 thrilled to have our guests on today. I'm going to kick us off and get us started because my clock just turned over to the half hour and it means hopefully yours did too. So welcome to all of you that have joined us today for another amazing episode of The Nonprofit Show. One of my favorite people, we met, gosh, probably over a decade ago now, Josh, but Josh Wise, president and founder at 10 to one PR and he is sharing with us today, as I like to say, opening his brain, really like dumping out all this knowledge that he's acquired over many years of being in the sector and in the industry, public relation tips for non-profit. So yeah, very excited and we will hear more from Josh here shortly. And again, we start every episode by saying thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every one of our presenting sponsors. We are so grateful to have your investment not only in the show, but in the community at large because each and every one of these sponsors literally exist to help you do more good in your community. So please do find them online, give them a like, some follow, some love, let them know that you saw them here on The Nonprofit Show. And again, we are just so grateful to have their support here of our now 320 plus episodes. So we are getting up there in age but I am also grateful to Julia Patrick. Maybe you can show, yes, our beautiful photos there. Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy of course joins us and thanks to her. We have these beautiful episodes each and every weekday. I'm Jarrett Ransom, also known as the non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And I'm always pleased to be alongside you Julia for this journey. Again, 320 plus episodes, all of them are archived, you can find them. Roku TV, Fire TV, YouTube, let's see Vimeo, you name it, it's out there. So thanks so much for creating this opportunity and it's just been a phenomenal journey. So again, today's episode and our topic we are speaking with Mr. Josh Wise about all things PR. So welcome and thank you, Josh. Thanks so much for having me on, it's great to talk to you both. Okay Josh, I gotta tell you, I don't know how many times this has happened, maybe never but we actually have a question that came in about our Chitty Chat Chat. So even though we're gonna have you give us your wisdom and your top tips for PR as it relates to the nonprofit sector, let's kick this off because for those of you joining us during the Chitty Chat Chat, we were talking about photographing patrons at events with cocktails in their hands. We have somebody that came on and asked the question, what about those events that are beer or cocktail-centric events that promotes the mission of the organization? So how do you navigate that piece of it? Hey, that's a great question. My suggestion would be, I would still try to not have people holding the drink in their hand. It's one thing if it's on the table or if there's a display of the different wines or there's a display of the different scotches or whatever in terms of the networking event because now it's a different thing versus attaching an individual to the individual beverage. And so it's really a protection of them in terms of them not being embarrassed down the road because the picture comes up and they feel odd or that it embarrasses the organization because the picture is taken out of context. So that would be my suggestion but I think it's a great question and you're right. There's a lot of great events around wine tastings and scotch tastings and all these different things. Absolutely do that. But in the caption, when that picture goes out, you want to say why there's all this alcohol in front of them. You wanna say at the scotch tasting, Billy, Joe and Molly were at this event. Totally appropriate. I just wouldn't do it with a drink in their hand. I agree and I know we're gonna get into your PR tips and I'm thinking too in our community here, like Tito's is a wonderful beverage sponsor at so many events and to share, thanks to our beverage sponsor, Fill in the Blank, Craft Brewery, that's a big thing as well. And I think there's a lot of ways and I am not the PR expert but I think there's a lot of ways to really like, tilt your hat, nod your head, add your sponsor but maybe not as you're saying Josh, having that beverage in an individual's hand so that it's not taken out of context. So great question. Yeah, thank you to our viewer from New Jersey. I'm assuming you're from New Jersey who asked that. That is why you wanna have a step and repeat like behind us. You wanna be at those sponsors that have written checks to you to get that event going. This is what it's all about. They wanna see their logo. So for you to put your patrons in front of something like Josh says, that makes it more logical why they're there. But I agree with you. Those images and captions get lost so quickly and then they resurface and there is no context unless you have something. So that's cool. Hey, this is a good episode when the viewers are asking questions before we get going. Right out the gate, yeah. Okay Josh, so no pressure. I mean, we like put you on the hot seat too sweet as we like to say, but let's get into it. You've got some tips for us to help us with our PR. I do. The first one is weird as it sounds is that it's not bragging if you can back it up. Okay. So we need to get out of our comfort zone as nonprofits to know that it is okay to talk about yourself and brag about your success stories. And that's a state of mind for the executives, right? It's a state of the mind for the people in the organization to do and that we need to start doing that. It's okay to beg. It's okay to share your good news. It's okay to talk about your success stories and we'll get into that. So it's okay to brag and you need to do that. And that's a big piece of what public relations frankly is you can humble brag, but you still got to brag. So don't be afraid of looking for every opportunity that you have. And once you can get past that