Episode #028: How Nonprofits Can Use Podcasts to Build Community with Anthony Wilson
Welcome to the Volunteer Nation Podcast, bringing you practical tips and big ideas on how to build, grow, and scale volunteer talent. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson. And if you rely on volunteers to fuel your charity, cause, membership, or movement, I made this podcast just for you.
Tobi: Well, welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast! I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and today I have an awesome treat. Anthony Wilson from Groupfinity Podcast is with us, and we are going to talk about how to use podcasting to build an audience, to nurture an audience, to build a following, to strengthen your nonprofit.
There are a lot of ways to do it. There’s different ideas we’re going to share. So I’m really hoping folks will take up the mantle, a few of you, and try podcasting out. It really isn’t, once you figure it out, it isn’t as hard as it looks.
So, Anthony hosts the Groupfinity Podcast, where he helps leaders of small volunteer membership organizations level up in four key areas: leadership, mindset, marketing, and cash flow. The podcast’s mission is to help organizations that struggle to collect enough membership dues and fees to fund their programs.
To get off the membership dues hamster wheel, in other words, by finding alternative revenue streams and become financially independent. So Anthony started the Groupfinity Podcast. I know Anthony because I appeared on his podcast. I will link to episode 45 in the show notes, “Some Things to Consider Before You Onboard Your Next Volunteers.”
But I know from Anthony that he’s served, part of the reason the impetus for starting his podcast was he had served on the boards of small organizations for the past 20 years, including three right now. He’s like a super volunteer.
So school boards, PTAs, little leagues, youth sport, alumni club, community organization. Um, he was the treasurer of one of these organizations for 10 years. And he saw the struggles firsthand and still sees the struggles firsthand, I think, of what these smaller organizations and associations that are often entirely volunteer-driven, what they’re struggling with.
So Groupfinity is all about helping those types of organizations. So, Anthony, welcome to Volunteer Nation.
Anthony: Oh, thank you Tobi! So happy to be here.
Tobi: So did I get that right? Is there anything I missed?
Anthony: No, you got it all right! That’s it. That was a mouthful!
Tobi: Well, I wanted to…you know, truth be told folks, when you’re doing a podcast, tip number one: you ask your guests to send you a little information, a little background information. So Anthony sent in a little bit of that.
But I know when we were talking before we started, when you were interviewing me for your podcast, we talked a little bit about why we believe in volunteerism, how we want to help people who are working to engage communities.
I’m really thrilled to have you on the show to talk about nonprofits and how they can use podcasts to build community. So you and I are podcasters. How long have you been running Groupfinity?
Anthony: Oh, let’s see. It’s been about since 2018, I think. I think I start in December of 2018.
Tobi: So, you’re old school. You’ve been doing it for a while.
Anthony: Yeah. And I just kind of stumbled across it. And first of all, Tobi, I just want to say thank you so much for having me today.
I mean, it’s true honor to be on your show and be able to talk to your listeners. I was so appreciative of you coming on my show. And we had such a great time on that, so happy to turn the tables here. This is great.
Tobi: Give and take. That’s what a lot of podcaster folk do as well. So just so y’all know, that’s kind of a thing that podcasters do. But, you know, using podcasts to build community, it’s really not something we hear a lot about.
We don’t hear about nonprofits saying, “You know what, we’re going to use a podcast.” I’m not sure causes and charities, whether large or small, a 100% volunteer driven or largely staff driven, I’m not sure they know much about the power of podcasting to reach new audiences and build followings.
But I think it’s a tactic that is ripe for the picking. I mean, you know, people don’t really want to read blog posts and newsletters anymore. They’d rather listen to great content on their way to and from work.
So I’m excited to dive in. Before we kick things off, tell our audience a little bit more about yourself and the work you do.
Anthony: Yeah, just again, thanks for having me, Tobi. This is really exciting. And as you said, I host the Groupfinity podcast and I help folks level up in, you know, those four key areas, leadership, mindset, marketing, and cash flow.
And you know, I’ve been a part of this, I’ve lived this for 20+ years and found that there weren’t a lot of really good solutions for the small guy. If you sort of google solutions for nonprofits, the results you get are related to large nonprofits like the Red Cross or the YMCA
And those organizations are great; I spent a lot of time in the YMCA in my youth. But those solutions are scaled to organizations that have large paid staffs. And I wanted to create a space where the little guys, the weekend warriors, could sort of find small, digestible solutions that are appropriately scaled for their operations.
