Ep 74: Building IRL Connections: Hinge's $1 Million Grant for Social Impact

EPISODE 74

Cultivating Spaces for Authentic Interaction with Guest Josh Penny

 
 
 

I'm thrilled to welcome Josh Penny, Director of Social Impact at Hinge,  to discuss the importance of in-person connections today and Hinge's "One More Hour" initiative which is investing $1 million to strengthen communities.

The U.S. Surgeon General's warning on the loneliness epidemic and its impact on Gen Z is discussed. We also spotlight ideal nonprofits that should apply for this grant -- applications are open until January 30th!   
 
We delve into Josh's vision for the program's outcomes, envisioning stronger communities and increased social engagement. It's a conversation that's sure to inspire change and connection in our digital world.

Know a nonprofit that should apply for the One More Hour grant? Share this application link with them!

About Josh Penny

Josh Penny is Hinge’s Director of Social Impact, leading the app’s efforts to address loneliness in society and increase in-person connections. Previously, he served as the Director of Corporate Citizenship at Mailchimp and managed college access programs at the Posse Foundation and Georgia State University. A brand purpose and social change professional with over ten years of experience, he serves on the boards of directors for VOX ATL and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta's grantmaking committee. Josh earned a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University and is an alum of LEAD Atlanta.

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:

 
 
 

Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

TRANSCRIPT:

Christina  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? Welcome, josh Penny. You're the director of Social Impact at Hinge to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on. We kind of go way back. We go back in your MailChimp days when you were in corporate citizenship and I feel like when you joined Hinge, I was so excited because number one. I was like, oh, hinge is so cool, I was so excited that this role existed. So I'm excited to dig into what you've been working on and invite you to the podcast.

Josh  00:48

Christina, it's so good to be here. Thank you for having me. I've been following along with the podcast for the last couple of years and excited to finally get to talk to you.

Christina  01:00

So let's talk a little bit first about what your work, what your role is like at Hinge. So tell me, because Hinge is a dating app and I feel like I only know dating apps through my friends and they're super fun when you're like you know the person kind of going oh, that person looks kind of cool. So tell us about your role at Hinge, because Hinge is a dating app. So for those of you who you know are partnered up and may not know that, tell us about you know why this role exists and your work.

Josh  01:27

Yeah, so Hinge, we call ourselves the dating app designed to be deleted, and we're all about helping people find those intentional connections, and that's sort of like our lane in the dating space. When I joined Hinge, there was an opportunity to figure out what social impact could mean for a dating app, and I was so excited about that it was. I never thought about doing social impact work at a dating app, but when I started to talk to the team and really got to know Hinge though the act of forming relationships, forging connections, the impact that that has on our mental health, on our well-being, our physical health it just all started to click. And so my job as director of social impact at Hinge is all about how do we live that purpose outside of our app. How do we sort of help people forge connections out in the world in person and whatnot?

Christina  02:36

I love that and that's kind of a bold move for a dating app to be like wait, how do we get people in real life off the app?

 Right, I love that as your tagline and, as you were speaking, one of the things I was thinking about was, like, if you've heard of the blue zones, the blue zones are like areas across the world where people live the longest and they kind of can't figure out, like it's not this one diet, like it's not the Mediterranean diet, it's not this or that, though the Mediterranean is one of the spots that has a blue zone and a lot of times what they see is it hinges on community, it hinges on friendship and, like in person, connections. Those are the people who have those community friendships, those relationships that they live to 100 like that. So, anyway, very cool, we're going to dig into what prompted this conversation. So you posted on LinkedIn about One More Hour and I was like you have to come on the podcast.

 Everybody needs to know about this, so tell us about One More Hour what it is, who it's for, all that's good stuff.

Josh  03:34

Sure. So One More Hour is hinges platform for encouraging in person connection amongst, specifically, gen Z. Back in May of 2023, the Surgeon General released a landmark advisory on the loneliness epidemic in this country. One of the things that struck us the most is the decline in time that we're spending in person with others, and so if you are a young adult in 2003, you got 1000 more hours every year of in person connection time than you do if you're a young adult today, and when you think that's like mind blowing, and when you think about everything that could happen in 1000 hours and how that might add to value to your life, it's a real deficit of modern life. So One More Hour is all about that. It's a collection of campaigns and partnerships programs that are intended to help people add in more time, more in person time, to their routines, and so the first thing that we're doing is this $1 million grant initiative.

