theme. So the first one we ran was called collective effervescence. And it was all around that. Everyone knows that feeling of holding hands with strangers. As Brene talks about being at a music concert or at a football game where you look left and right, you don't even know these people, but you feel connected to them. So let's explore what is that. And that feels really great about being human. And that's actually when we're connecting with one another about something bigger than ourselves, that's something people are interested in. So we ran that event. We're fortunate to think about. We think about the assets as an organization that we have. We're fortunate to have built a great network with some thought leaders who are experts in their space. So we invited a panel of experts and they then shared the topic with the network. And we had the empathy to know this is something they want to talk about. And in talking about it, it's going to be great for their brands, whatever businesses they're building. They then promoted the event. The room filled up with people who we'd never met, but we placed a bet that their people would be our people as well. And it was really like running like a podcast or an event where we almost like placed an ad about ourselves. In the event we ran, we didn't really talk about much about projects. It was more like, hey, this is the community we're building. These are the topics we're exploring. We want you to leave feeling connected, to feel joy and hope and maybe have a new insight about this particular topic. And we just trusted that they would leave going, wow, who brought that together and where can I get more of it? So that was the kind of first one we did. And then we just committed to running those month in, month out with those three goals. At the end of each event, someone would leave feeling joy and hope, new connections. Because in real life, connections to people that are aligned are increasingly scarce. Therefore going up in value and some insight they may have been kind of searching for that was meeting them right where they were at, at that stage of life. Maybe as a working parent or. Yeah, someone who's feeling a bit lonely and We've seen over time, people who had no idea about us becoming connected to us and then wanting to know more about what we're about. Yeah, but because of the way we met them, where they're at. Yeah.
- [10:43]
C
Okay. So it's interesting. I love, first of all, I love the asset based approach of like the, just the stacking of this is just so similar to my model. Understanding the assets that you have connecting if those assets are people, influential people, or people with a certain amount of knowledge, like using that empathy to like bring out the best in them and what they really care about and designing around those experiences when you know that they match or you believe that they match with like who your people are. Right. And there's a certain amount, I mean, like, you took a big risk. Like people could have gone to that event and, and like left feeling great, but like not cared at all.
- [11:25]
B
Yeah, that's right.
- [11:27]
C
Or certainly not cared to learn more about it. You know, they could have been like, okay, like, that was cool. So tell me about, like, as the leader went into, you kind of like backing yourself to take that risk and like you had a certain amount of conviction, but there was a lot of uncertainty there.
- [11:45]
B
Yeah, there was. And I think because we were kind of brought to a position, as I said earlier, where we recognized we need to grow brand and future demand and we need to do it lean. We're at a place where we were ready to explore that because we needed to. We couldn't just continue going back to the same database. We needed to grow the bucket. And Brady Josephson at Charity Water has been talking a lot about this in their journey. So even seeing more established charities going through it, I think gave us permission to say, well, if they're with those resources wrestling with this issue, then who are we to not be as well? I think also helped that, like I said, we'd had that partnership with that vc. One of our new directors, Jess Walker, was the head of community and programs at this, one of Australia's biggest three biggest VCs. And so she was helping us think about this strategy at that stage as a volunteer at the VC and in joining our board, she was then, you know, one of our key decision makers was saying, yeah, this has worked, we believe it's going to work. So I think that's important as well, like making sure that who you're accountable to as a leader are aligned and that kind of risk appetite. Both the risk appetite's important, but also aligned in strategy. And I think with small nonprofits where we think about moving from maybe a more friends and family board of directors to a more independent board. We've got the opportunity to do that really strategically and mindfully. And if at the end of the day we were able to, as I said, look at the assets we have. We have people who, the leaders, they're not going to lose by coming to this event because they get to talk about a thing they believe in, a philosophy that's going to add value to their business. So that's going to be a win for them. The venues that we're using are these spaces where they're looking for nonprofits to partner with and hold events, and they're hungry for that. So we could show up and say, hey, we'll solve your problem and we can bring community here and you can talk about the good you're doing with your space. So the cost was very low. Get some drinks and so on donated. And if everyone left and no one then wanted to kind of find out more about us, the agenda wasn't to convert them, the agenda was to delight them and holding true to that outcome. Go. Okay. Did they leave feeling, as I said, joy, connection, hope, a new insight? If we've done that, let's just test and trust that that'll work its way back to us. And if it doesn't, we haven't lost because we've given. And I think having just returned from Tanzania, the thing we love about that culture and developing cultures and emerging markets is they live in a world of scarcity, but they have an abundance worldview. Whereas we in the west have abundance, but we sometimes live with the scarcity worldview with this agenda of like, okay, I'll give or I'll do this thing, but I'm expecting something back. So it's also part of our brand and kind of representing the people we're serving to show up with that abundance and say, we might not get anything out of this. But that's not the point.
