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Today's episode is sponsored by our friends over at QGive. The folks at QGive work with thousands of nonprofit fundraisers to help them with their online fundraising campaigns and events. So friends, if a fundraising event is on your horizon, QGive has built a playbook just for you. QGive is offering our We Are For Good listeners a free, on-demand webinar full of tried-and-true tips to help you improve your on-site event experience. You'll learn how to create a mission-focused environment to achieve fundraising success. And do We Are For Good dot com backslash QGive for access to this free webinar. That's We Are For Good dot com backslash QGIV. Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. And this is the We Are For Good podcast. Non-profits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more, and be more for the causes that improve our world. We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact to help rise. So welcome to the Good Community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers, and rabbit fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world. So let's get started. Becky, oh my gosh, we're already having like so much fun. We're dancing. We are already taking this Giving Tuesday conversation to the next level. We did not come to the We Are For Good podcast on elevating Giving Tuesday for a basic conversation. And man, do we have a guest for you today? It is my great honor to introduce Celeste Flores. She is the director of Giving Tuesday's US and Canada Hub. Hello. And today we're going to be talking about building a Giving Tuesday campaign that's really fueled by your believers because we believe the most powerful movements build from within. And today Celeste is going to help us dive into how we're going to do that from the inside. But first, I want to give you just a little bit of background. She is that director of US and Canada Hub. And right in that space, she manages and collaborates with local leaders. They're talking about growth strategies. They're talking about partnerships and mobilization of Giving Tuesday and communities just across those two countries. But this also includes managing the support system and this learning community that has over 300 leaders who are growing generosity movements for their respective and diverse geographic communities, causes and cultures. So it's not like Giving Tuesday just takes the data and just synthesizes it. I mean, this is qualitative. This is quantitative. We're talking about what's working and Celeste is bringing us the goods. And she knows her stuff because she used to be one of us, y'all. She's held leadership positions that I live here. I give here in Austin. She's been at the foundation for the Carolinas, University of Virginia's, Darden School of Business. She's been at Texas Children's Hospital and the United Way in Houston among many others. Celeste, you're a ball of energy. You have so much wisdom to give. Get in our house. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. Looking great. Thanks for the invitation. I appreciate it. We're delighted that you're here. And we like to get to know our guests personally and on a human level before we ever dive into the content. You would just like to get to know little Celeste Flores. Like where did she grow up? How did she fall into this work and be driven by impact? Being really inspired and it was actually after a major U.S. tragedy and I'll get to that in a minute. But where Celeste, little Celeste Flores is from is Texas. I live in the DC area and I kind of feel like that the lady from the Titanic, like it's been 80 years. I've been doing this work. I can smell the freshness. Yes. Exactly. I kind of have done it a lot of different things and it started about 20 years ago being in the impact space, the giving space, the fundraising space. And I've had every single role around the table too. But how I really got into this work is I started out of college as a tech consultant with Accenture. So there is little Celeste, after college, coding and, you know, doing all that coding stuff. And then 9-11 happened. And I was living in Houston at the time and I went down to my local Red Cross. I'm not a trained volunteer. I have no idea how I could be helpful here, but I know spreadsheets, I know databases. I can hook up your printer. So everybody's got something to help. And yeah, and so they were like, go up to the development office. We need your help up there. And I know what the development office was and then learned the great world that is social impact and the range that your career could have in this space. And I went up those stairs and then I didn't look back and I just stayed in the space since then. It helped them with their spreadsheets because I'm sure every Red Cross in every city had the same experience. People just wanting to help. Obviously, we weren't in New York, but we knew that volunteers from all over the country were going to be, you know, sent up there to support. And they were inundated with fundraisers and people wanting to make donations. And they had like three people who worked in the development department. They used to be a big city and it was a big Red Cross. So they embraced me with open arms and said, we need your help. We have all these people who are calling. We can't keep up with the flow. And we want to make sure that people who are going to support this know, there's money is going to New York and what it could support, what they could do, how they could volunteer. And so I did everything