mental hurdle, you're gonna recognize so many more story opportunities that you have. And don't you think that's what our constituents really want? Like they wanna know that they are part of that success and that they get to brag right alongside with us. And so when we're able to share those good stories cause I know over these episodes, Julia, we've had some questions come on to say, should we actually brag because then we might not get more money or our donors- It's the other way around. I think that if you brag, people wanna be part of a winner. Exactly. They wanna feel like their money is going to a place where it's gonna be well used. And we'll share more examples as the conversation goes. I'm sure of exactly different things that you can do, but it's really that mental game of realizing that you need to be positive. You need to say, look at me, look at what we just accomplished. And that's kind of where you build your stories around. That's where you build your image and your brand and your reputation. So you have to brag. And I know that personality-wise, a lot of us don't like to do that. And that's okay. You're not doing it for yourself. It's not about promoting you personally, even though sometimes you're a better story than the organization, right? You're sometimes you're almost more interesting. Use anything you can to help the organization to get it out there and to raise that awareness. So Josh, you used something that a phrase that I loved and you said the humble brag, that's a real, I think that's like perfect because I think a lot of nonprofits, they can reframe that for themselves and then feel better or more confident about doing that. I absolutely love that. And what a great, great way to start off because I imagine that's gonna frame everything. Well, and I really wanna put you in the hot seat there. So give us an example, if you would, Josh, what is a humble brag? What does that look and sound like? I think a great example is let's say you went in an award. You can put out that announcement. We're so honored to have received this award or to be recognized by our peers or to receive this high praise. So with somebody else, you're promoting the third party of credibility that someone else gave you. Yes. You're bragging about somebody else saying you're good. And you can back that up. And you can back it up. And so those are perfect examples of you need to do that because it really gives people confidence in who you are. The humble brag of announcing a promotion within your organization, right? Sometimes a simple announcement about a new hire, you're bragging about growing. You're bragging about the resources you have available to you now. Right, we have board members coming on, maybe an advisory council. So there's so many opportunities to really employ that humble brag. So thank you for allowing me to put you in the hot seat and say, what does this look like? Cause I know for a lot of our viewers, and I feel like Julie and I are pretty good at this, and like, okay, let's ask the question that I think our viewers really wanna want to ask, but might be a little too worried, are concerned about asking. So that was tip number one, and we're moving into tip number two when it comes to PR, just suggestions and tips for your nonprofits to really strengthen your public relations. So the first one was the humble brag and you can brag about anything as long as you can back it up. So what does number two tip look like? You need to celebrate your wins. You gotta celebrate the easy stuff. Don't forget about the low-hanging fruit. So it goes back to like an example being what we just talked about, about a new hire. It could be a hiring a new receptionist, right? At the organization, you should still put out that press release. Right. It's gonna be a front-page story, right? We're not pretending that it is, but just saying Josh was hired a receptionist at this nonprofit and sending my photo to the community newspaper. It's not gonna be in the daily newspaper. It's not gonna be on the Today Show, right? You have a small little announcement, sends an important message that you're growing and that you've got support within the community and all that kind of stuff. Here's the thing that you don't wanna say. You may have just fired five people and only hired one and put out a press release about the new person. Right. When people see that, they still think your organization's growing. They have no idea about the structural changes you made behind the scenes. That's right. And so it just builds confidence. The other thing that those simple announcements do, like a lot of community papers are more than happy to run the announcement of somebody in their community. They need to know that the person lives there or they need to know your organization is located in that zip code, right? For the small little newspapers left on your doorstep. They're only doing those small little community papers. Those little community news stories. It really goes a long way and you'd be amazed how many people look at that. And so that's a simple one. Another example would be, if you get a big donation from somebody, promote that. Promote graduations from your program. Promote anything, new partnerships, new... Everything you can think of, these really small things that you've done a million times, those are opportunities for you. And so don't throw away the low-hanging fruit because the low-hanging fruit is what builds your foundation. It builds your base, it builds your general support and it kind of softens the ground with reporters, right? So a lot of people forget that reporters, they're getting 100 story pitches a day. And if they're lucky, they're getting the right one or two stories. So even if they ignore your pitch or they ignore your press release, if it's appropriately sent to the right person and if they see you on a consistent basis, when you come to them with a big story, they're much more likely to do it because they already know your name. Even if they never run