- [14:19]
A
The question I've been asked the most in the last five years is how do you always know what to say to a donor? And the truth is, because I've navigated donor conversations thousands of times, unfortunately, I had to learn what to say the hard way. Live with a donor in high stakes conversations. It was uncomfortable, messy, defeating, and definitely led me to burnout. I want better for fundraisers, which is why I built Practivated, the first AI powered donor conversation simulator built just for fundraisers with real time feedback, customizable scenarios and coaching from your AI guide, coach Tivi. You can Practice donor conversations. In a sense, safe judgment, free space. I want to help you build confidence, reduce stress and strengthen donor relationships all at the same time. Are you interested? Book your demo with me. Mallory erickson today@practivated.com backslash demo.
- [15:19]
C
Okay, so you're hitting on, I think, this, like, true underlying tension almost, and how we as a sector approach certain types of donor owner acquisition, or not even just acquisition, I mean, like large gift conversations, or we say we want to just get to know the person, but underneath our intention is quite different. Right. And so then throughout the whole conversation, we feel this, like, inconsistency, like inside ourselves that then creates this awkward meeting because we have this intention that we haven't said out loud and. But we're holding it. And then it leads to this, like, you know, really, really problematic experience for both the donor and the fundraiser. Like, I think this is one of the main things that dysregulates fundraisers and makes them feel like, makes fundraising feel so bad. And you're talking about it on an event scale, but it's coming back to the same issue, which is that I'll often say, like, alignment can't just be a strategy, it needs to be your intention. Like, anyone can send an email saying, we're looking for aligned partners, but, like, if you are not truly looking to figure out alignment, that is going to be a felt experience and that we as a sector need to be investing more in the leading indicators and period. And then believing and knowing that those leading indicators over time do result in the lagging indicators we're looking for. But if we're doing the leading indicator with thinking about the lagging indicator, we're breaking it and you're sort of like double clicking on that in so many ways. So tell me what you think.
- [17:03]
B
Yeah, I think it's. I love the lead versus lag indicator reflection there. And so I think about, like, if you could reverse engineer that and go, okay, what would the obstacles be for us not having the ability, capacity to actually go after that lead indicator and trust the lag will come. Or test, as we said earlier, test that the lag will come. And I think if I think about, in my experience, some of the lag. Sorry, that the obstacles that get in the way would be, as I said, governance. Who am I as a leader accountable to? So I've got a board meeting I'm preparing for next Friday. In the CEO report, there's a whole bunch of things that we've agreed that I'm accountable for. But we as founding Directors made sure that the new directors, as I said, were risk loving and would be open to kind of growing a charity in this way. So I think that's one thing. Another thing I think is what's the pressure that I'm feeling we're feeling on delivering funds to our partners in the short term. And that's really hard, especially in the current economic climate and what's happened with USAID and all the rest. So we've made strategic decisions to say to our existing partners in Tanzania, we're not looking at growing beyond this group. We're going to forecast as best we can with multi year kind of giving, but we're not going to kind of make a promise we are scared we can't deliver on. We're going to kind of be able to send funds once the funds have come in. And that doesn't necessarily help them as much as we'd like with their forecasting and planning. But through painful experience like having been confident that money was going to come in and it didn't, and then going, oh gosh, I've got to make sure we deliver on that promise. You then go into short term hustle mode to get those funds versus that consistently or the consistent commitment to the lead indicator. So in my experience there are things that have gotten in the way in the past of really sticking to that lead indicator, the governance and then just being careful about who you commit your fundings to. And the third thing actually I would reflect on would be as a leader, the validation you get from being able to say this year we sent X to Tanzania and particularly with 100% model going to our core donors like the well equivalent for charity water and saying this year we sent less than the previous year and here's why. And there was one particular update I'd sent to that group. We sent like an annual video update and have a gathering where they can grill us as leaders. There was one moment I really felt like people might leave here because we've actually sent less two years in a row than we had the previous years. And so some executive coaching really helped me work through that as a leader to say I have permission from our board and from our local partners to execute on this strategy. And if any of our core donors are uneasy with this, we would say thank you so much for your generosity. We totally understand. Here's a more established charity that's probably going to give you more reliability and be willing to say thanks and all the best. And personally as a leader that's really hard. So I think Being able to separate your own identity from the short term success that we feel, I think that runs deep for nonprofit leaders and all leaders. Yeah.