from spreadsheets to manning phones and doing whatever I needed to do, but that moment of being an asset for good is just why I didn't look back. I mean, Celeste, you have to have one of my favorite founding stories of getting into nonprofit work. I'm so glad you went upstairs that day. And I feel like you found your people, you know, and now you get to serve people that are just heart-wired and drawn to this work through your work and giving Tuesday. So catch us up. I mean, you're kind of setting context for this week about giving Tuesday. Does this really cool history? I mean, it's happened in our lifetime, this movement, right in front of us, would you take us back and kind of connect the dots of this movement coming to be and share a little bit of the backstory? Yeah, it's really an interesting backstory. And it's within our lifetime, right? 11 years ago, Oshaker and Henry Kims, who were at the 92nd Y in New York City, decided that there should be a day around giving, you know, it started as a hashtag. And it was, let's do this thing called giving Tuesday. We have Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Let's just reclaim Tuesday. People need to start giving back after a couple of days of consumerism. This is what the season is about. And calling people that they knew, organizations they knew, let's try and create this day. It certainly looks very different 11 years later than the creators imagined, obviously. And now it is best board, all this awesome stuff happened. And 11 years later, it's a year-round movement. There's actually an organization. We are an individual organization. But more importantly, we have 90 countries celebrating giving Tuesday in a way that is meaningful to those local cultures and generosity habits, instilling new habits around philanthropy. And we have a data commons that is one of, if not the only one that has the level of relationships with platforms and researchers and leaders in the sector to really understand where the sector is, where it should be going, or not where it should be going, where things are headed and how do we help use all this information that we possibly have to help the sector. So yes, 11 years ago, started the 92nd-wide, but fast forward, I have colleagues all over the world. It is still a small team, but we believe in the local leader. And that's how this movement has grown. We have leaders in those 90 countries, leading an effort that has taken this unbranded movement and making it work for them. And it was intended that way that it was not going to be like there's this list of roles of how you do giving Tuesday. No. By the way, no way. You take it and people have done so many creative things with the logo and created campaigns that are meaningful and resilient and relevant for those organizations and those communities. And it's all about the leader community. So we don't have a big staff because it's the distributive leaders in areas that know what's best for them. Celeste does not know how a campaign should be created in East Africa. So my colleague in East Africa with other leaders in East Africa can. So it's grown into this global movement, but it really has then defined itself through values that we exhibit every day and so do our leaders around co-creation and co-ownership. Because it was unbranded, people took it and did what they wanted with it and some really creative amazing things and then sharing it with others. And there was almost this open source movement. And because of that, this is how the movement continues to grow. And we certainly come from a place of abundance and we were saying abundance and co-creation and collaboration before it is now the only thing and everything that everybody says. And I'm not saying we made that up, never we did. I don't know. You were doing it before it was cool. We did it. It was cool. And then put a name to it. We were doing that already, but I think it just shows how something was able to exponentially grow because the set of values that were kind of created organically. And so yeah, so it's changed a whole whole lot, but at the core, it is about givers and giving the people a day to express their generosity in any way that is relevant to them and really redefining who's a receiver of generosity, who's a giver of generosity. It really was a day meant to just do good. Do something good on this day. It's looked very different now and nonprofits use it in a very different way. But it really was a day to take something that you have and we all have something. We all have a resource that we can give to someone else, to an organization, to a community. And our movement has this vision that if the world operates from a place of generosity, that is how systems change. That is how we create a world in which we want to live. That's the kind of world I want to live in. And I think those inception stories are so important because we said at the top of the conversation, we're going to talk about how do you power a movement that's built from within. And it's like, that is your inception story. I mean, I'm picturing the Y in the middle of New York. And it was just this tiny, but mighty idea. And I think the great beauty to me of Giving Tuesday is how open it is for interpretation and how it embraces creativity. And because I'm glad you don't have a framework. Because the framework doesn't fit for everybody. It doesn't fit across cultures and across causes. And so it's really been a joy to watch the evolution of that. And I want to dive just a little bit more deeply into the power behind Giving Tuesday in terms of how