Episode 73: Jackie Russell

Join Lori and her guest, Jackie Russell, as they talk about working with responsible companies. Jackie is the president and founder of Teak Media + Communication, which provides comprehensive, strategic public relations, and communication services to help socially responsible organizations achieve media and public recognition.

Here are the things to expect in this episode:

• The value of working with companies that ACTUALLY help the planet and its people. 

• Jackie’s “lucky” experience of being able to take part in the Jimmy Fund.

• Being always up in arms about the right causes.

• And much more!

 Connect with Jackie!

Teak Media and Communications: https://teakmedia.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackieherskovitz/

Connect with Lori Kranczer!

Website: https://www.linkphilanthropic.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorikranczer/

Episode Transcript

You're listening to the Positive Impact Philanthropy podcast, where we share the journeys of everyday philanthropists as they incorporate philanthropy into their lives. Philanthropy is a personal journey through the stories we will share here. We hope that it sparks something in you and how you can make your own philanthropic impact in the world. I'm your host, Lori Kranczer, attorney, philanthropic advisor, and legacy giving strategist. Together we're going to explore what it looks like to be an everyday philanthropist and make a positive impact in the world. Before we get started, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode posted on Wednesdays. Now I'm incredibly excited today to introduce Jackie Russell. She is the president and founder of Teak Media and Communication. Welcome, Jackie.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, it's my pleasure. So Jackie, why don't you tell us more about you and what you do.

Uh, I've been the president and founder of Teak Media and Communication, as you said. We're a PR firm based in Boston and we represent nonprofit organizations and responsible companies only. Um, we've been doing it 25 years and we're certified B Corp, like Patagonia, Ben and Jerry, Seventh Generation, a company with a triple bottom line, we've been um you know, so it's every question, every decision we make as a company from the cleaning products we use, to the clients we take on, we ask will this help the planet, will it help people, and can we make a profit doing it? So it's the triple P’s, people, planet, profit. Rather than just can we make money, which is how you know General capitalists companies operate. Or also a founding member of the boss chapter of conscious capitalism, which is a national organization, um, that is about working with companies that are doing the right thing for the world. They're different in the B Corp is a certification process. Teak was certified in 2013, and we get recertified every three or four years. Uh, I think it was three now it’s four, and the the process is in depth and they look at every aspect of your company from how much you pay your employees, to the benefits they get, to the clients you serve, to the products you produce, to your carbon use, um,  your energy savings, all everything, your financial transparencies, it's pretty in depth, but luckily we've been able to be certified each of these years. So I'm pretty proud of that. And um, it just to me, it says we walk our talk, we're doing the right thing. We're not only trying to help the great organizations, but we're trying to be one ourselves.

Yeah, and I want to talk more about that because that is definitely where um I see a lot your your role in this is that not only are you responsible, socially responsible, but also your clients are and so um let's go back to when you started. Your firm. Why did you decide or what inspired you to, to work with these organizations or these types of businesses?

I really, I lucked into it. Um, I was a reporter, print reporter, for a couple of newspapers before I started Teak and I left my last reporting job, um to.. I was gonna write a book and I was like, I can't do this. And basically, I was too young to sit in a room by myself, you know, all day. So I started doing book copy editing for a publisher in East Boston. Then he said, I need you to do public relations for me, because I was a reporter so he thought I could do public relations and I never really wanted to do public relations. I didn't know what it was because I was a reporter, but it was like no, no, you really have to do it. So I started promoting the books, the authors and the books and I was getting really good results for somebody who didn't know what they were doing. And I liked it. Um, you know, surprisingly I liked it. I was doing good work, getting success. So I thought oh, you know, I was 30, and I’m like oh, great, I'll do this for myself. I'll start my own company not knowing anything about what that meant. He the publisher then said to me, okay, great. Keep doing me as a client. And we're going to introduce you to my friend who needs help in public relations too. And the friend was the VP of Communications for the Jimmy fund in Boston, for Dana Farber Cancer Institute. And that was uh, my first event in PR was promoting the Super Bowl, which is an all you can eat ice cream event in City Hall Plaza, where nine at the time, nine ice cream companies coming together. This is 1997, the first time I did it. Nine ice cream companies come together, they donate all their ice cream. There's like a big three day festival, at the time it was $5 all you can eat, you know you buy a ticket all the money goes to the Jimmy fund and you spend the afternoon eating ice cream. So, it was my job to promote it and which not a hard job to do let me tell you, to get you know, people to write about ice cream and giving away for the Jimmy fund. So we had great success. One of my responsibilities was to take Jerry Greenfield from Ben and Jerry's around the morning time drive radio stations, and we delivered ice cream and he would be interviewed um, about the Jimmy fund and all the work that he was doing, so it was super fun. It was like from 4am to whatever 10am. We would be hitting all the stations. Um so and he was a great first influence for me, I really loved what I was doing. I was stood there, my first event, and I was sitting there, and I was like this is the best thing. I just felt so moved by the ability to help and be a part of the Jimmy fund. And know that all those people and all that money was going to help children who had cancer and their research and the care for them and their families and I was like that's it. I'm hooked. This is what I need to be doing for my life. So it really felt like it found me and I was just lucky to be there at the right time at the right place. And from there, you know with the Jimmy fund as my first client, which we ended up working with them for 17 years after that. It opened up doors to other nonprofits for me, um because we had a good long standing relationship with a very respectful nonprofit. And I learned so much by working with them. It really was incredible. An unbelievable opportunity.