- [19:44]
C
And what happened? What happened?
- [19:47]
B
Yeah. I was surprised that when we sent that, I think one person who actually was on the list but hadn't given, they kind of had churned an annual donation and then said, actually, I'm out. And they were already not giving. And that was the only person to say no. Other people said, we love the transparency. We put a bet on you all when this was all very early days. We continue to trust you. And so it was both surprising and so affirming and validating and I think a reminder that so much of the, so many of the obstacles as leaders that we face are in our own heads. And you know the noise that you hear at 4am when you wake up and you're like questioning what you're doing and questioning if it's the right thing. It's sometimes good to test that and realize it's okay. Yeah.
- [20:28]
C
And what did that do for your leadership, like in terms of how you trust your donor community to come along with you? Like, how did that change you as a leader?
- [20:39]
B
Yeah. If we'd already started testing that strategy with events and so on that I talked about earlier, but it gave me even more conviction and belief in myself and our team and our strategy and the new board and just go, let's just go after this. And I think much more permission to say no to things that maybe in the past I may have said yes to. I think the other thing that was really helpful, that coaching that I did through that period as a leader was not just the kind of how do you separate your own sense of validation and identity from this thing you're building? But also what are the saboteurs that get in the way? And for me, it's like I love if I go to a restaurant and I see a menu, I want to go, hey, let's all share so we can all try everything. And I see that in my leadership where I'm like, oh, yes, this looks good, this shiny thing and having the self awareness to go, that can be a strength, but also a shadow. And I need to get better at saying no to most things and yes to these few things. It gave me that. Also, I think that self awareness combined with the validation maybe just go, let's say no to these things because we've got the trust from our donors and from our board to go, yes. Put a big yes bet on this other stuff.
- [21:42]
C
Okay, You're Talking about this piece that I think is super important here. So the thing that's coming up for me as you're talking about this is that I hear from nonprofit leaders a lot is, well, I don't want to miss opportunities, right? Like, I have to say yes to everything because I don't want to miss opportunities. And my response to people is always like, you have to miss opportunities. Like, there is literally no way to not miss opportunities. And if you don't consciously choose your opportunities, then you are unconsciously having things fall through the cracks and probably missing the more important ones. So talk to me a little bit about that.
- [22:22]
B
Yeah, it's like the opportunity cost piece. And one of the things in Seth Salt MBA talked about was the opportunity cost is this great quote where he says, as a leader, you've got to ask yourself, what's the change that's looming that I'm willfully ignoring? It's such a powerful question. And, yeah, we sometimes willfully ignore the hard truth, which is, yeah, there's these few things I've got to go after. I think potentially we could, as leaders, build a better dashboard for the decisions that we make. And we could be saying, unless I'm hurting from saying no to five things per week. Well, let's take a list of the five things that hurt most to say no to this week and keep track of that. And on a scale of 1 to 5, how much did it hurt? And reframe that as a bad thing to actually, well, this is a sign that I'm on the right track. So I think there's a way to reframe the things that we wish we could do, because, as you say, there's a long, long tail of things that could be good, but they're not great. What's the saying? Good. The enemy of the best.
