Ep 59: Embracing Social Entrepreneurship: Fear, Funding, and Digital Advocacy

EPISODE 59

Digital Advocacy for Nonprofits

 
 
 

Navigating social entrepreneurship can be as tough as finding your way through a maze. Together, we'll explore the world of nonprofits, uncovering the emotions that hold us back—fear, stress, and pride. But it's not all gloom; we'll also emphasize cherishing the journey, not just the destination. It's time to face those fears because success awaits.

Imagine boosting your funding with a simple, powerful strategy: digital advocacy. We'll build a digital team of influencers and ambassadors, making your online presence soar. But we won't stop there; we'll also discover creative ways to stand out in the crowd.  

Discover the path to social entrepreneurship success as we tackle fears, boost funding, and harness digital advocacy, all while celebrating the journey. 

“When we’re stuck on this very black-and-white thinking, we miss the magic in creating a campaign that is going to attract more donors, more people, more supporters into your world.”
— Christina Edwards

Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded?  Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect

Steal my Prospect List! Lead Gen just got a lot easier!

Resources mentioned:

 
 
 

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TRANSCRIPT:

00:02

Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here, ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, let's go.

00:20

So I was at the gym recently and I was on the elliptical and, looking up from that vantage point, I can see like three or four different TV screens and there's always some random old show that I'm not interested in watching. There's usually the news and if it's morning, there's like a today's show in the background. But there's this one channel that I wonder if it's just for gyms or something like that. But it's basically it's a mix of like crazy stunts and kind of like a highlight reel of crazy things people have done. Okay, so I'm halfway looking at that halfway zoned out and something catches my eye and it's basically this guy who is trying to win the world record for walking the most distance while stepping on Legos. So he's like barefoot, there's cameras everywhere, there's this long path and it's filled with tiny little Legos and he's literally doing. He's like going back and forth and back and forth and they're clocking the distance. And I had so many thoughts, but my main thought was why, why, why, why, why? Why so? Of all of the different ways to get in the Guinness book, why this one? Like it's just, it's all, it's all, pain, right. And it reminded me a lot of organizations and founders and leaders who are in my world and come to me and you guys, it feels a lot like you're walking on Legos. I recently had a live class and we were talking about how our day was filling and kind of where they were at and leading into urine, fundraising, just the general general mood. There was a lot of stress, there was a lot of overwhelm, there were a lot of feelings like that in the chat. Sometimes there's burnout, I hear, and it feels a lot like we're walking on Legos.

02:27

The other piece of this and really one of my primary goals of the podcast is and you heard it in the intro and I say it often is my goal for you, my goal for me too, is enjoying the journey, not just the destination, and a lot of times it feels like you're walking on Legos down this long path so that you can get to the place where you finally can get your feet on the soft grass and then say, whew, I did it. And what I've learned in nearly two decades now of entrepreneurship is there is no place like that, because what we do, what us humans all do, is we get to the place where we're like oh my god, I achieved the goal. And then we just move the goal post right, we just make the goal bigger. We have life challenges and obstacles that come our way, so there's never really a point where you're like well, the hard parts done, now I can just relax and coast for the next whatever. And I say that not to be doom and gloom. I say that to say get off the path with the Legos and like put your feet in the grass and find a way. And that's what we're gonna talk about today is finding a way to enjoy this process. That is the journey, and not just the goal post, not just the finish line. That feels like you have cameras on you and you're trying to prove something and you're literally barefoot and bleeding to the finish line. So what does it look like? Like metaphorically I've given you the Lego example but what does it look like for purpose driven founders, for mission driven organizations? What does it look like when I see you walking on Legos? Okay, I see that you're choosing this path because you don't ask people for help. So it's like I'm gonna do it all. I'm gonna do it all and not ask for help, and that means that it's painful, that means that I feel very stressed out all the time. That means that I'm doing a lot of things and none of them feel like I'm doing them very well because I'm doing a lot of things.

04:38

I'm thinking of a founder that I spoke with last year who had a really hard time just asking people to help her organization, to volunteer, just for volunteering. So she wasn't even fundraising at this point and the thought really behind it was I don't bother people, right, I don't bother people, I don't see them annoying, right. And so on the other side of her feeling that way was her organization not really growing right, her working way too much, her Not putting truly the people she serves first, because you you have a bandwidth issue if you are a party of one right, and so it kept her kind of stuck. So that's the first piece of like what it looks like. The second piece is this fear of unknown. What keeps us stuck, what keeps us from trying something new, what keeps us from I dating and doing something different than before oftentimes is we have no data of like historically working, right. We don't really have that data Because I don't really know if this new strategy will work. I guess I'll just keep doing this old strategy, which feels like walking on, like it feels painful, it feels stressful, but at least I know I can like, at least I know the path right, at least I know, yeah, no, let's not do that.