And so, a lot of these organizations are different in two key ways. One, everyone’s a volunteer. And then two, so many of these organizations are funded through annual membership dues or fees.
And that’s a key difference, right? Like we don’t have super large donors, or at least most of us don’t have super large donors. Or, we might have some kind of annual event, but it’s not on the same scale as a large organization.
And so, I found in my organizations and also in people that I spoke to really struggle with this concept of collecting some kind of annual membership due or fee. Let’s say you have a hundred people in your population you can collect these fees from.
Well, you might collect from 30 people this year, and then next year you might collect from 30 or 35 people next year, and it might be different people, but you kind of end up with the same monetary result.
That’s super frustrating, right? And so my passion is really in helping these leaders uncover alternative revenue streams so they can get off this membership dues hamster wheel and develop predictable and repeatable revenue streams so they have enough funds to fund their programs.
Tobi: So why does this topic, why does this hit so close to home for you? Because it’s pretty niche, right? It is a niche of a niche of a niche. It’s a small niche, but it’s a real need. I mean a real need. So what’s the story behind the scenes that makes this so important to you?
Anthony: Thanks for asking that question. So, I have lived this my whole life. My background is accounting and finance. And so whenever I’m on parties organization, I am the treasurer or the finance person, right?
I’ve served two tours on the local PTA for my kids K-5 school. And then after that they went to a Catholic middle school, and I served on the board there. I just rolled off as the finance chair of that school.
I’m on the board of my local little league. I’m on the board of a family camp for African American families that’s been going on 60+ years. I’ve served on the board of a club for my alumni association for my university and other civic and local groups, and they all have this same issue.
And even like a PTR/PTA doesn’t necessarily collect membership dues or fees, but you’re constantly on parents to do things and donate and run programs, run the walk. We have the walkathon coming up next week for my kids. My youngest kid’s in seventh grade, and we have the walkathon.
So it’s all the same stuff. And when I came across podcasting, I thought that, hey, you know, this is a way. If you could run a podcast that monetizes itself, this could be sort of a fun way to engage your community and make some money and ditch those membership dues. So that’s my mission, Tobi. That’s my mission.
Tobi: Okay, well we’re going to dive into that because people are probably wondering, monetize? Are you kidding me? So we’ll talk about a little bit more about all the different ways we might use podcasting and how you might monetize it.
What made you take the leap? I mean, this was four years ago. Podcasting was not as big of a thing as it is now. I started Volunteer Nation this year. I started Time and Talent three years ago, and even then, it wasn’t the biggest thing going.
You know, people are still blogging a lot, but now podcasting really has ramped up. But this was in 2018 when you started. What made you take the leap and really give it a try?
Anthony: Yeah, so I was really frustrated with the resources that were out there. And I didn’t even really know much about podcasting. And in 2018, I started to listen to a handful of podcasts. And the first two that I listened to were the “Smart Passive Income Podcast” by Pat Flynn.
Tobi: Yep, I’ve listened to that. I still do.
Anthony: Yeah, it’s a great podcast. Very, very popular podcast. And “The Side Hustle Nation Podcast” by Nick Loper. And so not, and you know, like this was new to me. I didn’t really know where these people were, what their background was, other than what you can glean from the website or what they said on their podcast.
And so, Nick Loper lives kind of my same area, and all of a sudden one day I get an email from him saying, “Hey, I’m going to do a meet-up in in this area. Would you like to come?” I’m like, Oh, that’s weird. Like I’m listening to your podcast. Now you’re inviting me to a meet-up?
Tobi: Like, creepy. How do you know where I am?
Anthony: And so I’m like, Yeah, well sure, cool. Why, why not? And so, I go and I meet him and I meet other listeners of his podcast who are in my area. Everyone had a different niche, had a different story, but everyone was committed to having some kind of podcast or YouTube channel or online business in their niche, and I thought the power of community to me was there.
People coming together around this common cause. And then I came across Pat Flynn’s podcast course, and, and I’m like, I just love learning. I will sign up for courses, I will buy courses. Right? And it wasn’t, you know, terribly expensive. And I signed up for that and took that, and it was really good course, I recommend it to anyone that’s interested in it.