- [23:12]
C
Yeah, I actually think it's rooted in that same scarcity mindset that you were talking about, right? Where, like, if we don't start all these opportunities that are coming, or, like, there won't be another. And I remember when I was starting my business, I would hear my brain be like, this is your chance. Like, this is your shot. And I made a commitment to myself, like, early on, like, that I was never gonna believe that. Like, that I would. That every time I heard that voice, like, I was never gonna believe that this is, like, my one chance, my one opportunity. Because, like, life isn't like that, you know, and you make more opportunities, and especially with, like, intentionality and clarity. And I will say, like, in my leadership Too. Like, I get excited very easily and I could totally be the person who just wants to do a million things. And there are probably people listening to this, laughing, being like, you do do too many things. You're not wrong. But like, emissions, we have like a framework inside, practivated for, like, what are we not doing? And, like, the emissions. And that is actually, that list is more important than my task list. Like, it's like the things I am saying, I will not do these things. I will not spend time here. I will not entertain this conversation. I will not have this meeting. And how that trickles down to my team. Like, they'll be like, mallory, can you send me this thing? And I'll be like, nope, we shouldn't be doing it. And I'll be like, I love you and I care about you and I know you want me to just solve this for you, but instead we're gonna all sit in the discomfort of not taking action and we're not doing it. And I feel like that has for me too, been like the most transformative growth for me in the way it's impacted my team and things like that.
- [24:53]
B
Yeah. And I think related to that too, when you talked about, like, you know, sending the team are eagerly wanting something. There's part of. One of the other saboteurs that came up when I did this exact coaching was people pleasing. And that people pleasing where there's an idea that maybe someone in your team has. That's the shiny new thing. That's not my. I get number one excited. Cause, oh, here's this new thing, like another item on the menu. And number two, a tendency to go, I don't want to let you down. And in combination, they're deadly. And so again, having a self awareness piece to go, I can see that ahead of time now and say, I want to please your future self, not your current self. As a math teacher, I always talk about that with students. If they say, do I have to do homework? You get to do homework. Your future self is cheering you on, you know, like, and trying to. Which person are we pleasing, the present or the future? Both for ourselves and for our team and our diners.
- [25:39]
C
In that. Yeah, it's such a good exercise. I do that a lot with travel. Like, because in the moment I'm like, oh, my gosh, that speaking opportunity, I want that. And then I like, take a step back and I'm like, okay, that's during my daughter's last week of school. That's like, go there, Mallory, and decide, like, does that version of you actually want this and, and, and then you can like transfer that protection piece to sort of a different moment. So helpful. And I think I didn't know you had gone through that executive coaching phase, but I think that is just such a nice, like a really important piece of this because everything that you're talking about right now requires a level of self awareness, but also willingness to be uncomfortable. I actually think like the number one nonprofit challenge is that we are not taught how to be uncomfortable. So many of us are people pleasers, perfectionists, like high achiever, you know, like all the things. And we come into this work, we want to do good, we want to make people happy. We want, we have all these people to please also. Like, you know, it's like there's just so many constituents and, and because of course, like everybody wants to be liked, you know, like, I think at our core, like the most tender parts of ourselves are like, create harmony, you know, build community. These things that we really like, we want and the people we want to be. And it took me a long time of like unraveling that I can be like a kind person and not do a 15 minute brain picking call with every person who DM's me on LinkedIn. Because if I did that, I would actually spend 70 hours a week doing those calls. And it was like a real tension though. I was like, oh no, like I'm not kind anymore, I'm not helpful anymore. And so I just think you're bringing up this really important point which is like good things come from discomfort a lot of the time. And being able to sit in the discomfort long enough to get to the other side of it as opposed to just giving in to that shiny object that allows us to flee the discomfort that we aren't doing enough or we aren't doing the right thing, but isn't really where we're trying to go.