you partner. And we talk about this in terms of like locking arms for impact. And we want to know, like, give us a deeper dive into what actually powers Giving Tuesday. What makes this movement move grow and get mightier and mightier, year by year? That is a really good question. And a pandemic really helped, unfortunately. I think it really brought to light that we are all different. But the one thing we have in common is that we are all human. And we have our shared humanity. And we have to take care of one another. And that is the only way we are going to survive in this world. And so when we talk about locking arms for impact, that is the point of a shared giving moment is that your money, with someone else's money, with someone else's money, or your item with someone else's item really does extend the impact that you can provide to a community. So yes, it's evolved. It's powered in many different ways. I would say the first source of power is those leaders creating something that works for their community. But then it's using that giving moment effectively and having immediate calls to action. And it's time bound, at least for the day. We are year-round movement. We are working with leaders to extend generosity year-round. There is 52 Tuesdays, y'all, in the year. There's not just one day. That's going to be three on leap year if it hits right. Yes, you're right, John. You're right. So you've got to be extra on that year, extra. But it's this notion that, and we want to get to the point where you wake up on Tuesdays. And you think just about tacos. You think about what am I going to do for my community? It's giving Tuesday. And then the day itself that's the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which by the way, means nothing in other countries. They just follow the day usually. And they're just like, why do we pick the day and why does it keep moving? Well, because our Thanksgiving keeps moving. And we want to treat the day more as like an anniversary. And that people are giving year-round, but this is an anniversary. And we're all giving together, immediate call to action. We hope people are making it easy for people to act and making it somewhat time bound. But leveraging the notion that everybody is doing something together and everyone's gifts are coming together. And so the other power is the shift of power. This structure, how most campaigns are structured in other countries is about giving agency to someone who may not have realized that they are truly a giver, and that they can be a giver on this day or within this movement. And so the power of people and people understanding their assets and being able to give, instead of just being considered the person who receives. And so these are things that power the movement. Again, with those values of co-ownership and co-creation, but it also comes to mindset of optimism and abundant approach. I have been in the business for a really long time, and I know that cash is king. And as a development director, you have that goal that you need to make, because otherwise, you're not going to be able to get the people off your wait list. Or you're not going to be able to make payroll. I get that. It's real, but we make really poor choices when we have a scarcity mindset. And we get really small, really fast. And so with this optimistic, and there's times when people are like, you're so polyanna about it. And I'm like, no, I honestly believe that the pie is bigger. It's not a finite amount of givers. And I'm just trying to get more givers on my side of the pie. The pie's bigger. There's lots of pies. There's a whole bunch of different pies that you need to discover. So it's really about people powering. It's about this shift of power. And everybody has something to give. And it's a mindset. So I think that those are the things that power this movement all over the world. But the biggest thing here, too, that this day is different is that you're honoring all the way somebody can give to your organization. And we can talk more about that when you're planning your campaign. Because we know the dollars are down. Number of donors are down last year. And it really comes down to diversifying who is supporting your work. And being in it for the long game, I know that that is hard in making decisions when you're like, I need this funds. But if we're constantly asking people to support your organization in a way that is only meaningful to you and not them, it's not going to work, at least in this next generation of givers. It's a race for fun. As Seth Godin says, yeah. I mean, Celeste, you are preaching our values back to us. We want you to stay in this whole world for work. Just like vibing on so many levels. I just think when you talk about like there's more pie, you know, there's the pie can get bigger. I'm like, it's generosity in America in terms of dollars is like 2% of GTP. We're saying that there's no more than 2% that people could give. I mean, there's so much opportunity. And I think having that mindset, the abundance is how the storyline comes through with these coalitions. And I want to talk about the coalition campaigns that come together. To me, that's abundance when you can lock arms with leaders around geography or cause or issue or identity. What is the sunlock through these coalition campaigns that you see? Our friends at Feather have built the nonprofit marketing platform trusted by over 1,500 nonprofits from the International Justice Mission and Shakespeare Theater to the American Epilepsy Society. From email marketing and digital advertising to