And that was more than enough to start a podcast. But then, kind of midway through, I got email from him the same way as I got the one from Nick. Like, “Hey, I know you signed for my course, you’re taking my course. But if you’re struggling and you just need a little bit of a push, I’m going to host a small group here in San Diego for anyone that’s interested in coming, and we’ll sit down and go through the material at a fast pace to really get you going.”
And I’m like, Yeah, that sounds great! So I signed up and I did that, and went for three days. It was only like 10 or 12 of us with Pat Flynn. And after that I was like, Oh, I can do this. I could totally do this.
Tobi: Yes. Yes. And I’m saying yes, because I too took Pat Flynn’s Power Podcasting course. And we will link to that in the show notes. We’re not affiliates of Pat Flynn’s or anything, but I recommend his course as well. It’s very, he boils it down to just what you need. It’s not everything, a hundred percent of everything. It’s just what you need to get started.
Anthony: Correct. And it’s very straightforward. He does a great job teaching it.
Tobi: Yeah, so it’s great. I didn’t get the VIP experience though. But, I did finally join and it’s interesting, I think I took the podcast course, I think I signed up for it for like two years ago, or three years ago. It was a while ago.
And then it took me a while. I sat on it for a while. and I too thought I can do this. And you know, I asked a friend even before I started learning how to podcast, I asked a colleague of mine, Jennifer Bennett at VolunteerMatch, and I said, You know, look, I’ve got an idea for a podcast and I’d like to invite you to co-host it with me, where we interview leaders of volunteers.
And we did it. We did a “name the podcast” contest and the winner was Time + Talent podcast. So we’ve been running that. We do it seasonally. 10 episodes a year. This year we’re just about to release season four, and we did season three earlier this year just because we couldn’t get to it last year during the pandemic.
But we created a podcast that’s, you know, doable. 10 episodes a year. Now Groupfinity is once a week, is that correct?
Anthony: Every other week.
Tobi: Every other week, okay. And I do Volunteer Nation, this podcast, every week. So here’s another tip to our listeners around podcasting. You can choose whatever format, whether it’s seasonal, whether it’s a one-off. Like we’re doing 20 episodes or 10 episodes or a regular every week or a regular every other week, there’s a lot, you know…let creativity be your guide.
Anthony: So, absolutely. And when I started it, I said, there’s no way I can do a show every week. So I’m like, I’m going to do this every other week. And in my research stage, I came across John Lee Dumas, “Entrepreneurs on Fire” which is every day. And I’m like, there’s no way I could do that. No way.
Tobi: Well, that’s all he does. That guy is insane! You know, big-time people, lots of people do every other week. Joan Gary’s “Nonprofits Are Messy” podcast is every other week. So there’s lots of people who do every other week. And it totally gets you traction.
Anthony: Yeah. But what I am going to do, I’m going to steal from John Lee Dumas, and next year I’m going to, for one month I’m going to do daily episodes.
Tobi: Wow. That sounds great. I’m going to do a few, and this is the first I’ve said anything on air, so I’ll just share it now. I’m going to do a few bonus episodes in November and just sneak ’em in there during the week.
So, this is the great thing about podcasting. It really is that you can do whatever you, however you think it’s going to work.
Anthony: Yeah. You’re spot on with that. And I tell people that, because I get from a lot of guests that ask me, “Hey, I’ve always wanted do a podcast. How does it work? Is it hard?” And I totally do one-off calls with them and advise them as best I can.
And what I love about this is that it is totally like the wild, wild west. Like there aren’t a ton of rules. And just because someone does it one way doesn’t mean you have to do it that way. You could pick and choose from your favorite podcast, and that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Tobi: I don’t think many nonprofits have thought about, maybe they’re super large ones, but smaller nonprofits really haven’t thought about starting a podcast. What do you think are some good reasons to do so? To better help them meet their missions? What do you think they’re missing out on or are not realizing about podcasting?
Anthony: Yeah, that’s a great question, Tobi. I’m glad you asked that. I think that there are really three key reasons why a nonprofit, particularly a small nonprofit, should consider starting a podcast.