06:06

Another kind of flavor to the mix is just the general fear of failing, right, the general fear of failing on trying a new campaign, implementing a new strategy, asking people to help you with the process, and maybe this is the flavor of how it's showing up for you and I definitely see this as a through line. If you are a founder or in leadership, there's a little bit of pride coming up and like I'm proving to myself and to the people around me the sort of anonymous public, maybe your board, maybe your stakeholders how hard you're working right. It's like we're all wincing. We're all wincing watching this guy barefoot walk through you know a mile of walking on Legos, right, just like we're walking through.

06:58

And watching you work too much, do it all yourself, right, and sort of like DIY this very hard working thing, right and I don't want to discount that. I just want to say that, like oftentimes, the thing that is keeping you stuck, is keeping you from asking for help, is how you're thinking, right, so that's why I bring that up is it may show up in a couple of different ways and I know you're working hard and I don't want to discount the hard work that you're doing. I simply want to say, hey, step onto the grass. Step onto the grass and create a system that doesn't feel like it feels right now. Okay. So what are those? We're going to go over some of the costs of this way and then we're going to go over what I want you to do instead. So costs physically, emotionally, mentally. It's painful, right, it keeps your organization stuck. It keeps you stuck. Right, it keeps you from trying anything creative.

07:57

Now, the last episode we had one of my Amplify Social Impact students on ENDK and she was talking about this idea of what I asked her was what do you do when you feel a little stuck? And she had the best answer ever. Go back and listen to that episode. She basically said go on a walk without your phone, phoneless walk. And that is really important, whether you're creative or not, because it just gives your brain a space to like, ideate. She came up with an entire campaign that she ran this past summer for her organization. That was awesome, based on a walk, phoneless walk right.

08:34

And oftentimes, when we're stuck on this very black and white thinking, this very black and white path, we miss the part, we miss the magic in creating a campaign that is going to attract more donors, that's going to attract more people, attract more supporters into your world. It also keeps you from growing. It keeps you from not improving upon your current process. So let's talk about what to do instead. Okay, the first thing is just reminding yourself. If you fell into that bucket of like you're sort of identifying as a hard worker. I just want to say you're a hard worker Every like. You don't need to prove you can hop off onto the soft grass and not grind so hard and just say where could I make this a little easier on myself, where could I make this a little bit easier on my team? And maybe even asking the question why that that's important because it will prevent you from burning out. So what I see with the folks that are really stuck in that loop is they do experience the burnout piece quicker. Okay, remind yourself, this isn't an ultramarathon, this isn't climbing a mountain. Remember we want to enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

09:50

So how do you make your Tuesdays and your Mondays and your Fridays enjoyable? How do you get out of that grind mentality and into something that feels better? And I almost feel like I'm like here. I'm sort of giving you a bunch of symptoms and if you're noddling along with some of these symptoms, like, does this sound familiar? Does this sound like you? You have the sniffles. Only this symptom is you're feeling stressed out. You're feeling like you're doing it all. You're feeling like you don't have any help. You're feeling like there's too much on your plate. If that is you, one that's. That's normal. I want to say that that is normal in our sector. I hear that a lot. And two, it doesn't have to be that way.

10:32

One of my favorite ways to get you out of that loop is by increasing your visibility so we can increase your funding. I think of the two interchanged and linked like a chain, right? So the first piece we have to work on is your visibility. So what do I mean by visibility? One way that we can take this is your online visibility. So I'm not saying your social networks and how many people follow you on your social networks, because the truth is about 10% at best of those followers are seeing your content. I mean, how many people, how many brands, how many thought leaders, how many supporters are talking about your mission online on their networks? We flip the whole thing on its head.

11:21

This is what I teach and amplify social impact, and one of the reasons why it helps to get organizations off that hamster wheel of feeling like the walking on Legos grind is because we create what I call a digital street team. So I call this a social street team, which is simply an online ambassador program. That is a nice mix of both influencers who have a large follower following and ambassadors who may not be have a huge following. Those may be your friends, your neighbors, your alumni, your community members. These are folks that may have a couple hundred or a few thousand followers online. Those are beautiful street teamers, and the reason why this works is we arm them with a digital toolkit to become vocal advocates and champion your cause online. So what does it do? It frees you up to stop doing the small activities each day and start working on more funder meetings, more like zoom out.

