 to the nonprofit show. We are so glad that you're here. And I'm really glad that Julia has put herself into the hot seat today to talk to us about what media sponsors want. Julia Patrick, you join us as the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And truth be told, you have years of experience in the media world. So media partnerships with nonprofits is not something that we talk often about. So I'm really excited to have you with me today. Again, of course she's here, but she's serving dual roles today. Julia C. Patrick, CEO, American Nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group where I get to play alongside Julia day in and day out because of you, our viewers, and these amazing sponsors. So shout out of gratitude goes over to our friends, the entire team at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, staffing boutique, your part-time controller, 180 management, fundraising academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Julia, these companies keep growing. It's really exciting. We added two new sponsors and they do really cool and different things. JMT Consulting works on the tech side of financial management for nonprofits. Fascinating side of the business and we'll be having them on and it's a female lead founded and lead company. So we're excited about that. And then Management 180, so excited to have them on board as well. They do management consulting for nonprofits. They do thought leadership for nonprofits and executive coaching. And so we'll be talking more about them. We have had them on Anthony Dix Jr. and then his wife, Miriam Dix. And they're from the South. They are brilliant people, very exciting stuff. Well, good stuff to come. We will keep producing these conversations and episodes and you're still in luck because we have all of our archived episodes still available to you. You can download the app by scanning that QR code right in front of you on the screen. You can also find us on streaming broadcast and podcast platforms. Julia, I just received an email or actually I think it was a LinkedIn comment from a previous guest that said he found himself binge watching the nonprofit show. And I said, you're not the first to say that and I'm still very complimented. Like, you know, thank you for that. So it's a fun journey. You know, even I do that. It's funny because if I'm like traveling or you're traveling or whatever, also just for my own self, you know, to see how I can be better and improve and all that. But I'll sit down, you know, and then all of a sudden I've watched, you know, like three or four episodes or yeah. It's like, it's not in the bear, which by the way, if you've not seen the bear on Hulu or whatever, it's okay. So today you're bringing to us a fascinating conversation where you have years of experience in the media world, but we're talking about what media sponsors want. And the first thing is connectivity to a lot of different areas, including their audience, their readers, their listeners and their viewers getting nerdy with me. What does this mean? So this is so interesting because if you are planning an event, if you're planning any type of thing that might need some promotion, which pretty much everything should and need one promotion, right? Really and truly, it's super important to find media partnerships because these are outlets, media outlets that have a lot of opportunity to connect you to their audience. And so that might be TV, that might be radio, that might be a digital media outlet or magazine or something of that nature. It might even be a whole system that navigates sports. So like an MBA team or an MLB team, I mean, these are media outlets that now control a lot of content going out to their audience. And so definitely be thinking about this. As a publisher for 30 years, I did this morning, noon and night and my team got pitched. I mean, Jared, one day my little girl came home from school, she was in kindergarten and had a note pinned to her sweater. That you did not put there. That a woman who was a chair of an event, a Black Tie Gala, wanted me, our publication to be her media partner. You can imagine that that conversation went down well because she traumatized my child, by coming up to her stranger, pinning something on her and saying, don't touch this, give this to your mother, kind of thing. It was a horrible situation. But like a Paddington Bear image is what I have in my head, Paddington Bear with the note there. So Julia, I have to witness, right? Like I don't see this happen often enough as well as this has never been one of my main strategies with any of the organizations I've worked with. Shame on us, shame on me, right? Really looking at this from an opportunity standpoint as we move into the new year. Are we looking for like one media partner for the year of a variety of them? What does this look like? It's a really good question. So let me back up. First thing, it should be media outlet type. So you should have radio, you should have print media, you could have broadcast media, broadcast media. Oftentimes we use in terms of like television, right? But the reality of this is that there are many kinds. So for example, if you live in a community that has a major, major different language, like so we have a very robust Spanish speaking media outlet system, right? You know, that should be part of what we're doing. And so you can have maybe a business publication, a societal coverage. You might have a different, you know, a media outlet, but this is the secret. They're not going to want to share the cheese. So if you pick a TV station, you gotta live with that. You can't have ABC, CBS and NBC all helping, right? I mean, unless it's something that's huge for your community, I have not seen that many times in my career, over 30 years, doesn't happen very often. So you've got to kind of be looking at this. And then yeah, you know, you can go to some of these outlets, media outlets and say, would you like to partner with us for the next year or three years or whatever, especially if you're doing like something that is bringing them good news or connecting them. So I'll give you