#143: How To Use For-Profit Marketing Strategies in the Nonprofit World with Heather Reynolds and Dave Keil
Marketing in the nonprofit sector can be a tricky business. On the one hand, you want to be effective and results-driven in order to achieve your mission. But on the other hand, you don't want to lose sight of your values or take shortcuts that could compromise your integrity. So how do you walk the line between being a savvy marketer and staying true to your nonprofit status? Here are some tips for using for-profit marketing strategies in the nonprofit world.
The power of storytelling in marketing
We're all familiar with the customer journey: a customer discovers a company, researches their offerings, decides to purchase...but what if there was another step in between? Storytelling has become an increasingly powerful tool in marketing, giving companies the chance to engage customers with emotions and draw them closer to their brand. Rather than simply highlighting products or services, storytelling allows companies to bring the customer on a journey of discovery and engagement. It's no longer enough just to present, you must transport and inspire - storytelling is what makes that possible.
4 ways to use social media for nonprofit marketing
1. Establish a Presence: The first step to using social media for nonprofit marketing is to establish a presence on the platforms that are most relevant to your organization and its mission. Make sure you have accounts set up on major networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn so that others can easily find your organization online.
2. Develop a Strategy: After establishing your social media presence, it is important to think about how you will use the platforms for marketing your nonprofit organization. Set goals and objectives that are aligned with your overall mission and then create a strategy for leveraging the channels to reach those objectives.
3. Engage with Your Audience: An important aspect of nonprofit marketing is engaging with your audience. Post interesting content, ask questions, and reply to comments that people make on your posts. This will help to build relationships with potential donors and volunteers as well as foster a sense of community.
4. Analyze Your Results: To effectively measure the success of your social media efforts, it is important to track, monitor, and analyze the results of your efforts. Monitor the performance of each post and use analytics tools to gain insight into how people are engaging with your content. This will help you continually improve your strategy.
Why you should focus on your target audience
Knowing your avatar, or target audience, is one of the most important parts of successful marketing. It's a lot like an online dating profile — you need to know who you’re after feel confident you can hit it off. Cue the puns: make sure you look good on paper, so they want to get to know you better. Your avatar will be the nucleus of your marketing strategy; without understanding their needs and desires, how do you expect create campaigns that make them swoon? Nailing down your avatar gives you a clearer view of where and how to deliver your message for maximum effectiveness. So rather than just spreading out marketing tactics with blind faith, concentrate on defining who’s truly meant for you — your avatar — and navigate from there!
Measuring the success of your nonprofit marketing campaigns
Measuring the success of your nonprofit marketing campaigns doesn’t have to be an intimidating task. By establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) with specific, measurable goals, you can easily determine how close your campaigns come to reaching their desired objectives. Don't forget to track everything from impressions and reach, to website visits and donations - it all adds up! When you know exactly what success looks like for each campaign, it's much easier keep a steady eye out for tangible results. Stop failing in vain and start sussing out your victories!
Listen to the Show:
Laura 00:00
Something you might not know is over the last few years I've been building a successful consultancy that serves both financially prosperous for profit seven and eight figure brands, as well as nonprofit organizations. Among my many clients is the University of Notre Dame's Lab for Economic Opportunity. This is an incredible partnership that applies what I have learned in the for profit world into the nonprofit sector. While nonprofits have this incredible value of being mission driven, they tend to struggle with driving awareness and lack the systems to predictably increase enrollments. By applying methods typically reserved for the for profit businesses, we've been able to create something really unique and effective. For all of the for profit minded folks who are listening. This is a fascinating look at how nonprofits are embracing tried and true for profit strategies to power up their lead generation. And nothing like shaking it up for the nonprofit sector. And if you're considering offering consulting as a service, and you're listening right now, this event is very eye opening, because it shares a little bit more about what's possible outside of the typical for profit client base. And you'll get some real life insight into working with big name clients like the University of Notre Dame and franchise for good, which originated from one of my for profit relationships. So this is a rebroadcast of a LinkedIn live where we all three of us went live and talked about the work that we're doing. I'm so excited to share it with you. This is something that many of you might not know that I've been doing. And it's part of our biggest growth opportunity with enjoy brand creative into the next few years. So up next is vision to impact how to use for profits, marketing strategies in the nonprofit world. With Heather Reynolds and Dave Keil.
