Episode 60: Julia Campbell
Join Lori and her guest, Julia Campbell, as they talk about the evolution of marketing for nonprofits. With her passion for philanthropy, Julia eventually started her own business where she helps nonprofits navigate the digital landscape for marketing. Is it ideal for organizations to fully shift to digital? Stay tuned!
Here are the things to expect in this episode:
A lot of people in philanthropy are accidental fundraisers. What does this mean?
Reaching out to different generations through traditional and digital marketing.
Nonprofits need to be more proactive, not reactive!
The value of the narrative and message of your cause.
And much more!
About Julia Campbell:
Julia Campbell has run her digital marketing consulting business for almost a decade, focused exclusively on mission-driven organizations. A mom of 2 and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, she is the author of Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, a call-to-action for nonprofits to use stories to accomplish their missions.
Based in Boston, Julia is a global authority on digital storytelling, with happy clients spanning the globe from Moscow to San Francisco. She has provided workshops and training to Meals on Wheels America, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Facebook. Julia is a frequent contributor to Nonprofit Tech for Good, Social Media Today, Maximize Social Business, Elevation Web, Network for Good, Wild Apricot, and others.
Her passion is to get nonprofits of all sizes to stop spinning their wheels on social media and to start getting real results using digital tools. You can check out her thoughts and ideas on all things nonprofit digital storytelling and social media at www.jcsocialmarketing.com/blog.
Connect with Julia!
Nonprofit Nation (Podcast): https://jcsocialmarketing.com/podcast/
Website: https://jcsocialmarketing.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliacampbell77
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliacampbell
Facebook: https://www.fb.com/jcsocialmarketing
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 and through the stories we will share here. We hope that it sparks something in you and how you 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. So I'm really excited today we have Julia Julia Campbell, she's the founder of J. Campbell social marketing. I've been following Julia for years. It's one of those individuals in your professional life that you just see everywhere and we've never had the opportunity to really meet until recently. And so I'm excited that she came on onto the podcast to share her story. So welcome, Julia.
Hi. Thanks so much, Lori for having me.
Well, it's a pleasure to have you so why don't you tell us more about what you do.
So, you want me to tell my story, my journey of how I got here and then talk about what I do because it's so really, it's not one of those linear trajectories. I have always been very interested in philanthropy and giving back actually I started with sort of civic action. I worked in high school on the Clinton Gore campaign. I was about 14 years old. I couldn't even vote yet. So I was I've always been interested in advocacy and social justice issues. And that translated into college when I worked at a nonprofit called Teen Voices it was a program for Teen Girls to give them a voice in media. And we created a magazine and we created several multimedia things on the internet. And then after college, I was in the Peace Corps. So I enrolled in the US Peace Corps which is not a nonprofit but we worked with a lot of NGOs and international nonprofits on a multitude of projects. And I lived in Senegal for two and a half years. And what I discovered there really were the principles that I teach today about listening and understanding your community and not sort of coming in and thinking you have all the answers when you definitely don't. So we spent about a year just listening, just living in the culture living in the community before we could even choose a project and that's why I think the Peace Corps is incredibly special. And unlike a lot of other kind of volunteering programs out there, they don't come with a prescribed like you have to build a well or you have to build a school. It's more like take a year. Listen, learn, talk to people figure out what the needs are. And then create a project around that. And then when I came home that was when I started my real nonprofit journey of grant writing, marketing, everything from you know, event planning to annual giving to major gifts to you know, cleaning the coffeemaker and picking up a major donor at the airport. I think, you know, we've all been there, the wearing many, many hats kind of thing. And I worked in nonprofit as a development director, marketing director for years before going off on my own about 12 years ago. And started my own business. And then right now I help nonprofits navigate the digital landscape so I help them increase their confidence and clarity around what they're doing on these digital tools. So websites, social media, and email and also really help them streamline their marketing message. Because I think, you know, I know because I've worked in nonprofits, a lot of us are accidental fundraisers, accidental marketers, we have a passion we have a knowledge of the cause of the issue. We come in as a Program Officer or volunteer and then all of a sudden, we're the Director of Development and we don't really know how we got there. And we need to develop all of these skills kind of on the fly. So with speaking and training and courses, and books, I try to teach the small nonprofit, really how to navigate the digital landscape and get the most out of it.