the story, they're familiar with you. So you need to announce the low-hanging fruit and you'd be amazed how many of those low-hanging fruit stories actually generate little mentions that people notice. But it really does help soften the ground with reporters so that when you need them for that big story, they're much more open to working with you. So I have a technical question on this. What is the appropriate time span to be doing this? Like, are we saying, don't do it more than once a week, don't do it, but every couple of weeks, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, sometimes it depends on the type of story, right? So if you work with somebody enough, you wanna save a big story and not kinda kill it by putting out an announcement a week before, right? That, you know, because sometimes if it's a monthly publication, they only have time to write one story. So if they've already, you know, got your previous press release in the hopper ready to go and then you give them another story the week after, they may be less likely to run both or they may try and combine both into one story, which then in a way takes away a little bit of what you're doing. For those companies that we work with or organizations that are putting out lots of releases and have lots of announcements, again, it depends on your audiences, right? If one is like a TV story and another one is for a community newspaper, they can go out the same day even if they're different topics because there's a different need, there's a different purpose of how it's gonna be accepted by that organization. So they're only really getting one announcement even though you have multiple things happening at the same time. But if we're talking about that community newspaper and I'm gonna keep talking about that because that's something that nonprofits miss all the time, how important it is to kind of be that community organization and build that community reputation, those simple community newspaper announcements, I would probably say every 10 days is a better kind of thing to do. There's also a couple, so even if it's one a week, I wouldn't necessarily put one out on Monday and another one on Thursday. What I would do is I may put one out on Thursday and then put the next one out the following Tuesday, right? Because even just a mental break of a weekend, they don't remember what day last week they got your last press release, they just remember it was last week. And it's a big subliminal message to them and it kind of keeps you in the hopper. That said, for most of companies, we usually recommend if you can, a minimum three days between 10 days is usually better. And that way you don't actually overlap stories by accident within the same publication. Love it. I think that's really great advice because I think that's one of the things is that if we can understand what the media outlets are doing with the information that we send them, it helps us to be more successful when we're sending things out. Yep. I mean, because you wanna make it as easy and as usable as you can, bottom line. Okay, so that was amazing. We've got two great ideas. Now the third one, this is gonna be tough because I've loved one and two. All right, I'm gonna try and keep the strength going then and hopefully you like all five. Okay. And if not, I'll make up a new one. So tell me if you don't like one of my things. Pressure, yeah. Okay, I just want you happy. That's all that matters to me. All right, the next one is, think about your visual. And so what I mean by that is every time you do any announcement, what is the picture that goes along with it? And so when you're figuring out the picture, that's often what will encourage media to attend if you can explain the visual to a TV station or to the newspaper or to whoever because they don't want talking heads. They want some kind of movement, right? What's the action that's occurring? They don't want people just standing their arms and arms. They don't like the check presentation, but they love having some fully dressed executive in a pool accepting the check, right? Because it's the things around that that make it much more interesting, right? So what is the picture? And when you're trying to figure out what the picture is, here's another way to kind of figure that out. If you couldn't say a word and you couldn't say anything and you couldn't write the exact caption, if you hold up the picture, does it tell the story by itself? What is that person who sees that picture? What are they seeing? What are they thinking? It's gonna be more than just two people talking to each other, right? What else is in the picture? Yeah. That is such a great reminder because I think so often, we think of, oh, we need to do right by our executives, by our board members. We really need to have their smiling faces in the photos. But what I'm hearing and really like settling into is it's about the action, what is taking place and how does that demonstrate the mission moment or the program, the project in which either the ask is coming for or the success story is built from and to really have that activity being front and center and not so much the face, I think is great. The face is important sometimes, but the question is how do you use the face, right? So you need to get the executive in there and you don't want the back of people's heads, right? In the photo. So you want them so, even if you're posing it a little bit, you want them to tilt their face or their head outwards. So you can see the two or three people who are talking to each other, right? Because you don't want someone's back in the photo. So you can still get them in there, but it's that action or it's the action of a lot of times for nonprofits, right? When we're giving out stuff or donations or we're giving food or we're giving whatever, you can't necessarily show the picture of the person who's receiving it. So at that point, you might show their back, but that doesn't mean that your staff can't be the ones on camera who are