And so, one is exposure, right? A podcast is a great way to produce evergreen content on your organization that is available for people to consume at their own pace. Walking the dog, driving to work, driving to pick up their kids, lounging on the couch. You know, you can’t really do that with an article, right? You can’t read an article while you’re driving. At least I don’t!
Tobi: Me neither!
Anthony: Number two is connections, right? You can make connections with potential partners, volunteers, or funders. I mean, that’s how we connected, right?
Tobi: That’s right!
Anthony: So that’s right. You know, it’s a great way to connect with new people. Most people love talking about themselves, right? And so a great way to start a connection is, “Hey, I’ve been following you”, or “I’ve looked at your stuff. Would you like to be on my podcast?”
Tobi: And you invite a lot of people. I know you are constantly, It’s amazing.
Anthony: Yeah, and the third is what we started this whole conversation about, which is funding. And funding is coming about it with a slightly different angle, right? The first two really revolve around your organization itself, right?
Exposure for your organization and making connections for your nonprofit, but the funding angle is a little bit different. And I really came up with this when I attended a podcast conference. And two of the bigger ones are Podcast Fest and Podcast Movement.
And I met some folks at PodFest right before the pandemic, and they were doing what’s called geo-podcast, which is basically a podcast on your hometown. And I thought, well, that’s pretty interesting, right?
And I thought that could work well for my hometown, but you know, I didn’t really have the time or bandwidth to do it. But then later I thought about it and I said, Hey, this would work great for my groups, right? Everybody is an expert on their hometown, what’s going on.
Who are the fabulous businesses? Who are the fabulous people? Who are the fabulous nonprofits? And so I really had this idea for nonprofits, small nonprofits, membership-based organizations, to use this as a way to ditch this annual problem of begging for membership dues and fees.
Start a podcast on something that we’re all experts on, our local home. So Tobi, I did a test case, or actually I am doing a test case on my hometown. So I live in Oakland, California, and I started a podcast, a second podcast called “The Town Roots Podcast,” which I host with a friend of mine.
And it was important, and this isn’t true for everybody, but for me is important to find a partner who was also an experienced podcaster. So my friend’s a real estate agent, and he was already doing a podcast and he was already doing a YouTube channel, and it works for us because we can sort of split the responsibilities, right?
But we interview local businesses and community leaders, and we started to reach out to folks in April/May 2020 timeframe, right? When we were all getting hit with the Covid shutdown. And let me tell you, Tobi, nobody said no to an interview. Everybody I reached out was like, everybody said, “Yeah, I want some of that.”
And so it’s been a ton of fun and I’ve met a ton of people, made new friends, found a bunch of local businesses I otherwise would not have known about. And so it’s been a great experience. And so, you know, I thought this would be great. Well, I think this would be great for any organization. And so, this is my test pilot to monetize it and then I hope to teach this to other folks.
Tobi: So how are you monetizing? Are you going to monetize through sponsorships, through Patreon? And maybe we should explain what those things are.
Anthony: Yep. So Patreon is a way for people just to say, “Hey, I like your work, and I’ll go online and donate,” and I think it’s patreon.com or patreon.org.
Tobi: I’m not sure, but we’ll link to it in the show notes. And Patreon, you can get extra stuff. It’s sort of like the GoFundMe of podcasting. Like people can pay a patreon on your whole podcast, I believe, or people can get little extra nuggets.
I think that’s the way it works. And people do patreons. It’s like $9 a month, or $5, They’re not huge amounts usually people are looking for.
Anthony: Yeah. And so, to answer your question, my ideas for sponsorship. Some are a little out of the box, but let me tell you the first we’re working on right now. So we’re going to do an event, virtual event coming up here soon. And I got this idea from a guy I just met at a podcast event this summer. And I don’t know, this is our first, so I don’t know if we’re going to charge or how much we’re going to charge.
But basically the idea is to have an event where people either pay for the event or maybe there’s some kind of VIP thing that people pay for. And you do that quarterly. So you know, maybe the first one’s free, maybe the next one’s 10 bucks and the next one’s 20 bucks, and so on and so forth. But that is one way to monetize.
Tobi: So are you promoting the event via the podcast and then you charge? The monetization comes from the event ticket?
Anthony: Yes. That is one way. So I’ll just let you peek behind the curtain. I’ll tell you exactly what we’re thinking. What we’re thinking about doing is taking our past guests and having them come on. And talk about being a local business, and actually the format will probably be like a TED Talk.