Yeah, this, uh it’s interesting because you know you say you fell into it and a bit, but probably not, like I really do believe like certain opportunities present themselves to people and when you, you saw the opportunity and you probably, your values aligned with it, and it just was, it clicked. Right? Not, it wouldn't happen for every individual. So, um, so one of our favorite things that we like to do here is to go back even further and really think about our upbringing and things in our childhood when went to school that also potentially inspired us to be philanthropic and so we can see this patterns in our life. Um, and I'm wondering if you can think back, do you have any of those that you could think of off the top of your head?

We also worked with the pan-mass challenge, which is the bike-a-thon that goes across the state and raises more money than any other athletic fundraising event in the country. And I was at the PMC I was there like, you know, we did it for 13 years and I was on site and I bumped into one of my sisters first boyfriends, and so I hadn't seen him since I was in high school. And now this is, you know, I'm in my 30s. He's in his 40s, whatever um. And I told him, he was like, What are you doing here? And I'm like, Oh, this is what I do, this is my job, I work with pan-mass challenge and, you know, at this company, we promote nonprofits. And he said to me, that doesn't surprise me at all. And I said, why? And he said, You always had a bee in your bonnet about some cause when we were kids, like you were always up in arms about something. And it, it made me think yeah, I really was very cause related, always like an idealist and an activist type. Um, so it wasn't the philanthropy that got me first, it wasn't about giving, it was about the issues. And it still is, and it still is for me about the issues and I feel really grateful that my company helps these organizations raise money, because we help promote them. So we get them print radio, TV online via the media attention and social media. And we help them do digital marketing and you know that sort of cause marketing. We have companies connect with nonprofits so they'll give money, so it all adds up to money for the nonprofits, but what we do is not well, we don't do like development per se. You know, I mean. So we, our whole business is about the issues and getting awareness for the issues and from that people will then be made aware and they will give. That's my really, my path into philanthropy is through the issues themselves, not about my first childhood desire to be giving.

Right. But you know, what you do, it really is that first stage of raising funds, it is creating awareness, and that is classically the first stage of raising funds for an organization. So it does go hand in hand with development for organizations and the philanthropic support that they're going to receive they, you know, we, we love our nonprofits, but they, they can't do the great work they're doing without the support that they desperately need and that what you're doing is, is helping them raise that money which is so important. Yeah. I'm, I'm curious, do you work with any particular issue areas? I know that you are, you know, you are very connected with issues. So are there particular areas that you enjoy working with?

We um, were lucky to work with the New England Aquarium, Mass Audubon, The Nature Conservancy, a number of organizations like that, that are dealing with climate change, helps in harmony, um all about you know, climate change and, and climate crisis and also ocean health. Um and just nature, nature health. So then we have the environmental side of what we do, um which is really rewarding, and we also do a lot of work with people, um children who are falling through the cracks, health and welfare for families and youth. Um, we work in racial diversity and focus on equality and equity with women and with people of color and with all minorities. So we're really very much into social justice issues. Um, yeah so it’s really people in the planet honestly.

Oh and it’s, it completely aligns with your business values as well. So I do want to go back to the B Corp that you mentioned before, because you've been certified as a B Corp for 10 years now, and that's quite an accomplishment that because a lot of organizations weren't going for that certification 10 years ago. Um, how were you made aware of it and why was this important to you back then?