Facebook ads and your Google Ad Grant, you can run and report all your marketing in one place. But it doesn't stop there. Every week they unpack what impactful nonprofit marketing looks like on their podcast, Good Marketing Unplugged. It's the podcast we turn to for the playbooks that meet the moment and help move your mission into a greater community of believers. So listen and subscribe to Good Marketing Unplugged now on your favorite podcast player. Follow the link in this episode's description. And I'm going to lock a lot of different things. But I also have to say that this is a learning environment. People, our leaders are constantly trying something and they learn something from it, didn't work, and then you iterate and you keep trying something else. But these collaborative campaigns that we're seeing the growth of at least in the last few years is, like you said, organizations under similar cause coming together, Locky Garns, creating a campaign that is really about mission over brand. And it's not saying that people, like, well, if I join this coalition, I'm one of 50 organizations doing this. But there's something about the garnering the attention of people when you're talking about the bigger issue. But for the organizations, a lot of these campaigns are built almost like a plug and play. So you can have a campaign that is about the cause of domestic violence. And you can have the calls to action. You can have the Canva templates. But and then the organizations who have zero staff in rural America trying to provide domestic violence organization services can be like, all right, I'm going to take this campaign and put my logo on. I'm going to say what my call to action is. And I'm using these hashtags. Everybody else is using these hashtags. And that is the mechanics of how these are created. But more importantly, it's opening up a campaign that many people can see themselves in it. And I'll give you an example. We have the Native Ways Federation last year created a campaign, Hashtag Give Native. And it is a coalition of indigenous leg nonprofits that is formed by the people. And did the idea of giving to you is didn't share giving moments is even new to new concept to a lot of these organizations. But anyway, they created Hashtag Give Native. They had examples of several calls to action of ways that people can engage. And then everybody used their audience and their platform to talk about Give Native. And so the organizations that participated still had this overarching Give Native. They were getting the attention of other people because Native Ways had a page that said, you want to give Native here 50 organizations that might be in your backyard that are working with indigenous led people. And if I was indigenous, I'm going to tell my story of generosity and Hashtag Give Native. If I'm a business supporting an indigenous population, I'm going to tell our story and why we give Native. So it's creating a campaign that everyone can find themselves in it. And that's really a lot of our identity-based. So that was an example of a culture. But there's identity-based campaigns. And there's campaigns that are based on a religion. We have I give Catholic. It's a huge campaign. So it's giving people the donor of space in a place to tell their story, the nonprofits to be able to take that campaign and leverage it and use the assets to promote what their call to action is. But it's being part of a bigger conversation. And a lot of these coalitions aren't just using it on Giving Tuesday. They might use it during another time of year. So the Native ways actually does another campaign on indigenous people's day. But they've already primed the pump with a Giving Tuesday effort. They're working with these organizations year round to build their capacity. And they're helping these organizations leverage a shared giving moment and raise the voice of their stories. It is such a beautiful way to approach this work. And to me, it also lends itself to be evergreen. If you do that, it's not a one and done sort of campaign because I want to follow that hashtag. I want to be a part of something bigger. And to me, it puts a lot of onus on the nonprofits to storytell, like, what are you doing to this cause? Rise up. And I just think the creative and open sourceness of the interpretation is so great. But it also gets so noisy on that day. And I'm here to tell you all, if you are launching Giving Tuesday on Giving Tuesday, you're doing it wrong. And PS, I used to be that person. So I'm calling myself out. But it's also like, we got to warm up to what we're going to talk about on Giving Tuesday. There are people that our community needs to meet. There's a vision, a bigger vision that we want them to be a part of. And so I want you to talk about how to rise above the noise, Celeste, like, what is your advice on how to build community, increase that engagement across these audiences, and really stand out on a day that is really, really noisy. We'd love your take on this. It isn't noisy, but it's good noise, right? So yeah, it is. So just part of my background. I feel like I'm a grandmother of what is Giving Days. I've been doing Giving Days for a really long time, y'all. And Giving Tuesday is a little different. It has the day, but we have a bigger movement. But when I was working at a living area here in Austin, there was a Giving Day in the spring called Amplify Austin. Then we became the community leader for the Giving Tuesday campaign in the Austin area for Giving Tuesday. And we were about leveraging these Giving Moments. And so I heard