literally holding it out and handing it to that person or loading it in their vehicle where you can't see the full face or even a partial face of the person who's the recipient. But you got that smiling person, you're still seeing enough. You can say, Jared at this nonprofit was loading up supplies for a recipient. That's a great photo because now it's still action oriented, right? It's not just the grip and grin because newspapers hate that. In all honesty, it's too easy to do that. An action photo just goes so much further. And it's really what the new story is. You're talking about something. So make your photo, your story by itself. And this reminds me so much, Josh. And if you remember the early part of the virus pandemic, because I allude to there being plural pandemics over the last 18 months, but you were so gracious and helping me in an organization press release that I was working with for a hygiene-based organization. And I'm just so appreciative for you to be of service to me in that capacity. And we did just that. So we were shoeboxes filled with hygiene and we actually had the other agencies that received our boxes and gave them directly to the individuals themselves. We took a photo of them, right? Because we could photograph their faces and literally loading a van to the brim of these shoeboxes of all different brands and labels. And that really was the action photograph that went alongside the press release that you so politely and graciously helped me with. So this is really driving home, kind of like what are some ways that we as organizations can take photos and tell our mission and our stories that we can have that humble brag. And it really just kind of all works together. So... Yeah, the other benefit of that photo, not only that you can send it to media afterward to describe your action in your story, even if they don't come to the actual event, because you want that for social media anyway. Right. So it's a dual purpose. So a lot of mistakes that nonprofits and corporate businesses make as well, even when they host a media event and no media show up, they sometimes just skip the event or they don't bother to take their own photos. No, you still hold the event even when it's just you. And then the photos that you take get sent out. And so you can take that B-roll video, just from your phone, don't make it hard to hesitate. Take the video from your phone, take a picture from your phone. And as long as they're high enough resolution and decent quality, you can send them after the fact, and then they're still gonna potentially run that photo, right? If it's interesting enough, or they might even on local TV, run that TV video. And just as an announcer in the studio, just describe what people are seeing. It's a really short story, but it's still a great story for any business to have or any nonprofit to have. Great reminder. I think that's great advice. Okay, so one, two and three have been really good. The pressure's on. All right, this was my favorite actually, this next one. Okay, good. All right. The greatest thing about nonprofits is they have excellent partners, right? Who are helping them do all this stuff. Nonprofits need to do better at asking their partners to do their PR for them. And so what I mean by that, right? Is that we work with a lot of for-profit businesses in addition to nonprofits across the country and even across the globe who are trying to promote themselves in North America. And corporate social responsibility is a really important big issue for corporate businesses. And they want to be involved and they want to do things and they want to volunteer and they want to make donations and they all these different types of things, right? So the issue is how do you encourage your partners who are helping you to get publicity for themselves? Right. Is their PR department or their PR agency to talk about their donation of backpacks for your back to school drive? Let them do all the work. And then you be there as a spokesperson is a nonprofit as they drop them off where they have gotten the media to come where your executive is now saying we're so thankful that company XYZ for this donation. It's gonna help so many kids in the community. Now your partner loves you. Yes. You've got all the publicity anyway because you got everything you wanted and you didn't have to do the work for it. And so now that the corporate company wants to donate even more they want to be even more involved because you help them look good. And so you're actually improving your relationship by letting them do PR on your name to show that they're helping you because it really helps you more than that. That is so brilliant. And almost like mind exploding. And I would say this is definitely my favorite by far as well, they've all been great but this one is like amazing. Now any tip that you might recommend that we use to communicate to this opportunity? And I'm thinking in particular with my fundraising hat on many of the clients I work with are really looking at that corporate sponsorship. So that partnership. How do we include this opportunity or this idea into those early stage conversations especially for the CSR the corporate social responsibility piece? Yeah, it's a great question. So I think there's different ways you can do that. One is in your contract in terms of their sponsorship add in a media opportunity clause where you're willing to be interviewed talking about how great they are for the community and for you. I love that. They still need to be the ones that coordinate it. You don't have to do that. You just need to be available and the truth is you do it anyway. Right. So you're planting a seed in their mind that it's an opportunity. Right. And it's a win-win. It's a win-win. And so the other thing that, I mean, I'm saying this in a positive way but nonprofit professionals they're used to begging for money. They're used to asking for supplies. They're used to asking. Why are you not asking for media coverage too? Another thing about to