Um, actually, we became aware of it because we started reading about it. So the whole reason that the B Corp thinks, so Ben and Jerry's sold to Unilever. And again, I have this relationship with Jerry which I've maintained all through that the years, you know, I didn’t, you know email and this and that I had contact with him because I did that ice cream thing with him a couple of years. So, you sit in the car with somebody with ice cream melting everywhere, you know, for a few hours in the morning, you kind of have a bod. Anyway, so he was behind. They were behind the court movement because they had a fiduciary responsibility to sell to Unilever. They had to sell Ben and Jerry's was back in like I think 2001 or something like that. Or 2000,  or maybe 1999, I can't fully remember. But he, they got a lot of slack. You know, Oh, Ben and Jerry's sold out. That was the whole headline Ben and Jerry's is selling out but they had no choice because they were a public company and you have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to go with whatever is going to give the shareholders the most money and Unilever was it. So they were like, Can't there be a better way? And that was the foundation of the B Corp movement, which was not having one bottom line but a triple bottom line and making your company responsible to people, the planet, and profits, not just profits. It's not just a shareholder model, but a stakeholder model. Um, so that's sort of reading about what they were doing in this whole B Corp, and I thought, oh, Teak is too small, we’ll never pass. And I was on the phone with Jerry. He’s like, just try, just go for your certification for crying out loud. So we did it and we passed and when I was ecstatic, and from that it opened up the world to me of um responsible companies. I met a lot, prior to 2013, we were primarily nonprofits, we've focused only on nonprofits. We're still like 80% nonprofits, but it opened up my eyes and my connections to a lot of companies that were doing the right thing. And I really believe in that movement, the conscious capitalism movement because a lot of nonprofits as you said, they cannot do it alone. The model itself is funky, and that you've got one hand constantly trying to get money. It only leaves you one hand to do work. I mean, they have to be focused all the time on raising money and the mission of doing the work. It's just not easy what they do. And if we're relying on them, which, my numbers might be off. But the last time I did this research on this, nonprofits are-, were 12% of our GDP in this country, which means what's 100 minus 12, 88% of our comp-, of, of the money is in corporations, is in business. So how can we really rely on 12% to change the world for the rest of the country? We can't, they can't do it alone. So we need business to do the right thing. And that you know, to being involved in that movement is super important to me. Um, and it's so great over these 10 years to see what has changed. I mean, I have a presentation I give and I follow it. I've been watching the movement grow and it's fascinating and you know, they trip over themselves, we go back we'd make mistakes, you know, it's not a smooth or elegant process. But it's, it's making a difference and like with Patagonia last fall, becoming a PPT, perpetual purpose Trust, which is, they now give all the profits from the company to climate organizations. It's taking it even a step further. And when I read that, I was like, This is it. This is really how things are going to really change. This is what we're going to say. And we need it. Obviously we need it, our planet needs it.

We haven't really had the many discussions about B Corp on the podcast. And so I'm glad that you brought it up because it's an important thing for our, for profit to be aware of.  Um, and as you know, we have a lot of people that have their own businesses that are looking to incorporate philanthropy and sustainability inside of it and, and exploring the different ways to do it. So I'm so glad to bring that chance to talk about B corps. Um, I do want to ask you because you talked about um building something out for perpetuity. And so this is a great segue into our last question which is, what do you want your legacy to be? 

Um, I, uh, doesn’t that mean what do you want to be known for or known as? So what do you mean by that question?

it's really what ever, however you want to give meaning to it, about reflecting back on your life, your accomplishments, how you want others to see you, your community, whatever you think.

I would like Teak media to have been a part of the growing conscious capitalist movement and, and that I mean by inspiring other businesses to do the right thing, and that, you know, when we try to get media attention or boost social media for these socially responsible companies, it's always with the dual mission in my mind, which is help the company grow, but also inspire other companies to do the right thing to say, hey, they're making money and they can do the right thing. I can do that too. And that's what we need more of. So that really is what I'm, um, most proud of, for Teaks work and I want more of to be able to do that work to help inspire other companies to do the right thing. And to obviously to give awareness to our nonprofits, who are all nonprofits so that people become more giving and generous and it does work, media attention, social media and media attention work to help these nonprofits grow. And I know that because we have a very long retention rate with our nonprofit clients like 15 years with the aquarium, 17 years with data farmers, I’m saying, worked with the Panama Shawn for 14 years. The, reason that we have this longevity is because they're making money from what we do. Otherwise there'd be no way they would keep, they're all looking at their bottom lines. And that's what they do. You know, so it works and I'm, I’m happy about that.

It definitely works. Thank you so much, Jackie. So where can people find out more information about you?

Um, our company, the website is Teakmedia.com, T E A K  M E D I A. Teak like the wood, media.com. Um, yeah. And they can email me through that. 

Great. So thank you again for joining us. This has been so interesting. I really, I loved hearing about your journey. And about your, um I guess that inspiration of understanding where your, your giving values came from. I thought that was really great. And for everyone listening, thank you for joining us and we hope we provided some insight and inspiration that you use for your own philanthropic journey. Till next time

Thank you, Lori. Appreciate it.