all of this just within Austin, right? Working with 700 nonprofits, and they were all launching Amplify Austin campaigns and trying to get match money. I would get nonprofits, too, and individuals saying, oh, here comes Amplify, I'm going to get so hundreds of appeals, so what? You know what? How many times do you get bombarded with old Navy ads? Yeah, or Amazon telling you you need something. This is Celeste Floor is talking. This is not Celeste Floor as part of Giving Tuesday, but because I've just been doing this for a really long time. And I have heard it all, but I hear you. I hear you. It's the noise, right? So how do you break through this noise? Look, the idea that you're going to break through the noise and everybody in the US is going to know about your organization. Obviously, it's like not possible, right? And then you want Giving Tuesday to do all these things for you. And that's like boiling the ocean. You've got to get real specific, and you've got to leverage your people. That is how you are successful in the day. So let me get a little more tactical. To me, it is sticking with these core values of the movement. And I'm not saying you do this for just Giving Tuesday. You should be doing this for all the things that you do, right? This all should be hanging together. But it starts with that mindset, that abundance mindset. I know that that is annoying to constantly hear. But, and it takes practice. I know. Reach, reach. But, exactly, but it, and it takes practice. I'm not, you know, you can't turn that on overnight. I get that. But when we start thinking in a mind of abundance, it starts guiding our decisions and maybe better decisions. So starting with that mindset, but use the day with intent and a goal, a specific goal for that day. That will drive your strategies, right? So people are like, oh, it's Giving Tuesday. I'm going to, everybody else is putting out social media posts and the money's just going to come in. No, that's not possible. And just like you said, Becky, a little bit earlier, of like, you can also do it on the day of. It has to be well thought out. A lot of organizations just added on at the end of the year because they're like, everybody's doing it. I might as well do something for Giving Tuesday. No, use this day with intention. How does it hang with all of your other strategies year round? Once you've decided what that goal is, then think about what is success for that goal? What does cutting through the noise mean for that goal? Not your whole organization, but for that goal and what you want to accomplish. And that will drive your tactics. So is it new donors? Is it general awareness? Is it an items drive? Is it a volunteer drive for 2024? You pledge 24 hours that you're going to donate to the organization in 2024. I thank you event. There's so many ways to use this day to prime the pump for your next strategy, to kick off your next strategy, to do something different with a group of people you normally don't engage with year round on Giving Tuesday. And that was with intention. So it really goes back to, yes, it's a big day, it's a big movement. I don't even like talking about like, but I'll mention it, $3.2 billion was donated last Giving Tuesday. Casual. But, and that was just the US alone. It's a big number. You're like, what does that mean, even mean, right? I'm talking about individual organizations. Don't boil the ocean. Giving Tuesday has to be used with intention. Don't think that you just showing up on the day you're going to be ready to go. And all the money's going to come in with that one social post. It isn't that. So once you've decided what your goal is and who you're going to focus in on and what does success mean? What is cutting through the noise mean? When you arrive on the other side of the noise, what did you accomplish? What does success look like for you? And then remember the intention of the day. So I said at the beginning, this is called Giving Tuesday, it was a day for people to do good and give something. Not fundraising Tuesday. You don't have to fundraise. So you honoring all the ways that someone can support your organization and they are able to exercise generosity in a way that is meaningful to them. That is when you increase engagement. That is when you increase motivation and inspiration. And so I think it's important for us to think about, yes, giving Tuesday's position towards the end of the year, I need them to give me dollars. The social side is if you're not able to give people all the ways that they could possibly give. Because you have to remember that it's not just about you, but it's about them. And so when I was doing this Giving Day in Austin, people were like, oh, you're just hitting the nonprofits against each other. This is competition. And I'm like, nonprofits are the end goal, but my value in us bringing this day is about the donor community. It's really easy for them to find new organizations, all on one website, have an immediate call to action, something that's engaging. And that is why we're building this thing. Non-profits, we are totally doing this so that you get the support you need, but you have to think about what the donor wants to do. And if you just keep wanting them to do the one thing that you want them to do, that is just really short-sighted. So honoring maybe other ways that people can give, building relationships and cultivation, build those cultivation plans before the day even starts. What are you doing with those people after Giving Tuesday? Or during Giving Tuesday? Are your board members calling people and