Laura 01:54
Welcome to the Next Level Leap podcast. I'm your host, Laura Meyer top growth strategist to some of the country's fastest growing brands, and mentor to consultants. My signature leap methodology has changed the way 1000s of companies look at growth strategy, and this podcast shares, best practices, and inspirational interviews to help you make that next level leap in your business. Stick around and join me as I share the journey of how we as founders can multiply our income impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's go!
Laura 02:35
Thank you so much for joining us. I am Laura Meyer. And I want to introduce you to two really special people that are part of this vision to impact conversation. Heather and Dave. So Heather, why don't you go first to introduce yourself.
Heather 02:49
Great. Thank you, Laura. Hi, Dave. Very excited to be with everyone today. My name is Heather Reynolds and I serve as Managing Director at Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic
Opportunities or more easily known as LEO. And we are a research shop here at the University of Notre Dame who is committed to reducing poverty in our country.
Laura 03:13
Great. Thank you.
Dave 03:15
Hey, yeah, you guys. Hi, Dave Keil, I'm the president of a company called Franworth. That's all about scaling for profit companies using a franchise model. also founder of franchise for good. We'll talk more about that what that means sometime. Franchising guy been doing it since the late 1900s, I like to say, lead for franchise companies as CEO.
Laura 03:38
And my name is Laura Meyer, and I'm the host of this event, I am a growth consultant to what was for profit brands. Now I'm in the nonprofit space. And I'm also a mentor to consultants. And today, what I wanted to do is just kick off a conversation that I think is really important that we've been having behind the scenes for almost about a year now on what is needed to see nonprofits really grow and scale and thrive, and how that landscape is changing and how some of the for profit strategies that Dave and I have been using in the nonprofits that Leo's serves, has been providing some amazing growth opportunities. So that's what we'll be talking about a little bit more today. And Dave, you were really the catalyst behind this partnership. So maybe you could share a little bit about what drove that decision to do nonprofit work after a super successful career in the for profit space.
Dave 04:37
Yeah, thank you, Laura, and really appreciate you starting this conversation here with a larger group and Hi, everyone. Yeah, my so as I was joking, I have been franchising. My first experience franchising with the Haagen Dazs shop business back in 1989. So it really was the late 1900s that I was in this and then later served as CEO of three other franchise companies and franchising is all about creating system, taking a brand and a system and helping businesses scale. And so what I found was that I led companies as diverse as selling ice cream. And then the last company I led, as the franchise CEO is one called the lash lounge that does eyelash extension. So can you get any different in a business model from ice cream to eyelashes, and but the common denominator, which is where the seed of the idea came was the tools that we use to scale franchise systems, you think about McDonald's or Marriott, just pretty much any fast food, all of OTP all a boutique fitness. The reason that you know of those, those have scaled using a franchise model, the tools and how they do that is exactly the same, no matter if it's ice cream or eyelashes. And so, you know, I was Thank you, Laura for saying that I have had been lucky and had some success in my for profit career. And I was thinking about how can I make an impact in a different way.
Dave 05:55
So I went through a program called halftime that really stepped back and said, How I moved from success to significance in my life. And the idea came to me in a literal walk through the woods, I was literally walking through the woods and said, you know, why not? Apply the all the tools and processes that we've been using, Laura, you and I have been using for decades in franchising and scaling? What if that were applied to the nonprofit space? So that was the seed of that was the hypothesis that that could happen. And so with that this was in early 2020. So right at the beginning of the pandemic. And so that's the seed of the idea, and happy to talk more about how that evolved. But that's where the idea came from.
Laura 06:35
Yeah, it's such an interesting journey, because a lot of people don't make that switch, especially when they're at a place where they're kind of thinking about how do I want to wrap up my career? What are some of the succession plans that I want to have in place, which I know is part of, you know, probably where you're at right now. And then also starting this whole new venture serving nonprofits as a nonprofit. It's so interesting. So how did how did you actually I don't even know if I know how the two of you got connected.