So so want to talk about that just for a moment so and understand your motivation and your focus on that particular group because I in a way I aligned with that because I also love to share my knowledge and expertise and experience for nonprofits. Is the ones that don't have legacy programs to help them build. So rather than going to the larger ones and sort of fixing the problems, which I do as well. So can you talk a little bit more about why you focused on that particular area?
It was more that I just got questions about it all the time. So back in the day when I was a lot younger when Facebook started to really get some traction, Twitter was on the scene, LinkedIn, YouTube. What happened was I would work at a nonprofit or in a nonprofit and get a lot of questions about digital and social media and I really built the digital program at my last two jobs before I went off on my own from scratch because I saw the potential and I saw that it was being used really as just sort of a billboard and it was it was almost like nonprofits are trying to fit this like old mold of marketing and fundraising into this new realm of technology and not changing what they're doing at all. They're just trying to like force like a you know, a round peg into a square hole. So for me I really thought that there was so much opportunity to teach what I knew, which really was just how to use the platforms and then I knew how to do marketing. I knew a lot about writing. I studied journalism, so I'd always had an eye and an ear for the hook. And the angle, how to tell a great story. And then I just became really interested in social media for me. Things have changed quite a bit in the landscape and how I feel about the platforms to be honest, but when I started it was perfect for me. I'm a huge oversharer I thought wow, what a great way for me to be one to many to reach the masses to to have an update about something I'm doing and be able to reach all of my college friends, my family that spread all across the world. So I saw the potential for myself. Personally. And then I really started seeing how causes and social justice groups were using it and I thought the small nonprofit, they do not have the knowledge and the tools and the capacity. And if I can go in in any way, or provide trainings or write books or help them give them guidance, even just in a small way, I think that's going to help not only make the internet a better place, but also help them reach more people with their message and do it in a more effective way. So it really was sort of a trajectory, you know, when I started my business, I did grant writing, I thought what can I get people to pay me for right now. And you know what can pay the bills and it was great writing, and then it just sort of morphed into everyone talking to me asking me Oh, have you heard of this Facebook thing? Do you have an email newsletter? Like have you heard of constant contact? Have you heard of a website? Do you have a blog? People just started to ask me these questions. And I found that there was just a real gap that I could fill. I want to get back into the tools you mentioned some or maybe absolutely some are changing where where are they headed now?
Well, I just see, I feel like the layout, there's only constant is that it's changing. It's always constantly changing. And whereas I used to teach specifically about the individual tools. Now I prefer to teach more about the philosophy of digital marketing and how to build a community rather than how to you know increase your Facebook fans or your Instagram followers. Because what we've seen, especially in the last few years, is that any of these platforms can just pull the rug out from under us at any moment change the algorithm change what works. I've had clients that have run ads for years, and all of a sudden there was a change to Facebook's ad policy around social justice as or social cause ads and their ads got blacklisted and they can't run ads anymore. So I think the biggest piece of advice I have for nonprofits is that we have to really understand and almost like be a little cynical when it comes to social media. We have to know that these are brands, these are multibillion dollar businesses, and they answer to their shareholders and they don't answer to us. People ask me all the time. Well, you know, why don't they do more? For nonprofits? Why don't they do more for social causes? And to be honest, they really do like Google YouTube for nonprofits, LinkedIn for nonprofits. Those platforms do a lot. But it's not in their best interest. They are business they are, you know, their multibillion dollar business, and they're free to use. So we have to do our best to leverage these tools, but also try to build our communities where we can nurture them, which is our donor file, or donor database, our email list, places where we can control the conversation a little bit more than we can on social media. I also see you know, I think the trend is now becoming very much less transactional and very much more about entertainment being provocative being relevant being urgent we see you know, the Tick Tock suffocation of video, where videos if you're over 10 seconds, a lot of the times you are not gonna get noticed. So, love it or hate it. We just have to embrace the fact that our audience, they're using these tools, and we need to be there. But we cannot put all of our eggs in the social media basket by any means.