thanking them? And I say this because it's like, oh, no brainer. Anyone who's been doing fundraising for any amount of time, knows you have to cultivate. But this is the one area that I feel like nonprofits do not so well with and forget to do well. Or not thinking about what's your relationship with this person? So they gave me $25 new donor on Giving Tuesday. What are my next steps with them? I might not ask them for another gift and invite them to come to an event or invite them to come volunteer. So when you're building the campaign, you have your goal, you have your tactics, honoring all the ways to give, making sure that you're going to create a relationship and move people from a transaction transformation. People complain about Giving Tuesday just being a transaction. Well, what are you doing with them? They're not an ATM, you're right. You need to be doing some. It's about relationships. And then being creative with your messaging, Woodrow, we were talking about Woodrow as Bob, who is our chief data officer. He always says, there is no such thing as donor fatigue. And when I first started on the team, I was like, you can't tell nonprofits that of course there's donor fatigue. It's an actual term that is used and thrown around. He's like, no, there is no donor fatigue. He's like, what people are tired of doing? They're not tired of being asked to get. They're tired of being uninspired. And the quality of the messaging and the lack of engagement is what? Fatigue donors. It's more about how you're asking them to give. What is your story and what is your level of engagement? And take it personal, how would you want to be engaged? There's the process that we all learn in fundraising 101 of what you're supposed to do with the donors and all the pyramids and stuff like that. That's important to plan. But think about like, okay, how would I want to be engaged? How would I want to be talked to? Somebody next to me is a Gen Zer. I'm asking them like, how would you want to be engaged? So it's keeping it human and remember that it's all about humans and being creative. And those are kind of like the top things I tell an organization when they ask, how do I cut the noise? When you come up with a new term, because it's good noise. You put on your coach hat there. I feel like where you laid out is so good. There's the clarity of goal, clarity of intention. Being intentional, like all the steps that you outlined there is like literally a roadmap. So I hope nobody missed that. Put that on repeat. So I'm just curious as you get to work with hundreds of organizations who's doing this well. I mean, what's a partnership or maybe a campaign or somebody that's like cut through the noise? Yeah, and the ones that come to our attention. I mean, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of organizations that do giving Tuesday out there. One thing before I answer your question. If you want to feel good, after giving Tuesday, look up the hashtag giving Tuesday and see all the stories that show up on your social from giving Tuesday. I used to do that with Amplify Austin too. You're just like in the craziness of the day. And but you blew sight of what the bigger picture was. And all the good that happened in the world on that day. There's 11 years worth of that hashtag. So you go knock yourself out for sure. But yeah, so when we're setting up all of these things or we're saying all of these things, these are things that we observe. But I'll give you a couple of examples of things that were different that people decided to do and use and leverage the day. No matter who you are, whether you're an individual listening to this and you're like you're in a small community and you just want to do something cool for your community, you can do that. Go to our website. There's many ways to do that. If you are an organization that you are trying to determine how you use the day, if you use the day. And sometimes it's just doesn't work for people. But honor that day at least with a thank you. There are a lot of organizations that actually partner and partner well with other organizations as we were talking about that are similar causes. I'm gonna give you an example in Maine. There's an organization called Full Plates, Full Potential. They were encouraging their community to support fellow organizations that are also work to end hunger. So they were promoting, they were using their channels, they were using their voice to promote the other organizations that come together in Maine to try and end hunger. And so that is like mission over brand. The awareness of what hunger look like in Maine and all the other organizations. That's hard for a lot of organizations so you're like I need that money. I don't need to be promoting somebody else, but we all have a place in this. And so if there is some sort of partnership and organization that you have never, that you thought of that is kind of doing something similar, do something together. They're people and your people doing something together. There was another two organizations they were in. I forgot the place now. I'm gonna think about it. It's gonna come to me. There were two community gardens and they were seen in the community as competing community gardens, right? They decided they were two nonprofit organizations. Each of them had a group of volunteers. They did work at one garden in the morning. They had a joint meal and then they had afternoon of work that needed to happen in the other garden. And that experience for the donor. Think about that. I mean, the organization, it paid dividends and