Laura 07:02
Yeah. Was that
Dave 07:03
It's a great so let me tell you, let me back up one quick second. And so we tried this one. So I was connected to a gentleman named Pat Hamill, who largest homebuilder in Colorado created this trade job training academy called the time Colorado homebuilding Academy, he was wanting to scale it out was a scaling guy looking for something to scale. So we partnered and created what's called build strong Academy. And I've taken it from one and it does trade job training of people who want to become a plumber, electrician. There's a dearth of skilled labor in the US, is a free training program to go train people. So we partnered and we actually did it we the hypothesis came true. And we created what's called Build Strong Academy, my partner Drew Brees built an Academy in New Orleans, we now have six open across the US. So it worked. And so what brought Heather and me together was a common friend. So a woman named Sally Blount, who the first female dean of NYU and Northwestern business schools. So same, very successful she and I were in the same halftime program, seeking our journeys of significance. So Sally and I met were in the same group that spent a year exploring this stuff. And when she figured out what I was up to, and we had some success with Bilson Academy, she's like, Oh, my gosh, you got to meet my friend Heather. And all that Heather, tell her story from there. But Heather basically jumped in her car and drove to Ann Arbor to meet and that's really how that so it's just a common friend.
Heather 08:32
Yeah, Laura, one thing I have is a good sniffer. So when someone like gives an idea, and I'm like, Oh, I smell something really good here. I'm on the road. So I love it. Yeah. So I have the privilege of serving on the board of Catholic Charities Chicago, where Sally now is the CEO. And we were having a conversation one day about the challenges in our work at Leo, you know, our goal is we want to create evidence. So evidence can be put to use and be scaled. And we live in a world right now, where about only 1% of programs being offered across the country have evidence behind them that they work. And that's why we exist to make research accessible to the nonprofit community. So we make sure we understand what works and then we scale that up in a variety of ways. And so LEO, I was talking to Sally and I was explaining to Sally about the growth we have had, as organization in more projects, more partnerships with nonprofits, more research studies that were underway. And I said my biggest fear is, you know, a few years from now, these research studies are going to have results. Some of them are going to say, oh my gosh, we have a winner. And I don't know anything about that how to take one to 10 to 100 to 1000s. And she said oh my god, you got to meet my friend.
Heather 10:02
So it was wonderful because Sally connected us, myself and one of my colleagues drove on up to Ann Arbor. And it was actually the lash lounge example that Dave mentioned, that really helped me get my mind around what Dave's expertise and what really the franchise model could do for our work, because he helped explain that, you know, when they dive into a company, that's one or maybe three, four or five at the time, they really help identify like, what was the what is the secret sauce? What do you need in terms of the type of leadership who runs those kind of franchises? You know, all he really helped me understand kind of like all the parts of that. And then what they do to accelerate that growth to package that growth and to be able to scale things. And so really, it was a visit about a year ago to Ann Arbor that made me go, oh, my gosh, so water parted. And there's Dave, and there we go.
Laura 11:04
I love that. And it was interesting, because just about a year ago that I got a call from Dave. So I did consulting work for the lash lounge met Dave was turned from a client to a mentor, now a partner. And he said, I really need you on this nonprofit work. And I was like, I don't know, Dave, like, I'm not a nonprofit person. Are you? Sure? He's like, No, I definitely need you. And I said, Well, I'll take one and see how it goes. And then fell in love with it. So well, we'll get we'll get to that in a bit. Heather, what is it about this work that you find is often missing in the nonprofit space? Like, why is this so needed?
Heather 11:38
Yeah. Yeah. And maybe I should also know, you know, before coming to Leo, you know, I've been I've been at Notre Dame for four years. But part of that I'm a social worker, by training, I spent 20 years of my career at Catholic Charities, Fort Worth the last 13 as their CEO. So my heart is really with direct service and making change to people's lives. But I would say that I saw two really big problems, as it related from my provider days. And now I see this with our partners at LEO, that relates to scale. And the first is a marketing and branding problem. Most nonprofits are already having to say no to people who walk through their doors way more than they're able to say yes. And so kind of what that has done. Like, I think generally, the culture of nonprofits over the years, is who they market towards, is donors, volunteers, not to service recipients and clients. And so you have this real gap in the industry where, you know, I didn't know how to market to clients, I didn't know if I wanted, frankly, to market to clients. And what you started to see though, as organizations evolved, I know this was true with us at Catholic Charities, Fort Worth, we had 100 plus year history, you know, we were very much a basic needs assistance organization.