an example of that. And that might be like a community walk, where you take over the downtown of your community and you have a massive, massive, you know, kind of thing. That might be the sort of situation where an outlet would like that for a longer period of time. But yeah, you need to be strategic and you can't just do this, even if you do it three months before your event, that's not enough time. Is these outlets all have what they call media calendars? And so they got to book this in. Yeah, there's a lot to consider. Talk to us about the topic. So the connectivity to topic that their audience is interested in. So we're talking about the audience of the media partner, is that correct? Correct, so let's say you are engaged in something that has to do with medical or scientific exploration of a medical situation. And maybe your organization really serves the population over 55, right? This is perfect for things like Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, right? Well, there are certain publications that would align themselves to an over 55 market. And so that's content and something they can get behind, right? It does two things. So that's why you wanna look at yourself, if you're an animal welfare organization, look for organizations or media outlets that deal with animals. And there are, there are several that do that. And it can be national. Right, national. I'm thinking to like education. There's, we talked about this with a previous guest. We have local education school boards. We have university school boards. We have board of regents. Like there's a lot that goes into education. How do we navigate handle? How do we navigate all of the different options and who should be the one doing that? So hopefully you have a media communications team. And if you don't, you should be contracting with somebody because this is a huge part. It goes into how you communicate with your donors, your stakeholders. I mean, shoot, we were talking about that last week with the leadership list, right? I mean, this is to me one of the missed, the greatest missed opportunities for our nonprofits is that we're too focused on what's going on right here. We need to open our eyes and start communicating out to more people, not just in terms of donations. And that's what this conversation is kind of about, Jared. Is it saying, how do we communicate? How do we share our story? How do we tell the good news and get people to come along? And that's where media loves it. We used to call it a white hat story. So definitely. How do you connect to those points of interest? Well, and that takes us to exposure. And I have to ask you, and I love that your first one here is digital. So the exposure by way of digital, branding, leadership and talent, there's so many platforms to consider. I was a mass communication undergrad. And so when I was going through journalism and all of that, right? It was like, consider billboards and consider PSAs on the radio. Like, I think times have changed, right? So like, what does that look like for us? So first and foremost, you have to understand that if you are in the American market, you still have requirements if you're on broadcast or radio to fulfill and report to the federal government on the FCC, how many minutes you are giving away to the community interest. So there's a call and there's a demand that is monitored, that has to be done. So that doesn't go away. Now, a lot of times that's why if you're up like me at two in the morning watching TV or something, you'll see wackadoo ads at two in the morning. They're not gonna go during the World Series, right? I mean, they're gonna be placed at odd hours, but still they're gonna be placed. The thing here that's changed is the digital connectivity. So when you're marketing, let's say you're sending out an e-newsletter or you're sending out invitations or you're promoting your event, your media partner is going to have their logo up here. And if it's in a digital format, they're gonna want that hyperlinked, right? And so this is a really important thing is to show up and say, media company X, this is where we're gonna put your logo. This is where you're gonna be seen. So that's really important. Another piece of this, and there's so many aspects of it, but think about it, a lot of these organizations, they want their talent out there, right? So especially in broadcast and radio, radio is tough because people don't always know what their leads look like, their talent looks like, right? But if you can get your talent in front of a big group of people, that's a win for a media outlet. That might come in the case of being an emcee, that might come in the case of handing a check or reporting live. I mean, there's just a lot of different ways, maybe doing an interview with the event chair or the CEO of the organization, depending on kind of what's cooking. But that is one of those things that's really, really powerful for everybody. Right. Well, that's really something to think about. I know I've been in the position before where typically the board will say, we should get X, Y, and Z news reporter at our event and do a broadcast live. Where does that fall into a media sponsor or partnership, Julia? Because for all of our viewers and listeners, I know I'm not the only one that's heard this from a board member. So that's a hard thing because that's a production issue. And so that costs money. I mean, you and I broadcast remotely and it fritzes us out. I mean, we'll be honest. And it costs money. It costs a lot of money. And it's exciting and we love it. And we're always saying, we'll show up. We want to do it. We want to do it. But it's not for the faint of heart. Imagine if you're a newscaster or something like that to do a whole production is tough. It's easier to get a live remote or a reporter to do something much, much easier because it doesn't challenge the infrastructure of programming. And so that's kind of one of those things that you have to think about. The other thing about it too is that, when you're having a live event, that's great. But you're not gonna, as an organization, you're not gonna garner that much