So we will pre-record them talking about their business and about being a local business. So in fact, they are teaching other local businesses. You know, kind of what their experiences are, maybe some pitfalls or some advice. And so, our target audience will be other local businesses.
So we’re going to target to folks in the local Chamber of Commerce. We have strong ethnic chambers of commerce here in Oakland. So there’s African American Chamber of Commerce, a Chinese, Hispanic, there’s a woman’s Chamber of Commerce, you know, market to those folks. And then organizations like SCORE which help small businesses.
And so the idea is, these folks will be able to walk away with real, tangible, small business tidbits. And so they would likely be willing to pay maybe $19.99 to be a part of this. And I’m saying this for the first time and I haven’t even asked him yet, but I’m going to share with you Tobi here today, because I have a pretty good relationship with these folks and I think that they’ll say yes. So my fingers are crossed.
One of our early guests, this is for the Town Roots podcast, ended up being on Shark Tank. And so, they recently sent out an article talking about their experience of being on Shark Tank, and so we want to bring them on to talk about that. So all these other local businesses will be able to hear about how they got on track and actually they got funded by Mark Cuban.
Tobi: Fantastic. Yeah. So I could see that like a nonprofit saying, “All right. I’m going to build a community.” So you’re using podcasts to build the community that’s interested in hearing from you, right? They’re interested in your content, and so when you have an event, they’re going to be more likely to want to be part of that event as well, because you’ve already shared content of value to them.
I could see nonprofits taking this and saying, “Okay, we’re going to be the leader in our community, and we’re going to do this with nonprofit organizations.” Having Ted Talk style or a conference style where nonprofits are sharing with one another. I could see a lot of ways to build community.
We didn’t really talk about sponsorships, but you know, once your podcast gets up and going and you get, you know, maybe 200 downloads or so, you can start going around and looking for sponsors for people to pay to appear. You know, either at the beginning of a podcast with a little short advertisement.
Basically for folks who don’t know podcasting, there’s different ways to monetize this. It really starts with a conversation. If you have a community of people who are, you’ve built through your podcast that are listening, that are the exact community that that sponsor wants as a customer, then it’s not too hard to say like, “Hey, well why don’t you think about becoming a sponsor on our podcast?”
I mean, when we started Volunteer Nation – right now we don’t take sponsorships, but I had people reaching out to me before the podcast even started. And I was like, “Okay, well I’ll let you know when I’m accepting sponsorships.” I’m not doing it right now because I want to see where I’m headed with this first. But that’s a fantastic way to link, to use a podcast to build community.
To have a group of people who really trust you and like your content, and then to say, “Hey, you know, we’ve got this thing that’s paid. We’d love to have you come.” And you’re really being entrepreneurial in your fundraising as a nonprofit. I mean, certainly if you have people following your nonprofit podcast and you have your fun run or your gala, or your silent auction, whatever it is, your podcast is also a great place to promote that as well.
Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s really the way to draw people in, right? And you said it earlier, providing value, right? And the more value you can provide, the more people will come, the more they will share with other people. And you can grow your email list, grow your community, and then when you have something to offer to where you want people to pay, those are the people that you go to.
Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. So in order to build community with your podcast, I think you’ve got to really share good stories. You know, I think it’s about storytelling. Would you agree, first of all, and if so, why do you think storytelling is so important to us?
And I kind of think right now it’s really important to us. But I want to have your take on what, what you think about storytelling and how, whether or not it’s related to podcasts.
Anthony: Oh, absolutely it is. That’s a great question. I mean, we all love a good story. That’s why we love movies and a great book. And so, a podcast really allows the guest to tell their story in their own words. But what’s different than a blog post is that you get to sense the energy of that guest. And that’s what I think makes the podcast format phenomenal. You get to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
And so in my podcast, when I interview guests, I like to give the listener a peek behind the curtain. Tell me something that I wouldn’t ordinarily know, right? If I went to your website and saw, you know, if I just read your website, okay, I would get that. But tell me something beyond that.
And so that’s one of the questions that I ask. For my Town Roots podcast, I had this company, they call themselves an urban olive oil company, right? I mean, like I live in the middle of all the olive oil companies here in the Central Valley of California, or they’re in Napa, but they start this olive oil company in the middle of the city.