Heather 13:08
And as we begin to make the shift to, from treating the symptoms of poverty, to really getting to the root cause so people could be on an upward journey out of poverty, we started to realize there was a real need to understand our target customer for that type of service. And understand how to talk about it and how to share about it and how to make people want to say yes, it's a hard deal. And if nonprofits are listening, I hope this makes some sense. But we found it to be a really hard deal if somebody called you was about to be evicted, was calling for financial assistance. You can't just say, like, Great, how about a long term five year journey out of poverty through this training program? Like there needs to be more thought through and fleshed out. So that is, like one big problem I see. And that's on the very front end. And if you build it, they won't necessarily come and how do you get engagement of clients and understand your target customer and, and meet their needs. But then on the back end, once you have a model of service, once you have evidence behind that model that this is working? How do you take it from local scale to you know, maybe regional scale or five sites and then the 1000s of sites? And that's the piece I would say generally speaking, it's been them it's been more rare to see a nonprofit be able to do that. Well and I know my time at Catholic Charities Fort Worth. That was a huge struggle as we were trying to take several programs from a couple sites in Fort Worth to other sites across the country because we had evidence behind them that they worked, but we didn't know how to do that.
Dave 14:55
Laura, can I just add one thing that cuz I what blew my mind when I met Heather and I think this is where I thought of you and bringing you in is that it just blew my mind that we that are not as a for profit business person who spends their whole time inviting people in to eat ice cream or have their eyelashes done or we know exercise, right? That's what we do. We invite
people in, we convert them to members, we invite them in.I just assumed the nonprofit world if you're Catholic Charities or corner to corner that we'll talk about in a minute that people would just come in, like there wasn't that you didn't need to invite people. And and so when I realized that, that that marketing that we do you do exceptionally well, Laura. So that's why I called you was because I'm like, Ooh, I know, who helped me go build the programs at the lash lounge, and we do phenomenal job today. I knew we needed to go market in the nonprofit world. And I thought that to me was the big aha from a for profit guy. Just dipping your toe in a nonprofit that you really Yeah, you market to. Heather said you market to the donors and your board. But you're not marketing or inviting people in, I just thought you open the doors at Catholic Charities and people line up because it's a free service and added. So that's really where I think Laura, I'd like oh, I know who's the best in class at this and said, I need your help. So you know, go market and grow some of these clips.
Laura 16:17
I love that you're bringing this up, Dave, because it's one of the realizations that I had always, I think intuitively thought, but it was confirmed with this nonprofit work, which is that price is not a primary decision maker for people, right? When you're asking them to be part of something, you're asking for their time, their energy, their sacrifice, you're asking them to overcome a lot of the internal objections that they have around their ability to find success with whatever it is that you're offering. And what was so interesting is when we took price out of the equation with nonprofit because many of the programs or marketing are free or close to free, they there was still a similar process that needed to be followed in order to see a result. And I think many people, I think many marketers sort of underestimate the non price objections that come up, when people are making decisions, especially with a vulnerable population that may have limited beliefs, they may have traumatic history, they may be having some of these experiences that get them that get in the way of them being able to get what they really want in life, right. And we've worked that's been one of the most enjoyable aspects of this work is because I get to use all of that. All of that psychological marketing for such a positive outcome. And that's what has really made me fall in love with it. But I want to talk about some of the work that we've done together, because I think people who are listening, especially nonprofits are like, great, like, this sounds fantastic. But what does this look like? Like? What how do you action this work so that you get a result? So I know, Dave, you've had some really amazing experiences with franchise for good. And then also let's talk about some of the case studies that we've had to gather and some of the successes that we've experienced while partnering.
Dave 18:09
I mean, you want me to start with an example or yeah, maybe we could talk about the corner. Any other? Yeah, I mean, I can see it up. And I mean, you can tee it up. But I think the idea was really, I think Heather said two things. One, we needed to go grow, help create a toolkit create some ways to help nonprofits grow in place to go add more people they serve, and
quarter to quarter is a great example of that. Then the other thing we'll talk about later, that I'll talk about is helping, as Heather said, how do you go replicate? If someone is very successful in one market? How do you go take that and go out to different markets? So maybe there maybe have a use at this stage of who corner to corner is and then maybe in law, or maybe you can talk a bit about? They wouldn't we'd go deliver and how because it's a really amazing story.