Right? And I'm sure when you work with your nonprofits, your clients, you're determining where their people live, because not everyone lives you know, is on tick tock if you have some ages of 70 and up you know soon. So it's knowing where your donors live to focus on that not have to be
everywhere. Right. We live in a multi channel world and the development director of today. I think it's a lot more challenging than the Development Director of 30 years ago, because we are dealing with five distinct generations. We're dealing with boomers and matures that have just you know, very, very distinct behaviors and preferences and then Gen Z, all the way down to Gen Z and even younger than Gen Z, which I'm not sure what the new gen alpha, I don't know, I've heard a bunch of different terms for the next generation. But there are we have to be cognizant of all of these different generations. We can't just focus on one of them. And we have to use all the channels at our disposal you know, digital and offline and the direct mail and legacy gifts which I think are so important. And things like monthly gifts but also major gifts, but also we just really have to meet our donors where they are and not where we kind of want them to be and not expect that all of them are going to participate in the same way. Because the different generations have different preferences and different behaviors. Yeah, absolutely.
That ties into when you work in the Peace Corps to go and listen to the community before thinking what they need. So understanding when you're working with a nonprofit understand what their donors want and what what communication channels that they align with. And also just the branding and how people take in content, whether it's video, audio or written words printed digital, there's just so many different ways. So it does make it a lot more difficult for the nonprofits today on how to reach everyone and how to optimize
all their creations. And if you're a small shop, you have to prioritize. You can't be everywhere. It's just not possible. You have to you know, I don't believe in going What is it and you know, an inch deep and a mile wide. I think you should really go deeper into fewer channels rather than spreading yourself way too thin. But I also know that you know the work of a fundraiser the work of a marketing person is really to understand where their audience is, but also where their future audience is and constantly be cultivating donors but acquiring new donors and and nurturing those donors and having that that donor journey whether it's digital or not, but research and listening is a huge piece of it, I think. I mean, my main focus in 2022 is to get nonprofits to be more proactive and less reactive. If you can spend any time creating a plan or just thinking strategically about the channels you're using. focusing much more on your message and the story you're telling and your narrative, then you know trying to figure out how to make a catchy Instagram reel. You know your message is so important your case statement, your reason for existing your narrative and your story. Those are all so much more important than whatever shiny new tool is going to come up or you know, there'll be a new one in five minutes.
Yeah, yeah. And the story is, is everything the narratives everything when I work with clients on their legacy messaging we have used or they have used their legacy messaging inside their annual campaigns and a raise more money because what we do with trying to connect the donor with the reason why they're giving the engagement the connection is the same things along to give annually as well but it was very transactional. So I think creating that story and that proper message for their donors to understand and put themselves in that place, rather than thinking that someone else is giving I think is everything for nonprofit. How do you when you're when you're say a one person shop, or maybe just a one person development team that has also marketing, you know, as part of the job description, what where do they start, like, What's the best thing for them to do?
Well, first, you got to advocate for more help. And this is something that I get on my soapbox very often about there is absolutely no way to be a full time development director and a full time marketing director at once. There's just not No way. So something has to give. So take into account the programmatic goals and the organizational goals of the organization. And think through where your skills kind of your skill set and your tasks and your time best fit. So if you need to raise $100 million by the end of the year, then that's going to involve a lot of phone calls, a lot of meetings, a lot of direct mail, a lot of emails, that's probably going to involve talking to board members is going to involve a lot more than posting on Facebook, right. So but if your programmatic goal is raising awareness or creating thought leadership or trying to change hearts and minds in the community around people experiencing homelessness, something like that, then that's a marketing goal. Then you have to think about how you can use your marketing tactics and techniques and what channels you can use. So it should always be tied back to your goals. And I always say there's a season for everything. Maybe it's the season in the summer is where you can spend more time on marketing and you can spend more time creating content that you can then schedule out for the rest of the year. Or you can spend more time thinking about the stories that you want to collect and craft and then year end you might want to focus much more on your fundraising message. Maybe January you're thanking donors. So if you look at the month of the year and if each month has kind of a theme, and a goal is going to make it much more easy, much easier to focus your time drives me crazy that we do not value fundraising and we do not value marketing in the sector. And we think oh somebody you know, we just lump everything that's not programs onto someone's plate. And we really need to do a better job having open and, like open and honest discussions about what's possible. So you might say, you know, I'm running an event this month. I just don't have time to make videos you know? Or I just don't have time to do the email newsletter and be open and honest and say, If I'm running this event, then something else has to come off my plate, because it's just I don't, I've been in that position. And I just don't think it's possible to do two full time jobs at once and to do them well. So just keep track of your time. Make sure everything you're doing aligns with your goals, and just advocate for yourself and don't be afraid to say I have too much on my plate right now.