12:26

What are those campaigns that you really need some lead time to develop so that your street team can actually help you implement? If you are a Solo founder doing it all, you need a street team. If you have a few employees, you need a street team. If you are scaled past the million dollar mark in operating, you should already have a street team, and if you don't, that's fine. Okay, we deploy it at each place, we deploy it at each phase and it compounds. So the way that we want to see your donors not churn year over year, same thing for your street team. I want to see your street team compound in members year over year.

13:10

So what does that look like in practice? It looks like you have, let's say, a fall fundraiser coming up or we've got your end. Maybe you're doing this for Giving Tuesday or something like that, instead of you saying, wow, I've got to create a ton of content and I've got to make sure I schedule 4,000 posts on Facebook and hope and pray that people see it and click the donate button. We're gonna flip that on its head. You'll schedule a few posts, you'll schedule some emails to support it, but instead you zoom out. You develop a compelling campaign with a juicy narrative and then you deploy it to your street team. Okay, you give them what they need, which I teach this an amplify social so that they can actually be your digital Advocates, your digital digital street team, and say this is a cause I care about and you should too. They help deliver the call of staff action. They help to do this, and this is something I want to kind of give you a nuance about of why this works so well. This works so well because you are aligning your cause to somebody who either already supports you or Somebody who is a thought leader online who wants to actually use their platform for good. This is true many, many, many times. These influencers have hundreds of thousands of followers and nonprofits are simply not asking them to To partner. Okay, so we want a beautiful, aligned partnership and many of them haven't been asked, and now's the time to ask. Now is the time to develop those relationships so that it scales right.

14:47

When I think of some of the most successful nonprofits, the ones who have really stood out in their marketing and then have stood out in their fundraising right, the two kind of go hand in hand I think they did some stuff outside the box. They got off the oh, this is just the traditional way to fundraise, this is just how you do it, this is how it's always been. No, they turned it on its head. A good example of that would be charity water. Right, they have their tiny heroes program, which is their ambassador program of Children who are young fundraisers, and they do a really good job of Creating a two-way dialogue with their straight team. So they're not taking. It is a two-way relationship where Both parties are part of something and they feel seen. So it's not so much that the organization is taking and saying post this fundraiser, donate, donate, donate. Instead it's hey, will you be a part of our community? We and. And then that that influencer or that thought leader saying yeah, tell me more right, wanting to be seen, wanting it to be heard. And the tiny heroes example works really well.

16:00

And I want to give you this caveat you don't have to be the charity water of the world to have huge success. Go back and listen to last week's episode where Andy talks about how she's used it in her own organization, and we have case study after case study of organizations who had teams of one to huge teams who have used this process. One of the stats that always stops me in that my tracks is that influencer marketing has a 5x return on every dollar spent, and One of my amplify social students her first campaign that she used this strategy for, she 5xed Her goal and I was like that doesn't seem like coincidence to me. That doesn't seem like coincidence to me. So if you want help with this, click the link in the show notes. Today you can join Amplify Social Impact and I give you everything you need, from what the heck to say to the influencers, how to build your street team, what to put in your toolkit. If you've never created an online campaign before or want help in that framework, I've even built that out for you, too of how do we create either a one day or one week or even a 30 day online campaign. I give you my entire calendar and workflow for that, so you can do that. Whether you have multiple departments or staff to support you or, again, or a team of one, we can support you in that program.

17:29

All right, so step one, get off the Legos, put your feet into the grass, ask for help, ask for support and go into this year end with a new creative campaign idea.

17:45

Okay, don't go into this year end with the exact same campaign duplicated, I don't know as last year. Okay, I don't want you to just duplicate the same campaign that you did last year for Giving Tuesday. We have to shake things up, okay. If you wanna stand out this year, if you wanna get noticed this year, I want you to kind of turn the volume up and turn up the creative, turn up the support of the people talking about your campaign. This is true for Giving Tuesday. This is true for any fundraiser. You have your round. Okay, we need to shake things up. If you have questions, you are welcome to reach out to me. Come find me at Splendid Consulting on Instagram and I'll see you next time. Like what you're hearing and wanna take this to the next level, I wanna invite you to go to purposeandprofitclub to watch my free class. In there, I will tell you the number one thing that's keeping your nonprofit or social impact business stuck, and what to do instead. Go to purposeandprofitclub.

You Get To Have Purpose And Profit. I’ll Show You How.

 
 
PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, social impact, mindset, productivityComment