Heather 18:56
Yeah, that's great. So corner to corner is one of the most amazing nonprofits you could meet. They are incredible. They're based out of Nashville, Tennessee, and the goal of their program, specifically, the academy is to help black women start grow and sustain their own businesses. And we met corner to corner through a funder connection a couple years ago, and they were so excited to work with LEO. They want to study they want their model proven they want to understand what's working about it. They were like, free research. They go out for it, LEO, like we're in that wasn't just the free that was a motivator, though. Laura, as you said, that they were so eager, but like, you know, cornered corner there were a couple barriers for us to even be able to do a study with them.
Heather 19:52
And one of the biggest barriers was the we knew there were plenty of black women in the Greater Nashville area, who would be ideal clients for corner to corner. But they were having some hard time like accessing those clients. And they were doing a lot of really cool things to try to access clients, but didn't have a lot of the knowledge they needed about just really getting those people who walked through their door reached out or looked at something to really convert. And so for us, for us at LEO to be able to do a study, we needed volume of people, for it to be able to take off. And then also we wanted to make sure, okay, if we show evidence works, how does you know is this even possible to scale and the first step of that is making sure you can feel current thoughts of a growing program that they want to do. And so we knew this was one of the very big issues we needed to tackle with them, or there would be no ability for LEO to step in and do the research study. And so I called Dave, and I said, Okay, we have our first project we can work on together, this is what I need very eager organization to solve this. And Dave said, enter Laura, and, Laura, I'll leave it to you to share about your process with them.
Laura 21:11
Yeah, and Dave is such a fantastic help and resource, just having had experience with so many different brands. And so such a talented leader. So he queued that up for me in a way that was really helpful, in the sense that, you know, I was looking at it very much like it would be a for profit info product client, because it's an educational product. And when I started asking them, their talented marketers, the women that were running, or that are running this
organization with really good star power, I was like, you know, you could take the show on the road, by the way, if you really wanted to, there, they have that influencer type, personality and presence. So I immediately saw that, and I said, we're going to put this, we're going to put you into a webinar sales funnel, which is in the for profit space, very typical, some of you might have gotten sucked into those on a YouTube ad or Facebook ad. And if I was behind that, I apologize. But it was. But what we did is we ended up putting that in a place for a nonprofit. And it's, it's a pretty heavy marketing lift. So in the beginning, they were like, Oh, my gosh, what, but then they realized what happens is, is when you create that type of system, you can start to develop a way to determine predictable results. So once one or two webinars took place, they started to realize, Oh, if we get this many leads in, and then we have this type of event, we can expect this type of show up, right, this type of conversion rate and this type of enrollments. And as they're continuing to grow their operation, we went into a six month project with them, we've left them with so many assets that they can use for years to come to continue to multiply enrollments. So whether, you know, I don't remember the exact number, but I think, I think, more than doubled their three month period.
Heather 23:04
Yeah, their largest enrollment, like to date was right around 200. And they had like, 430 people somewhere around that sign up, which is huge. No, yeah. And it happened in a really quick amount of time. I think it was, you know, maybe three, four months, and we're launching?
Laura 23:22
Yeah, yep. And a lot of it was just educating them on the steps. Like, I didn't even use the words webinar funnel at first. So I didn't want to intimidate them. I was like, we're going to have a registration page, it's going to market a training, we'll call the training a masterclass, you'll deliver it on Zoom, there'll be a particular formula for how I'd like you to deliver it. And then we're going to write a lot of emails, there's a lot of emails that we're going to need to write and deploy. So I think they're a little bit like what in the beginning, but then as we were doing it, they're like, this is awesome. Like, they were running around, you know, trying to be at every single festival. And they were making, you know, exhausting themselves doing all the marketing things, when really all we needed to do was funnel all traffic to this one sale system sales process, that could then turn into predictable results moving forward, because we're with them for six months, but they're with you for years. So we want them to continue to see that 100% increase every six or eight months, even after they're done working with us. So that's been really rewarding.
Heather 24:25
Well, and just like so many smaller AHA shows that were game changers along the way. Like, I remember, corner to corner they would like open enrollment in May. And it closed in August and there was like, I never worked. There. It creates no urgency for the potential purchaser,
you know of that service. What you need to do is you have one of these masterclasses you for seven days have an enrollment going on. And then you close it and you do multiple of those but it creates this urgency that gets people to say yes, that's one example of 1000s. But just little tweaks like that made a huge difference for quarter to quarter and their success in recruitment.