you have to think about these things in the long game, right? But that is incredibly inventive. And evolved and mature and they were now able to, and they had never done anything together before. But now they were able to show the differences between their community gardens, who they're serving might be different. But their volunteers of each organization were exposed to the other community garden. It's there's enough to go around. And then lastly, I'll talk about Marley's Muts. It's a dog rescue that brings together animals in need of a home and they decided to go out to other partner organizations. At first they went to brought dogs to people who were impacted by the prison system. So they had it a little gathering, another organization. They surprised the food pantry with pet food and supplies that they had collected and treats. So it's giving to other organizations. I guess it's the thread here, but it doesn't have to be just another organization. I think others who think about how they can partner with another group in their community. And a lot of people say, I don't have time for giving Tuesday. We'll share the work. It doesn't have to, it has to be other ambassadors talking about your mission. I guess that's what I did miss when we were talking about effective campaigns. You can't be the only one talking about your organization in list ambassadors. They could be peer-to-peer fundraisers, but they don't have to be peer-to-peer fundraisers, but it could be people talking about your mission. And don't just copy and paste log the Canva template, they send you and the message they send you. You can't do that. Algorithms will never pick it up. Explain to people they need to share their personal message, but having other people talk about it is also a way to cut through the noise. Okay, that's a brilliant tip right there. And I don't want anyone to miss it because what you're talking about in all these examples, Celeste is abundance, which is what you talked about as a real hallmark of how this movement even started. And if we look at it through the lens of my organization and what I'm going to get and the money I need in this program, it's a really myopic view of what is really, I would say the tip of the iceberg, when you can get underneath and start bringing in partners, I'm sorry, I'm just still dreaming about the geraniums going into the little shared garden space and then having a meal and it's just a dream. A meal from the garden. And it makes it such a bigger conversation. And if you can even equip those people who are in the garden as ambassadors, to say, take a picture, post about this, you're giving your time by being here. But I just really appreciate you lifting these mighty movements, these mining nonprofits who are really reimagining Giving Tuesday and making it more than a day because that's what it's about. And so we also celebrate story here. I've heard you mention it several times on the podcast as really a bedrock for what people should be flexing into Giving Tuesday. And we want to know a story like from your life, you've had such a storied career in nonprofit. That was my intention. I believe like nine lives you have. But I want to know about in all of these roles and all of these travels, what is a story of philanthropy that really sticks out to you that changed you as a human being? With the growing pressure to raise more funds for our missions each year, the role of technology to provide precision and personalization has quickly become a fundraising imperative. The rise of AI brings new promise to helping nonprofits achieve their short term fundraising goal and beyond. That the question is, at what cost? The time is now to define how to harness this moment of opportunity for good. We're so excited to invite you to the first fundraising.ai global summit on October 23rd and 24th. This summit is the largest gathering of nonprofit and social impact organizations to explore the role of responsible AI and fundraising. We're honored to be partnering with our friends over at fundraising.ai and are excited to lean in and learn right alongside you. You can find out more about the summit and register for free at fundraising.ai slash summit. That's fundraising.ai slash summit. Can't wait to see you there. I would have to say that started at the beginning. Why am I even in this field? It was things that weren't still to me at a young age. And so my story is personal of how of experiencing of giving and philanthropy that has led me to want to stay in this space of helping others. Like I truly believe if we all operate from generosity, the world would look so different. If we think of that, someone else's suffering is just as important as our own suffering, that changes the complexion of how we make decisions as a society and civil society. OK, I'll get off that soapbox. But why I do this? And also is that movement is probably when I realized that my love for philanthropy had literally occurred this moment of light bulb moment occurred maybe a couple of years ago. And I've been doing this for a long time was the modeling that my grandmother did around giving. And she was doing mutual aid before mutual aid was a thing or that mutual aid had a word. I mean, the idea of mutual aid and the work that happens around mutual aid and community organizing has been going on for thousands of years. But now we are talking about it. It has a term. There's lots of things being written about it. But it came from the people, right? My grandmother, we did not have a lot. Our family is not a resource to family. We do not have a