Christina  04:48

And tell us about that. So what is the Grand Initiative?

Josh  04:51

So the Grand Initiative is all about finding clubs and social groups in Atlanta, in New York and Los Angeles. This connection is hyper-local and so we wanted to like find three cities that Hinge had meaningful connections to. But also you know that community level is where connection happens, and so it's all about finding the book clubs, the running groups, the surf groups I don't know if there's surf groups in Atlanta, but there might be an Atlanta, you know and people who are building in-person connection time on a regular basis. It's recurring, and so we're really looking for clubs. And you know we were really inspired by, as we were doing research for this, this notion that people used to join a lot more clubs. It used to be a bigger part of people's lives. You may have heard of Bowling Alone, the Bob Putnam book that's pretty famous about this dynamic, and we wanted to sort of bring that back and we thought it was a really useful tool for Gen Z.

Christina  06:07

That's so cool. Okay, yes, I think people did used to join a lot more clubs and I think now maybe the misstep is people are finding their community online and thinking that's enough, like box checked right and skipping the part of the in-person piece and I was digging into that Sergeant General's advisory and we'll link to it in the show notes and one of the pieces I think that was a little more drilled down. For me it was like that is a lot Was that social engagement with friends has decreased 20 hours per month. Like if you think about that, that's 20 hours per month is a part-time job. Like only it's the good part, it's communicating and hanging out with your friend, being in that book club, that run club, something like that.

 The other one that I really the two other two notes I wrote down was that isolation is up, which I think will come to no shock to anyone, because I think we really really saw that as like almost an effect of 2020. Is that like really kind of that isolation? And then the other piece for me that I kind of went yeah, I think that's true is that family engagement is down. So for those folks, whether it's your family in your home or your extended family, just that sort of like Sunday dinner or like whatever version of that, is down and it's like, yeah, it is. And I'm curious, josh, what you think because, as you've kind of spearheaded this program development, like what do you think what's the why behind that? Like, what do you think is the why behind the decline in all of this?

Josh  07:31

Yeah, well, our social networks are shrinking. You know, you brought it up part of the reason why people are spending less time is because there's all these reports about people having fewer friends, there's reports about people being more estranged from family, right, and so our social networks, our in-person social networks and lives are getting smaller. I think, like you could look at the way that cities are set up, you could look at the decline in third spaces. You know we used to live in a country where people would go a happy hour after work, like religiously or church attendance.

Christina  08:11

That's good yeah.

Josh  08:13

And so those facets of life have changed. And then also there's like technology, right, and the internet is an amazing resource and allows us to do lots of things, but there are some ways where it might be displacing time that we could be spending with others in person, especially around our leisure time, and we sort of use our leisure time instead to consume content, to scroll on TikTok all of which could be fun and could feel good in the moment, but we know that that in-person time is really healthy. It's good not just for our mental health, but our physical health too.

Christina  08:57

I went to like a what was it? Where did I go to? I went to a female founder's dinner. That's what it was, and it was big. It was last year. And I walk into this room I'm like, oh my god, there's like 200 women here. Like I wasn't ready. Do you know what I mean? And I felt this immediate learning curve, even though I've been in these dinners. I've been in these rooms before.

 But it was like everybody had the QR code instead of a business card, like I don't. And it was like this sort of like oh gosh, do I belong here? Oh gosh, is this for me? And then at the end of the night it's like this is it's been so nice to be around these women, to sit at a table and just talk and just like do you know what I mean? Just connect and laugh and just misstep and all of the things. And then have somebody go here's how you get a QR code for your LinkedIn, Christina. Like here's how you do it.