- [27:55]
B
Yeah, I love that. And that embrace of discomfort reminds me of another topic we've been exploring and we talked about the monthly events that these are topics that as nonprofit leaders, if we have the empathy to understand and have the self awareness to understand that this is something I'm struggling with, then there's lots of other people in the kind of space we're trying to grow in the Australian tech ecosystem and philanthropists within that space who are also going through it. So let's explore this topic. I'm going through it. I could just invite these thought leaders around and have a conversation, but why would I not share those insights with people that I care about in our community. And so, yeah, I think it's another thing of just as a leader, we can kind of go, yeah, what are the things as a business or as a leader that we're currently facing and exploring and curious about and how do we share those insights more widely and trust that they are value to not everyone, but of a certain group of people. And like I said, we just came back from Tanzania. We did our first official kind of Tanzanian immersion trip for leaders in this ecosystem. And the whole pitch was, who's this for? It's for leaders who want to level up, embracing discomfort in service of others. And so if you want to kind of go to Bali and sit on the beach, that's fine. That's nothing wrong with that. But this leadership immersion trips for people who are going to level up in their discomfort kind of purpose way. So that was incredible to kind of have that. We tried to run that trip 12 months ago and we just didn't have the connections to kind of fill a trip. It's a big ask for someone to kind of go, I'll give you two weeks as a leader in another country. And you know, it's not cheap. The monthly events that I talked about, we'd been running, I think it was like a third of the participants came, we attributed from those events. So it's nice to kind of see being on safari with them. After we visited the Impact Partners and going, I met you at this event in Melbourne or I met you at this event in Sydney. And that was nice validation. Go. I know what was the pain of trying to run this trip and it not getting up because we didn't have the audience and then being on the other side of that kind of chasm and seeing it at work. So, yeah, but yeah, great, great topic on discomfort, for sure.
- [29:49]
C
Okay, I know we're out of time, but I have one question that I have to ask now, which I hope it's okay that I'm asking. Yeah, something that's really coming up for me, hearing all of this and this connection between events and these trips is that that there might be, and I hope you don't take this to mean anything negative about forever projects at all. But to me, what strikes me, we often think about donors and we're like, we think about them as being kind of really proactive prioritizers of their giving. Right. They're like, okay, these are the five things that I care about and I'm going to give to these five organizations in descending order or whatever based on These, like, global issues that I really care about. My guess is that some of the folks that you're bringing into the fabric of forever projects right now never would have put the work that you do in their top five priorities. Which I think speaks to this desire that people have or like this kind of flip of what giving is really about into, like the identity of the person, the community they want to be a part of. Like, that it's a place that sees them, that cares about the same things as them in more ways than just what the organization does. And so there's so many things. I mean, as a human being, there's probably like 500 different causes that I really do care about. Right. And like how things surface to the top is based on my lived experience in the moment, what I'm exposed to, what the people around me are talking about. And I think what you're demonstrating here that is so interesting to me is like, what it really looks like. Not to convince somebody who cares about animal rescues that you're the right animal rescue, but to say people who care about these core fundamental components of being human, who want experiences like this, you belong here.