trust fund coming down the pipe at any point in time. We are from San Antonio and my grandmother who is kind of a pillar in her church. Everybody knew Mary Louise, Mary Lou, and my daughter's named after her. She was constantly baking something, making something, going through a closet to find stuff. If somebody didn't have something, somehow she figured out how to get it to them. When somebody, we were constantly dropping off casseroles for somebody who had been in the hospital. She's wrapping gifts and getting them to the neighbor too so that because he lost a job and the kids need to have something to open on Christmas. The idea of taking a little of everything and sharing it with others so that others had what they needed, it's mind-blowing that she was doing that constantly. And I didn't honor that as a, I just thought that's who she is, right? But I didn't really honor that that instilled this idea that we always have something to give. My grandparents had six children. My grandfather worked for an electric company. Grandma had all of these businesses they were out of the home. They didn't have a lot of resources but what they had went to others. And I think that I just continued to practice that as an adult. So I saw her going to people's houses and doing whatever she did. And that was just part of the DNA. So I would say like my grandmother, if there was a, back then, a term for, she'd be like a mutual aid organizer, right? She had the closet, she had all the things. But I think it was an idea you always have something to give. Always. And so I guess when I talk about what moves me, it's that. So we always have something to give. The Mary Lou legacy. It is the Mary Lou legacy. And it's the very thing that you're perpetuating through your work at Giving Tuesday now. I mean, just the idea that this is for everybody. You know, we find a way to plug in. This is a day of generosity, of love, of care. So amazing. So I feel so boosted by this conversation. We got one more question for you. We end all of our conversations asking for a one good thing. This could be a quote that's resonated with you. We want you to mantra your feeling today or just something you want to leave with our community. What's your one good thing? We can get really bogged down with processes and what we should be doing and what is expected of us. And when we're talking about organizations and talking about what we talked about today, it's really easy to get very tunnel vision on what you have to accomplish in a day. But if you look outside of all of that, remember that you are building bridges and you are providing connection and community. And then that is your legacy. But remembering that, because you can get down a road and you can have a particularly tough role, year, whatever it is, and you get disheartened and it's hard. But just point yourself out of it sometimes and really look at what you have done. But I do think philanthropy and generosity and giving is what will change our civic society. What will bridge this division that we have that you are providing a connection or connections for people and building that sense of belonging? And so just remember that's what you're doing. It is not, I'm Celeste Flores. I live fundraising director and I raise a million dollars for kids in the foster care system. That's so important. But you're doing something bigger than that and just remember that. She's asking, challenging us to ask the bigger question. And that hits very well here. Celeste, thank you so much for dropping your wisdom, getting us amped up. I feel like this is going to be a new level of energy that we can all gain going into Giving Tuesday season. So people are going to want to connect with you. Tell us where you hang out. Tell us where people can connect with you in Giving Tuesday. And if Giving Tuesday has any resources, tips, studies, anything, send us to there too. Because we want to link them up in our show notes for resources. You can find me on the website. So I would ask everybody just to go to the website if you're looking for those resources. And we have resources for everyone. We talk a lot about nonprofits and organizations using needing resources to build the best campaign. But if you are a person and individual family, a mom, somebody who wants to do something for your community, we have those resources. You can do something big, do something small. We have lots of ideas, lots of toolkits that will skyge you in how to do this. So for organizations, we have nonprofit toolkits and all sorts of resources on the website. To get a hold of me, you'll also find me on there. Everybody at Giving Tuesday is really easy to find. Because it's our first name at Giving Tuesday. There's not a lot of us. And then LinkedIn. I think we'll probably be another space in place. I mean, if you're in the DC area, we can hang. But we have a lot of listeners in DC. Coach Celeste, my heart is full. I am so amped up for Giving Tuesday. I feel so honored that you spent this time with us today. So good to. Well, I had so much fun with you guys. Thanks for the invitation. Thanks for what you do. Thanks for the stories that you bring and the wisdom that you bring. And we have to all be in this together. Our sector is, it's got a road ahead of it, but we're so needed. And we're evolving together. That's it. And we're evolving together. And remember, we're in it together. We're in it together. Thanks so much for being here, friends. 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468. Strategies for a Successful Giving Tuesday Campaign - Celeste Flores