 And at the end I joined it was a membership and I joined and they said we've got all of these online events throughout the year and then we do four in-person things in 2024. And I was like sign me up. I don't know that I'm going to go to the online ones, but I know that this is a muscle not only that I want to work out, but that is worth doing, it's worth doing. It was like I kind of forgot for a second, so I just want to offer that. I think it happens to all of us, even if it's like, oh yeah, you kind of convince yourself like online's enough, or I already am connected with that person because I'm friends with them on whatever app. No, no, no, no, no. It's not the same, it's not the same.

Josh  10:25

Well, what I love about what you just said is you found a group that offered a very easy structure to plug into, and that's so important. And when we talk about the lack of third spaces or the decline in church attendance or Kewani's Club, there are just fewer and fewer of those structures. And so finding something that's easy to plug into which is why we've been focused on clubs and social groups and organizations built around an activity it makes it so much easier. It makes it so much easier.

Christina  10:59

One other life-old moment in this and I want to offer this because it's a little bit different. But I think this proves what your kind of theory which is. My friend Christie started this book club and the book club is based on this principle and it was you can read the book or watch the movie, or neither. Come once a month to hang out and we're going to talk about it and I was like can I join? And it was the first time that I've ever said this book club is for me. She figured out what the book slash movie was going to be for the next 12 months. She made it very easy and I don't have to feel bad if I watch part of the series, read part of the book. It was just this like it took the friction out and so I talk a lot about friction in my business and marketing, but that's a friction point of right. Again, do I belong here? Is this for me? I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. She's like just come, come.

Josh  11:49

I'm like oh, that's all. That's fine, absolutely.

Christina  11:52

Yeah.

Josh  11:55

There is. I mean, I'm in the world of dating, where dating is like high friction right, when we bring all of these expectations, all these wants, these desires and with friends it should be a little easier than that, right. And what we don't want to do is suggest that just joining a club is going to solve everything that you get there and then no more loneliness. But it allows those relationships to happen organically, it allows you to meet people, but it also sort of like because you have a book or a movie, it anchors right, it anchors it yeah.

Christina  12:40

Yeah. So Priya Parker talks about this in the art of gathering, like when people gather they need a shared purpose, right, and when you give them that, that informs that connection. Versus, if you've ever we've all been to the dinner party where it just feels like the hodgepodge and no one really knows anyone but no one's really facilitating and saying, hey, this is Josh right, and there's no flow to it. Priya talks about that when you have just, even if it's just like I think January's is the Joy Luck Club, it's like boom, I've heard of it, I remember that movie. Read the book, don't. That's the anchor, right, that's the piece and it sort of informs that connection. So, that being said, I want to talk about who should apply for this grant, like who's the ideal? It could be a nonprofit, it doesn't have to be, so let's dig into that.

Josh  13:29

Yeah, so we're based in these three cities, as I mentioned Atlanta, new York, la, and the other really important thing that we're looking for is a focus on Gen Z, and the way we're thinking about that is a plurality of the members of the people involved need to be Gen Z. This is when we talk about who is most impacted by the loneliness epidemic. 18 to 26-year-olds are high on that list and they're actually, I mean, for a long time when we talked about loneliness, they only focused on aging populations, and so there hasn't been a lot of initiatives and things specifically for this group, and that's why we're focused there. We're looking for smaller organizations, so people, orgs with a budget under $500,000. And we're looking for groups that have some sort of programming where it's a regularly recurring structure, so not one-off events or a big festival, which are important, but we're looking for probably the smaller getting 30 people together to go on a hike every week. That sort of thing is spot on.

 And then we recognize that when you want to focus on smaller groups and grassroots groups, that 501c3 status isn't necessarily the best marker for that, and so we're open to groups who may have 501c3 status, who might have 501c7, might have a fiscal sponsorship might be in the process of securing that, or on a case-by-case basis. We're happy to look at other instances. I think, like when we think about what this, maybe who this might not be for, I think the only thing I would add is we're looking at there are lots of like sort of commercial social clubs, right, like the Soho house. This is not for the Soho. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, yes, yes the great point.

Christina  15:44

Yeah, and there are a few that came to mind here in Atlanta that I'm like oh, I'm glad they're here, but this is not that. This is not that. Yeah no, I think we love Soho house, but that's right, okay. I think it's interesting too that the focus on Gen Z and needed right. So if you even go back again to just 2020, I mean, those were the kids who graduated high school with nothing like literally there was no send off right that first year of college.