- [31:39]
B
Yeah, you've said it so well. I 100% agree. I think heard Scott Harrison on a podcast at some point talking about how so many of their big eight figure donors to the well, the number one motivator for them is the innovation that charity water is bringing. And it could be innovation to the water crisis, it could be innovation to homelessness. He doesn't feel like a lot of them really mind about the cause, but it's more about the way they're doing it. Yeah. And I think what you talked about with culture is really important. Seth says it's his famous definition of culture is people like us do things like this. So if people in. I love that. So when people in the Australian tech ecosystem are thinking about giving, they look left and right and go, well, people like us do things like what? Well, we're generous and we're globally minded. And I think one of our core donors, Conan Craig, works at one of the VCs. And I was kind of talking early days about this Tanzania trip. And he's incredible, gives founders feedback all the time. Pretty brutal. He's like, mark, I can go down to my travel agent or go online and get a trip to Tanzania easily, probably cheaper than this, and go with people that I actually know. So why would I go on your trip? And he was grilling me and I'm like, yeah, that's a great question. So we thought about what's the kind of unique value that this trip brings that something else might not. So when we were kind of going out to. Back to your question. The potential participants in the trip, it wasn't, hey, come and learn about the orphan crisis. We can give you first hand access. It was, this trip is going to be, as I said, a way to level up as a leader outside your comfort zone. Remarkable places and people leaning into purpose. Kilimanjaro Summit Boutique Safari and we gave them access to the local tech ecosystem. They're interested in seeing ecosystems in East Africa that are kind of emerging. And you'll also connect with the work of fur projects and you'll also at the end, like that was the last part of the pitch. And so yeah, a lot of people came for those reasons and were like happy to. They didn't disagree with that cause, but they're kind of having firsthand access to it, fell more in love with it. And I think the other thing that's interesting is so many people now that have kind of come into our orbit. We've had a couple more monthly donors signing up on the base of. On the back of these participants coming back and sharing their experience. You know, Vic talks about people give to people, not causes. So they don't know what Andrea is raising money for. And she's summiting Kilimanjaro. They're like, good grief, how are you doing this at that age? I'm in awe of your bravery and generosity. And she raised 30 grand. That's like another 20 women in the next 12 months that will join the 12 month program because of her. And they didn't know about for a project before. And now we can, on the back of the trip, we can send emails to that donor group and the first amount will be, here's how you made Andrea feel at the top of the summit because she was in a dark place at 4am at 5,700 meters. And she said, I remembered why I'm doing this. And it's the, this is challenging. Nothing like the challenge of poverty for these women. And in her words, we'll connect with her donors and introduce them to the cause and then just test again. Do those comms work? Does that add value to the people that are in her audience? I could riff about that all day, but definitely important to recognize that these causes are incredibly important to us, but they're not yet important to most people. And it's the yet that we can kind of just play around with.
- [34:42]
C
I think the other thing I'M really taking away from this is for organizations to figure out who they are, like, and not just what they do. Because I think we lean a lot on, like, what we do and, and like, you're this. Everything I'm hearing is like, wow, like it really matters who you are and that especially if you're working to like, build community or bring new people in. Like, of course you want to make sure that they're going to be aligned or at least that you believe that they, like, could be aligned. But that probably what makes those invitations, like, feel the way they do is because you know really who you are and the types of spaces you're trying to create and the values you want people to feel in those spaces. So. Okay, we could talk forever. Thank you for going over with me. This was so much in this conversation that I think will be so helpful for, for everybody listening and I'm just so grateful for the way you show up and for your voice in this space and the work that you're doing. So thank you so much. Tell folks where they can go to connect with you to get involved in forever projects like leave them with those nuggets.
- [35:49]
B
Yeah, 100%. So I'm personally just active on LinkedIn and love just sharing different things I'm learning and pointing people to different aspects around building leadership and brand and community. So you can find me there. And then FredProjects.org is where you can find out more about our cause.
- [36:04]
C
Amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah. So grateful for you.
- [36:07]
B
Thank you. You too. Have a great day.
- [36:15]
A
I hope today's episode inspired or challenged you to think differently. For additional takeaways, tips, show notes, and more about our amazing guest and sponsors, head on over to Mallorykson.com podcast and if you didn't know, hosting this podcast isn't the only thing I do every day. I coach, guide and help fundraisers and leaders just like you. Inside of my program, the Pattern Power Partners Formula Collective. Inside the program, I share my methods, tools and experiences that have helped me fundraise millions of dollars and feel good about myself in the process. To learn more about how I can help you, visit MalloryErickson.com PowerPartners Last but not least, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to encourage you to share it with a friend you know would benefit or leave a review. I'm so grateful for all of you and the good, hard work you're doing to make our world a better place. I can't wait to see you in the next episode. Fundraising doesn't have to feel like a solo battle. My book what the Fundraising Embracing and Enabling the People behind the Purpose, offers practical strategies and frameworks to help you navigate the challenges of fundraising with ease and impact. And with our free discussion guide, you can deepen learning and collaboration with your team or book club ready to transform the way you Fundraise? Head to MalloryErickson.combook to order your copy today anywhere books are sold, and you can grab the guide there too.