Laura 25:09
Yeah, and we're in the middle of another example, just like that, but very different. So it's not that a webinar funnel is always the answer, right, it's more thinking about what is the sales process that then could be handed to effective franchise for good that they could use to replicate. And that's what we're doing right now with many of the nonprofits that we're partnering with. So the other one that we're working with that is going really well, it's called kids to leaders, it's a one week camp for children who have an incarcerated parent, very different, you know, we're not, this is not a business opportunity, we're not going to send them through a webinar funnel. But what we need to do is we need to make sure that the people who are in our sales process are the right people. So we're doing a lot of front end, calling forward. And what I would call a hand raising campaign, in order to get those people in, or maybe you're a mom and you receive or dad and you receive this email, we're really teaching them to forward it to maybe somebody they know who's in that position. And that way, we have the right people in our sales process, with an opt in video series that's specifically designed to give somebody value if they're caring for a child or guardian of a child who has an incarcerated parent. So this work has been mind blowingly rewarding, I love my for profit work, if any of my for profit clients are listening, I appreciate you. And at the same time, I have never really experienced as a marketer, that inner satisfaction that comes from doing something like this. I mean, I just can't thank both of you so much for bringing our organization in, we have our team also helping with projects now. And it really it's, it's, it lights you up to do this work as a for profit, mostly for profit expert.
Dave 27:02
I mean, there's clearly a need that I didn't know, you know, before I met her there, I didn't really know that you needed these ways to go grow these in place. And it was easy for me to say, Oh, who's the best in the world that I know about doing this bring Laura and we have other resources that we've used to for other Leo clients who, for example, just have a website that's not performing, you know, that just doesn't have a crisp call to action, you know, a little button, you've got to click to go take the action or good SEO search engine optimization. So, you know, I think what we're learning is that these skills that we've used in franchising and for profit businesses forever and ever, never can and are being applied to the nonprofit space to help them grow in place. And it's, and we're not done, I think we're just getting started with LEO. And if I can take just one more example. The other thing this scaling and or the replication I think is another thing that, you know, Heather and I have spoken about. And while we did this
build strong Academy, that example about the tree job training school that started with a vision of a founder who wanted to touch a million train a million people. And we're well on the way to that with six academies open, I'm also working with one called Mission Animal Hospital. In the Twin Cities, it's a nonprofit Animal Hospital, who has a pay what you can type model, and we're using the same exact things we use for our for profit clients to help them prepare to go scale and replicate. So I think whoever you are out there, I think, you know, if you need to scale in place, and grow and invite people in, as Laura described, if you need help with your website, and just technically, if you think you've got something that can be replicated, you know, franchise, that's why I created franchise for good and just so blessed to work with folks like you who can help identify the need and actually go execute.
Heather 28:48
And that's one thing we're really excited about going forward is not only are we scaling up this kind of front end piece of things, how do LE0 partners make sure that they have ample demand that's being realized in their own local communities by instead going through a program with Lauren, Dave, but also where, you know, going to be focused on developing when that evidence is built? How do we then hand off to Dave and, uh, you know, Dave do his magic regarding getting these organizations to scale. And so we really believe that like, you know, client need and realization of that need or interest in that program or service, plus innovative nonprofits plus the evidence that shows that works plus scale, can really start to move the masses out of poverty in our country, which it's my strong belief we can do way better than we're doing today. And I believe this is a critical way of how we can do better.
Laura 29:47
So good.
Dave 29:48
Yeah, I'd love to that. We're going to go at this and so part of the magic of franchising is you have a lot of people doing similar things, and then they collaborate and celebrate and communicate and commiserate together. Whether that's part of a franchise system. And I think that's also what we're going to try to create here, as we step into 2023, the three of us is go create cohorts of people, right? You know, the nonprofits are doing different things, all trying to target poverty in some way, shape, or form, but can get confused one another. So far, these have been bespoke one off. And I'm encouraged. And I think it's going to be magical when we start to put people together and cohorts. So I don't know if you want to talk more about that. But I think that's just going to take us to a whole nother level, and bringing in one of these other things that franchise has been doing for a long time that we can apply here.
Laura 30:35
Yeah, it's great. So, in wrapping up, I think Dave would love to hear just your vision and steps forward, I'll share a little bit about ours for our organization. And then Heather, I would love for you to share yours, and also share an opportunity for others who might be interested to connect with us in person.