 Maybe they went to online, they took up. Many of them are doing the gap year, many of them are not. It's like the isolation kind of piece really stacks up and so that piece it helps that my nephews and nieces are older. So I'm like I see it. I'm like they got one earbud in at the table the minute they hit that kind of teenage year.

 I'm like, get that earbud out. Like there's this online piece that's really, really built out and the in-person social aspect, I think, is a huge opportunity for us to help kind of not curate, but help invite them to right, absolutely so. Okay, I wanna talk a little bit about the introverts, because when I think about like I think about just online social media, all of it I have these two opinions that I hold true and that are very, very opposing. It's like the most wonderful thing. Like I have an aunt that I've never met in real life that I get to connect with on Facebook. It's amazing. Thank you, 23andme right. Like found with my long lost aunt. Like that's awesome. My family that's overseas in Greece get to hang out with that. It's so good.

 And it also can be doom scrolling, rabbit hole, trolling, all of the things and I think, the other pieces somewhere in the middle that isn't as binary. It can feel like I'm consuming content and so that's how I'm connected, which is sort of the misstep. Right Is just like I feel like I caught up with my friend, but I didn't really cause, I actually didn't interact with her, I just saw her content right. But there are a lot of introverts in the world who may say the thought of showing up to your book club, christina, sounds just very nerve wracking, right. The thought of showing up to your run club or like whatever it is. You know I'm 20 and that sounds awful. What do we say to them?

Josh  18:15

Sure, I mean a like their experience is totally valid, right, yes, yes, and what? There's lots of ways into building in person connection time that don't require you to join a group or to do something like that might feel deeply uncomfortable. You know this is the first sort of of initiative that we're starting with, but you know it could be for someone who is an introvert that they do have one or two friends who, like, maybe they do want to just sit and read together and not speak to each other. But that's good, that's enough. That builds connection, that like starts to activate the things in our brains right, that's good for our mental health that feel protective.

 And I think sometimes we think about either like the quantity of connection or like the number of people that we're talking to, or like how many people are available, and versus the quality. And the quality is what's important and you know I would just encourage people. You know it's sort of like exercise, it's sort of like healthy eating, it's like how can you fit this into your life in a way that makes the most sense for you?

Christina  19:41

Yeah, I think that's right in line with how I think about it, and I mean think about this concept of how we can kind of let things atrophy, right, and one of the things that I think I've seen is it's very easy as an adult to let friendships atrophy. Or making new friends, like that skill set, that muscle of like how do I make friends again Of you know, I did that in college and I just kept those people right. What is it like to make it right, those new connections, and I think that, yeah, I'm dating same thing. It's like you can think that you're that it's really hard to go out on a date or whatever the kind of the pieces, or you're not a natural at it or you're not good at it. But I think the mistake in all of that is that like often it's just under practiced and it's just like that first step.

 One of the things you said that I think is really helpful is like, yeah, if you're an introvert, then walking into the room of 200 people who are dressed in like business suits which is basically what I did yeah, that's gonna feel uncomfortable and you know, no one right Like gonna feel maybe you don't sign up for that one and it's like instead I'm thinking about my Tuesday night ceramics class, right? Ooh, that's way more comfortable. Half the people have headphones, on the other half I love to talk and I get to decide where to sit. I get to decide if I wanna do my own thing. I get to decide if I wanna see what, ask questions and write notes and ask the teacher for a fourth time about that glaze, cause I can't seem to remember it. Like those pieces make it, that would be much more comfortable with me and I'm also doing something tactile, I'm working with my hands and for many people who maybe are a little more introverted or nervous or experiential, that piece could work really well for them, like in real life, yeah.

Josh  21:27

Absolutely. It's what we hope people do is see the connection that their social health has to their overall health yeah and then make the best choices for them yeah.