from it. You're not gonna sell tickets off of it. People aren't gonna jump in their car and drive down and in their tuxedo and ball gown, are they? Right. So you really want to do pre things. I mean, that's where you as a nonprofit, you really have the big opportunity. Okay, here's another elephant in the room, our curve ball. You can hit a home run. Really, when is the best time to approach a media partner or sponsor? Many of us in the nonprofit, we have that fiscal year that starts July one, a lot of businesses, follow a calendar year in cadence. When is the best time to really approach someone and I'm gonna add on to this? And are we looking for a long-term three-year partnership or should we say, you know what? If we can get 12 months, we're gonna be happy with that. So great question as always. First and foremost, most media, I know she's, there's a reason, there's a reason she's a nonprofit nerd. Most media organizations run on a calendar year. Okay, that's just kind of how they do it. Business cycle. Yeah, so January through December. But they're looking at their editorial calendars like 18 months out, right? Because they're selling advertising off of that. So they need to go to their ad sales leads and partners and say, you know, March, we're gonna be doing X, Y, and Z, you know. May and June are always vacation travel destinations, you know, stuff like that. So how do these things all fit together? And that's what they're gonna want to look at. When they can go, media outlets can go to their constituents, their advertisers and their audience and say, hey, you know, we're gonna do a really huge opportunity for everyone back to school in August and we're gonna be partnering with XYZ nonprofit to, you know, fill a thousand backpacks. That's something that they wanna promote and parade around. This needs to be done well in advance, well in advance. If you can go to a media outlet, 10, 12, even maybe as far as 16 to 18 months out, you're gonna have more opportunity. And you should be doing that anyway. That is so surprising to me. Because I know there's still organizations, Julia, saying, should we still have this Gala? Should we have this 5K run? Should we do X, Y, and Z, right? Like I feel like it's ever changing. And so that's a little scary. It's really scary because you have to have your ducks in a row. You have to be talking about who your audience is, where you're gonna be, what you're gonna be doing, how you're gonna be promoting it online, in print. I mean, yeah, it's a lot, but you know, Jared, you and I have noticed this and we said this so often that the more organized you can be upfront, the more you open yourself up to additional opportunity. Because decisions have been made and you're not wringing your hands and you can get on it, get on it. I mean, one of the big things is we don't talk about, but in our communities, we as the nonprofit sector, 1.8 million of us look around and we see who's doing what. And then we make decisions, oh, well, we're not gonna have an event on that time. It's too much, right? So we have to be thinking about this in a much more holistic thing. In advance. And I would challenge our viewers and listeners now, to really think about that exposure, what exposure are you looking for from your partners? Where are you looking to grow that branding, the awareness? That to me, I see dovetails beautifully with fundraising and looking at this, okay, the more people that know about us, the more opportunity for people to fund and support our mission. So that's just a data or data, right? Tomato, tomato. The data that builds on the connectivity to the advertisers, what are we looking for and what are they looking for? So they're looking for and not necessarily a surrender of data, right? I mean, I had, I would have, like nonprofits would come to us and say, we'll give you our database of all of our donors. Or I could be like, okay, you shouldn't say that. That's not what you wanna be doing here. Right. But what you wanna do with your data collection, you can say the average age of our donor is this. They live in this part of town. They're interested in that. They like attending are this. I mean, you got to paint a picture, which you should know as a nonprofit who you are communicating with and who is invested in your organization. And that also should go along with your board. Who's on your board? What's that leadership connectivity look like? Where are you in the community? What are you promoting? Because media has to be cautious about this too, right? I mean, they've got to know that if they're gonna align with somebody that it's gonna be a good fit and it's gonna be a good message. So. I'm thinking too, like website visits, you know, thinking of that. I also have to say a lot of the donor databases with AI plugins have the ability to give you an idea, an average of your donor ages, of their economic standpoint, of their, you know, certainly you've got their zip codes so you can do like a heat map essentially of the locations. So could, I know you rattled off some, but do you mind rattling off maybe again or some more? Because for some of our viewers and listeners, Julia, that are like, I have never collected the data for this. How do we even approach it? Like where do we start? That's maybe something tangible we can do after today's conversation. So I think you need to start out with what your, you know, a very short narrative of what it is your organization does. We talk about this a lot. We think we know what organizations do, but we don't always. And so it can be that narrative. And again, you do this once, you can use this throughout your ecosystem of your nonprofit. Who do you serve? What's your annual budget? How many board members do you have? How many employees do you have? Do you know what your economic impact is in your own community? That means paying rent, buying utilities, you know, what is your operating budget? Like what are you putting back into the community? Things of that, because the nonprofit sector is an economic Jesse. I mean, we're spending money. And so how do you communicate that back out? And then you can talk about