the reporter I'm talking to your partners because they want it. They're not necessarily, they're donating for the right reason. They're a partner for the right reason. But they're very open to getting free publicity for themselves that helps your organization. So utilize their staff and their people. Great, great point. Yeah. And I love that media clause. Like I really, I'm going to continue to work with my clients about, okay, when you're approaching a corporate partnership are you including media? If you are, what does that look like? If you're not, why not? Let's go ahead and add that and up the ante. I think that's really important. Even just offering to give them a quote even if they just put it on social media that still helps your nonprofit. So write them a thank you letter that they can arguably share but make it more personal and not a form letter, right? Something that they can spread around even if it's an internal announcement to their own employees. Maybe then it goes to social media then maybe it's something that they include in other CSR related efforts that they're putting out to show their involvement or they can talk about you and award nominations that they're submitting that they're trying to win for themselves. Let them use your name as a nonprofit because all it does is it helps brand and promote you anyway. Yeah. And it really blends and melds that partnership which is really important. Well, moving into our fifth and final tip and I can't believe our time is almost done and this has just been such a robust conversation but PR for nonprofits tip number five. Take us home Josh, what does this look like? It still comes down to a human interest stories. Everything is about what are you actually doing and who benefits? So anytime any of your recipients that you can put them on camera or have them talk about how your nonprofit helps that's really, really important. It could be a volunteer that you're focused on about why somebody's volunteered so many hours. Whatever the thing is, it's kind of sad but everyone loves the sob story or everybody loves the success story and they wanna see a person. It's not the corporate executive who's talking about the success. It's the recipient who's talking about how the program has helped them. It's that recipient of that shoe box of supplies. It's that recipient of the food. It's, you know, all the different organizations that have donated and why this was important to them because some of them may have really important reasons. We've worked with big, big corporate companies that have been clients that have been big funders donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to nonprofits. And the reason why they chose that nonprofit is because it's personal, right? Food and security type of organization, when executive, their family growing up was needed help and it was personal and he was willing to share his story. And so it just makes it mean so much more when you're able to combine those pieces. So human interest is really, really important and it kind of pulls those heart strings. And so don't be afraid of asking for those stories because you'd be amazed by how many people are willing to share their story including your recipients. Three or four of them may say no before you find one that says yes, but that just means you gotta ask more people. Yeah. I love that. I think that's really powerful. And I love that you wrap us up with that because I think that's really powerful. And at the heart of it, you know, when we can't tell those human stories and we can make connections is Jared always says the return on relationship. You know, that's a longer-term strategy and that it really does have power. So that is an amazing thing. Hey, this has been Josh Weiss, president and founder of 10 to 1PR. I gotta read this comment that came in, comes in from Lisa, says Josh Weiss and the 10 to 1 are local treasure. They have been a tremendous partner to Family Promise of Greater Phoenix. They're an awesome organization. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I mean, that's, wow, you know, that's when you know you hit the home run. That feels great. Yeah, that's really cool. Lisa and more than that, thank you, Julia. Thank you, Jared, for this opportunity. Oh, absolutely. And for all you do, so if anyone has, you know, questions or interest or looking at a PR firm, Josh Weiss here, 10 to 1PR, president and founder, they do work globally. So they are in your community. So make sure that you reach out to 10to1PR.com. He's got a phenomenal team. I love following your social media channels because it's a lot of fun. You really add in the personality of your team. And I so appreciate that and I've really enjoyed watching, you know, all of your channels grow and I get to learn about your team even though I'm not necessarily a part of it or working directly with you, but it's really cool to see the good work that you're doing. So thank you. Thank you. Hey, it's been a lot of fun today. I've learned some great things. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I've been joined today by my co-host, the intrepid non-profit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors without you. We would not be here having these amazing discussions like we have today. So thank you, thank you, thank you for helping us continue on this. What did you say, Jared? How many episodes? 320, 325-ish? Ish? Wow. I, you know, I- He's counting. Yeah, boy. Yeah, that's crazy. Hey, we wanna remind everybody that we've launched a second show, FundraisingEvents.tv. We drilled down with host Jason Champion all things related to events. And so check that out, FundraisingEvents.tv. It's a lot of fun and it's such a big part of what we do in the non-profit sector. Another great episode. Thank you for joining us. As we like to end every episode, we wanna remind all of our viewers and I think ourselves too, right, Jared? Please. Yes. Stay well so you can do well. Thanks so much, everybody. We'll see you back here tomorrow.