Christina  21:41

You know, one of the things that I think is this meme that's gone around for years is like Jomo, like the joy of missing out. Have you heard that saying before? Yeah, okay, I think that Jomo exists. Yes, it exists. We've all had the person cancel and you're like, thank God, they canceled, they get stay home and watch Netflix. That's true. And when that person doesn't cancel and I do go to the thing, there's times I don't want to go to my serenity class to see nights how many times I drive home. And I'm so glad I had that conversation, I'm so glad that I was just in the room, I'm so glad that I took the step to like, maybe make a new friend, maybe make a new connection. That's, I think, the like, the root of the magic of this program. So let's talk a little bit about, like, dreaming on outcomes. What do you, what would you love to see as an outcome of this, this kind of first cohort launch grant cycle, which I know applications are live now. What do we hope comes from it?

Josh  22:43

Yeah, applications are live now through the 30th of January and you know these are grants that are they're all the same size 25K. We want to see people have ideas about how they would invest in their own group and what they think would bring more people in, foster more connection. And, ultimately, when we work with do somethingorg or if you're familiar with them last year to help dream this up, and one of the, and so they're experts on Gen Z, you know, like a youth run organization, and we did lots of interviews with Gen Z, and one of the things that became very clear is like, how do I just find out about what's out there? You know, what are their clubs? I didn't know right when are they? How do I find someone to go with? Are they free, are they low cost?

 And so part of just what we want to do is we want to, like, find dozens of these groups and these cities and just elevate them, put shine the spotlight on what they're doing, show how cool it can be to be a part of it, lower the sort of social anxiety of joining, and so that's one big outcome and then I hope, like bigger picture, people, especially other funders, other people in the social impacts space start to see that if we should have like joy and fun as part of our strategies when creating impact, and that this is like a really easy way to do it and it's something that we should keep in mind when we think about working with a generator Gen Z, who's inundated with doom stories about climate change and you know, they came of age during a pandemic and there has to be hope.

 There has to be reasons to be optimistic. That's be fun. There has to be reasons to join in and like once we unlock that, I think we'll see more people coming into the social impact space wanting to experiment and tackle some of these larger, really serious issues in the world.

Christina  25:02

Okay, one of the things you said I'm like this is so good is, I think, many organizations that are in my world. They are writing stories, sharing stories from the space of like the bad news, right, the bad news right. And they are like, but, christina, like that's the truth, right, you know, this is, this is the reality of the people we serve, the people we're trying to help, but we forget that, like it's almost like we're guilt, guilting people into taking action, and that is like not a great feeling to donate. That's not a great feeling for me to join, sign up, donate, take action from. If I'm like this dire thing, right versus what you're talking about, is like making room for the fun, making room for the joy and having a little bit more harmony in that story you tell.

Josh  25:52

And I just want you to expand on that a little bit more, expand a little more on the plus side, the other side of it, yeah, you know, I I've been working in social impact a long time, both on the nonprofit side and then on the corporate side, and we are sort of trained to start with the problem and to do a deep analysis of the problem. Yeah, and I think like we should still start there. But when we think about comms and like and how we bring people in, we don't have to, we don't. We can sort of ease them into this like larger analysis and like under the things that we understand of the complexities of a problem, the scale of a problem, right, instead, there's ways to bring in humor, which I would.

 I would love to see more. I mean more nonprofits and social impact. Folks should hire, like comedians on staff or or something, or comedy writers, like that would be, you know, and it's not to make light of the very serious issues that are out there, but it's rather like how can I meet people where they are in a way that doesn't like trigger them, like the anxiety alarm bell in our heads which, if you, for a lot of what we're seeing for Genzi, we've seen the rise of this term climate anxiety, right, it causes people to freeze and it actually promotes in action rather than action, and that's the opposite of what we want to be doing.

Christina  27:27

Oh, you're in my brain. So I have this email marketing course and it's all about like storytelling. And I want to say it's like module two. Their homework assignment for it is go watch 15 minutes of stand up and the point is is a couple of things. The point is to just like who? Okay, not everything is disaster relief and just walk away. The other pieces, like stand up, are so great at getting you hooked into a story right out of the gate, get you smiling, and sometimes they are talking about serious things. Sometimes they are talking about you know, not, not slipping on the banana peel like it's not always the lightest thing, and so that's that's so funny that you said that, and it is a good reminder because the other sector can lean on what I would call like.