what the profile of your donor base is. What are they interested in? What are they doing? What does it look like? And then you can talk about your board. And this can be something that, again, we talk about this a lot, that leadership connectivity. You know, if you have a show board, as we like to call it, where their names of high profile people, they might not be in there rolling up their sleeves doing the work, but they're lending their, you know, Elon and their name to your organization. That's something that the media is gonna be interested in. Certainly. Wow, this gives me a lot to think about. And again, like there's so much opportunity, possibility. I have to ask you this question, Julia. Because the internet is changing, because the way we purchase things, advertise things, promote, right? Like would you consider social media influencers as a media sponsor or partner? You know, at this point- How's that for a curve ball? No, it's a good question. And it's so funny, because somebody asked me that, I bet, two or three weeks ago. And I would say, unless they have a really strong brand, I mean, like Mr. Beast or something, then that could be one thing. My sense of it, and this is me, because in my publishing career, we didn't really have that type of thing. Really, this is a 60-month-old kind of issue. I would say, can they do something on site? Can they do something to bring that audience and connectivity to some point? But I don't really see that happening. I don't really see, I see people engaging and wanting to tag and all that. But it's a different kind of, it's a different kind of trade, if you will. But it could happen. Yeah, it could happen. Yeah, I mean, you know, my daughter worked for the World Food Program, feed the meal, feed the meal, share the meal in Berlin. It's part of the UN system, United Nations system. And they would have celebrities that would come and say, we want to be aligned with your, your deal and can we get on? And it would be like, it would, it's her job to say, yeah, you're not wholesome enough or yeah, we, you know, you've had a sex tape and so we don't want to know that. You know what I mean? It's really an interesting alignment. It's a really, it's an alignment. That's really something to think about when it comes to, you know, who are we partnering with down to the individual, to the board members, to, you know, the media partners and sponsors. There's a lot to consider, which takes me back, my fundraising brain to our gift acceptance policy. Yes. Like, so what are the media sponsors? Whom are the influencers that we are willing to partner with? You know, what are the attributes they bring? What are the things that we might need to be aware of? They're, even down to like corporate partners, I think come down to that. Well, Muji Kwaja that was on yesterday, one of my top 10 most favorite episodes we've ever done, super surprised. I didn't think we would talk about the things that we talked about. Yeah. It was fantastic. It was incredible. But one of the things that he said is, you know, the co-founder and now the CDO of the American Muslim Community Foundation is that they have a very strict list of things that they will not engage in, in terms of investments and partnerships. And it was like alcohol, pornography, smoking. I was like, things that you wouldn't necessarily think, but it aligned with their beliefs. Yeah. And I thought that was fascinating because he knew him, he rattled him off. Did you, did you catch that, Jarrett? He lost me at alcohol, but yeah. Like God, you're like, dang it, I'll never be able to be a sponsor. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It was a great conversation. It was fascinating. Yeah, you're right. He rattled them off because he lives that way. Right? Part of their faith. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that that is one of those foundational conversations that you need to have. Absolutely. Because you need that with your, with your gift acceptance policy. So anyway. Anyway, we digress. There's a lot of information here. I just peaked at the time, Julia, and it is going with my friend. So Julia C. Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy has joined us today. As she joins us every day, but today she served a dual role, has co-host Anne in the hot seat to bring this conversation to light. So thank you, Julia, for allowing me to play a small part of this big journey with you. It's been an honor. And if you could take us out, I would love to have you do that. Hey, thank you to our sponsors that allowed me to go on and I'd say jump up on my soapbox today. And they include Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leaders, Staffing Boutique, your part-time controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, along with JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd, Jarrett Ransom, the Raven Group, who we love and adore, and then as well as Nonprofit Tech Talk. Again, these are the folks that partner with Jarrett and I day in and day out and allow us to have these really interesting and diverse conversations. Jarrett, it's never the same two days in a row. No, it's not and it's so much fun and I will tell you our calendar this year is already filling up. We've got some amazing conversations in the works for you and is it March? We hit our 1,000 episodes, I think. Yeah, early March. Good stuff, yeah. Lots of good things. Well, again, thank you for joining us today. Come back tomorrow because we'll have a whole different conversation and a different thought leader. Julia will be here as well as much self. So just really glad to have today's conversation about media sponsors. I know I've got a few things on my to-do list now that you shared this with me. So yeah, Julia, thank you. Hey, Jarrett, thank you. And as we like to end every episode, we want to leave with this message. And also, I don't know, Jarrett, who's gonna sign, who's gonna really take us out today because we're in a little bit of a... We'll figure it out. But our ending message, no matter how we leave one another today, is to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.