Yeah, I agree. Their legacy, especially well, I work so much with legacy, but legacy also tends to fall at the bottom because people think that it's too forgiving, even
though because it's not an immediate return on investment. It's like it's long term thinking,
right? But it can be now because there's so many non cash assets and gifts that can make the make currently Oh, lays that and marketing. I feel like it always gets pushed down the line because they're raising money now. And that's really, unfortunately, it's a mindset issue. And I think that
I feel proactive and reactive. I mean Yeah,
exactly. Exactly. So so this is what we're talking about what you're doing professionally. I want to get back to your philanthropy or your social impact that you want to do. Clearly you started in high school. So how how did that come about? Was it just something that was did you learn from others, your family members with did anyone join you in this journey? What's so funny about this question is that I was hanging out with my brother, my younger brother the other night, and we were watching the Beastie Boys documentary and I distinctly remember, when the Beastie Boys the band came out as feminists, and it was so exciting to me and I had never heard a pop culture band, like, especially men proclaim themselves as feminists. And my brother asked me he said, When did you know you are a feminist? When did you know you are a social justice like advocate and I thought, I don't know. I don't know the moment that had happened. I just know that I have always just really had this strong feeling of using I didn't know the word at the time, but using my privilege, and everything I had grown up with, and everything I've been given to fight for people that don't have the same privilege. So it's just very interesting. I can't pinpoint the moment, but I I've just always been a volunteer. I've served on boards. I'm actually on the school board here. So volunteering on the school board, raising money for the PTO. And to me, I just like the idea of spreading the word about causes that I care about and I know that I am I'm not shy about that and I can take the backlash and I know a lot of people shy away from sticking up for what they believe in because they know there's going to be backlash or because they don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to create conflict and that's completely fine. I just know that for me. I've always been outspoken. I've always been able to express myself and not really worry about what other people are thinking about it. So I wanted to use that ability of just that confidence, and be able to advocate for the things that I care about. But I remember in sixth grade starting a recycling program at my school. I think my parents think I'm crazy. I was a vegetarian for a while. Um, yeah, I don't know. There wasn't like one inciting incident. It's just been it's just been a journey my whole life. I've just always loved nonprofits and now of course, I give a lot to charity. I'm a monthly donor. That's the way I like to give. And, you know, my husband and I, we we think about our philanthropic priorities every year, and I tried to give back my time and my treasure and you know, what is it time treasure talent? I tried to do all three of those things and really use my expertise in fundraising to give back to the school and to give back to you know, a lot of the places I volunteer.
That's great. So that leads right into our last question. Yes. Wanting to know what you consider your legacy to be.
I think my legacy is going to be one of connection. I love to connect people to each other and connect people to opportunities. I love to I mean, when I say connection, if you call me and say I'm looking for a job or I'm just starting out in this work or I need some help, or you know, I will connect you with someone that can help you I will connect you with a resource. I will connect you with a book I will connect you with an organization that you can work for. I just I want my legacy to be one of oh, you know, I think Julia really cares a lot about her community wants to make the world a better place cares about her kids have two kids and wants to help others if they're interested in doing this kind of work. Do it in a way that is genuine and authentic to them.
Wonderful. I love that and a lot of fantastic questions. It really got me thinking honestly.
That's great. I think it's as we build our legacies, it's really important of it really it's it's baked into the work that we do and a lot of people don't think about it that really self aware that really you know, we're so busy helping others we don't think about what why we're doing what we're doing. So, so thank you for that. So, Julia, why don't you share where people can find out more information about you? And you know, you're gonna get some connection requests from individuals now. Sure.
Well, if you like podcasts, I have my own podcast, nonprofit nation. So just wherever you're listening to this podcast, search for nonprofit nation, you'll find it also releases on Wednesdays and my blog, a lot of my free resources are on my website, JC social marketing.com
Great, and so we're gonna post all the links in the show notes. Everyone has it handy. I want to thank you Julia, for joining us and sharing your wisdom and these tips that you've shared for nonprofits and also your legacy. So give chorus and so thank you, everyone for joining us. We hope we provide some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. See you next time.