 It's like stop the bleeding level of storytelling where it's a hurry, stop the waiting put a band-aid on it clonk the leak right versus painting the picture of possibility, painting the picture a little bit more forward, which is probably why, when you shared this on LinkedIn, I was like yes, yes, yes, so yes, okay. One question that popped up as we were going into it so we have applications open and then how long is the grant cycle for this? So how long does this program run? And then will there be I know we're going to get people who are like I'm not in Atlanta, I'm not in LA, what about me? So, so I'm gonna ask you to paint the picture going forward.

Josh  28:51

Yes, you know this is a, this is a pilot, this is a new initiative and so we're excited to see how this first year goes right. This, this first cycle, is through the end of the year. In addition to like, after people are awarded the grants, we're working with the foundation for social connection, which is like the foremost expert on on social connection in the country, and we've helped a lot with the writing of the Surgeon General's advisory. They're they're creating materials. We're going to be doing some convenings with these groups about how to like make those connections in your group even better, stronger, tactical, very tactical level things. And then you know, we will, we'll assess them and we'll see how it goes. We'll see what we can do in the back we get, see what we learn and think about what to do next. But this, this commitment that hinge has to one more hour, to connection, to tackling loneliness, is a multi year commitment and and so you know, expect more from us in the space.

Christina  30:03

So excited. Anything else before we wrap up with the final question, anything else you'd like people to know?

Josh  30:11

Um, I think if you are trying to figure out if this is for you, apply it's we. Just, we purposefully designed this application to take less than an hour. We felt like we couldn't say one more hour.

 Thank you for that application. So there's like there's like some demographic questions, like maybe three one sentence questions and then three like short answer questions, right and so. And then we encourage people to share materials that they already have made and just like upload it, even if it's for another funder, another thing that you applied for, drop it in like you don't have to change anything, you don't have to get us.

 You know we love it. You know so, just like, if you feel like this is is for you, like this could be for you, maybe apply, we want our thinking. You know, every time you design a project like this, you have people in mind that this could work for. But what I'm most excited about is just to seeing who throws a hat in the ring and like, who expands our thinking about who is helping Gen Z foster more in person. What did that look like? And I'm just, I'm just so excited to meet the folks who are doing this work.

Christina  31:34

So what I'm hearing is if you don't have a grant writer on staff, if you've never written a grant before maybe for smaller organizations go, go, go. Please don't let that be any sort of barrier to applying. Yeah, okay, cool, amazing. So the last question that we ask every guest on the podcast is what is one thought you'd like to share that you like to think on purpose? So this could be like an affirmation, a mantra, just like a quote that you love. Would you share that with us?

Josh  32:02

Yeah, I, you know. I think that sometimes we we've been talking a little bit about this with the humor, friend, on social impact we are working on such big, complicated, messy challenges and sometimes, if we, the other thing that we can do to help bring people along is like break it down to the smallest first step and and so, and that's okay, that's a great place for, like, the majority of people to start, and that's what we're trying to do here is we hope that by people seeing these clubs, these groups, that like, maybe they'll say, oh, I, you know, I'm not, maybe I'm not ready to start my own surf club in Atlanta, but maybe I am ready to start a skate group where we just go to the like and we just meet on every week at this time, right, and so help people find the smallest first step.

Christina  33:09

That's so good. Thank you for sharing that. I think that it's very easy for things to be so daunting in our world that it's impossible to make any traction, but it's like what's that 1%, what's that next best step? So thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being on the podcast. We will link the application to the notes and everything that we talked about, and we hope that everyone either applies, tells a friend about this, because everybody knows somebody who is probably the right fit for this. So make sure you're sharing it. And applications close at the end of January, correct?

Josh  33:40

January 30. Yep Awesome.

Christina  33:43

Thanks so much.

Josh  33:44

Thank you so much, Christina, this is great.

Christina  33:47

You know how they say you should enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Have you ever wondered how do I crack the code to do that? I can help you do that. I can help you not only achieve your biggest, most daring goals, but the journey to get there. No more overwhelm, no more self doubt. I want to invite you to book a call with me. Go to splendid atlcom forward slash book.

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