Dave 30:55
Hey, thanks, Laura. So look, I appreciate it, go check out my website, it's called franchise for good.org. The mission really is to go scale nonprofits for good, that's it, that's my life's mission. That's what I'm here to do. And that's really what it's about, we have a way we do it. So I think for those nonprofits out there, you know, my, we're going to try to come reach you, and share some of these tools. If you need help along the way, we're going to help you along the way, if you want it for free, we'll share what we can. But that's the vision to go, you know, help 1000s of people, you know, through the nonprofits that we support. I also think a call out to people like Laura, you know, that have these deep skills, that I think it's going to take a village for us to do it. So I'm building a set of preferred partners, so attorneys and technical writers, and web specialists, and otherwise, that I'm trying to pull together like minded folks like Laura, who can go help some of these nonprofits scale. So that's my vision for this thing continues to grow.
Laura 31:53
For our organization, so I have a company called Joybrand creative, we are starting to develop the talent in house in order to be able to expand on projects like this. And it's really been an unexpected growth opportunity for our organization, that everybody in our company is like me, I would pick me I want to be on the next project. Because again, the rewarding aspect of it is so motivating. And I have completely actually reorganize my growth plan in order to work more with Dave and companies like LEO . So if you want to learn more about us, you can go to joy, grand creative.com, if any nonprofit work would be definitely a partnership between Dave and I, and I'm just really blessed to be here and do this work. I think it's you know, a lot of times we can't plan for the type of door that opens in our organization. And this has been something that was unexpected. And I'm going into with arms wide open. So really just grateful to be here. Heather, yeah, share a little bit more about what we'll all be doing together in just a few months.
Heather 32:58
Yeah. So, you know, when I look at Leo, and look at our origin story about 10 years ago, it all started with two economists at Notre Dame Jim Sullivan and Bill Evans, who started to wonder and question why certain groups of people weren't talking to one another. And those groups were really nonprofit organizations doing incredible work and academics who are setting poverty. And it was just that very simple idea of bringing together academics and providers and what that can mean for understanding solving and solving poverty. And what's been really neat about the partnership with Dave and Laura is it's really just kind of built off of our origin story is,
as we've gone forward, we realized, Okay, wait, we need some more unusual unlikely partners in this mix, a franchise guy, a brand genius, like we need these other folks in here. And in order to achieve the mission that we have at Leo, which is all about reducing poverty through evidence based programs and policies.
Heather 34:03
As we go forward, our goal is creating evidence and ensuring that evidence gets put to use. And if you can just kind of imagine that, you know, right now, 1% of federal spending has evidence behind it, if we were able through creating evidence and then replicating it just to increase that to 10%, which is still not acceptable. But let's say we did that. That would be $100 billion a year in our country going to things that actually work. And so we're really committed to this and how are we going to do this? We believe by coming together and working together and a strong commitment to build programs to build evidence to build clients and to build scalable programs and to scale them. And so Leo is having an event coming up at the University of Notre Dame on April 13 and 14th. It is the outsmarting poverty signature event and it will be two days action packed fun and learning and sharing with one another between multiple audiences, philanthropists to policymakers. We will have nonprofits there and academics there. And we're really excited because one of our signature breakout sessions will be with Dave and Laura and quarter to quarter who you heard us talk about walking through what that experience was like and tools that they learned along the way. But we would love to have you attend, we'd love for you to sign up, it's going to be a great way to connect with colleagues a great way to make connections and a great way to get super jazzed about the ways we can really reduce poverty in our country by creating evidence based programs and ensuring they go to scale. And so if you're interested, you can feel free to go to leo.nd.edu. And on our home screen is a button you can click which is the outsmarting poverty signature event with information on keynotes and breakout speakers and opportunities to register. So we'd love to see all of you there.
Laura 36:12
Thank you so much. Thank you, Heather, for sharing that incredible vision. Thank you, Dave, for me, bringing us all together. And thank you. For everybody who's listening right now. We appreciate you being here and tuning in and learning more about how to use for profit strategies in the nonprofit world. We'll see you soon. Make sure to visit our website yournextlevelleap.com where you can subscribe to the show in Apple podcasts, Stitcher or RSS, so you never miss a show. And while you're at it, if you found value in what you heard today, we would love a rating on Apple podcast. Or if you simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out to thank you so much for listening
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.