And I asked them like, How did you do that? Like, you know, “Oh, we got the little three-acre olive ranch. And that was kind of the start of it.” And they told that whole story and you could just feel the energy of them telling that story, right? And so it’s not really about you buying their olive oil or it wasn’t about the quantity or the difference.
It was a story about how the company got started. And no matter who you’re interviewing is a nonprofit, or if it’s a business or an individual, whatever it is, everyone loves to tell their story. I just think storytelling is powerful.
Tobi: Yeah. If I say “once upon a time,” feel your emotions when I say that. “Once upon a time,” you automatically relax because you’re thinking about when you were a kid, whether you were reading the book yourself, or a parent or a caretaker or whoever, brothers, sibling, sister, whatever, aunt, uncle, whoever. We’re reading stories to you or you are reading them yourself, you know that it’s like quiet time.
It’s relaxed time. . . And so, you know, I love storytelling for that, also. It’s a way we share our identity with one another and reinforce it in our family. You know, my grandmother had 10 kids, 20-some grandkids, 20-some great-grandkids, and 12 great-great grandkids. I can’t keep track of the numbers , but there are stories about my grandmother that we tell.
You know, she lived to 101. So had a lot of ripe old stories. And she passed probably 10 years ago, or 15 years ago now. And we still, when we get together as a family, we will tell stories. And these stories reinforce values that we have, whether they’re independence or giving to the community or whatever.
So I think in today’s world that storytelling is a way to connect with other people as well, outside of your family unit, to say, “Look, I’m like you. And maybe you didn’t think I was like you, but I actually am. We actually do share something.” And you know, we live in a divided world right now, and I think stories can help bring us together, if they’re used in the right way.
What kinds of stories, if a nonprofit were to start a podcast, what do you think would be the most compelling kinds of stories? Because I’m sure our listeners are going, “Oh, great. Maybe I could monetize and fundraise through podcasting. That’s great. But what type of stories would I tell in my podcast?”
Anthony: Yeah, I think it’s really unique to each nonprofit, right? The most important thing is you have to be authentic. You gotta be authentic. You have to find your voice and then find out what your tribe is interested, right? And you ask them, and that’ll be different from podcasts that’s helping youth sports versus one that’s helping homelessness versus one that’s helping, you know, moms exiting abusive relationships, or anyone exiting abusive relationships.
I think you have to talk to your people, to your tribe and find out what their concerns and what their challenges are. There’s a great book, Ryan Levesque “Ask” “Ask” is the name of the book. And he starts everything with “What’s your biggest challenge right now?” And I think that’s what you ask your people. What’s your challenge? And that’s what you talk about.
Tobi: Yeah. And you know, what’s your biggest dream? I’m thinking, just to make it a little concrete, let’s say you had a animal welfare organization. You could do stories on the birth of your organization. The birth story. Why did it happen? You could do a day in the life story of someone who’s doing cat cuddling or dog walking. You could do an educational podcast speaking with a trainer or a vet about common issues they see in animals that are under their care.
You could talk to people who’ve made donations and why it matters to them. You could talk to volunteers. You could be on the street, so to speak, at adoption events, interviewing people who just adopted, or 90 days later, Coming to their home and interviewing and asking them about their kitty cat or their puppy.
There are so many stories in every nonprofit. People think they don’t have things to share, and I’m like, “What, are you kidding me?” And anybody who loves animals and loves your cause is going to want to hear about it. You know, I think it’s much more powerful than a newsletter.
Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. And you’re in my head, Tobi, because my one year puppy, 110 pound puppy, is upset that he can’t come in here right now.
Tobi: What kind of puppy did you get?
Anthony: Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Tobi: Oh, huge! He’s 110 pounds, and he’s a year. Oh my goodness.
Anthony: And so he’s unhappy that he’s locked out of the studio right now.
Tobi: Sooner or later I’ll probably see my little rescue kitty’s paw coming under the door over here. And I’ll hear her because she’s, we’ve had her for about seven years. We always get the kitties that need us.. The universe sends us always the kitties that need extra help, extra medicine, extra care.
They just end up, We don’t even know when we get them, but then all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh, they need to have this medicine every day.” We’re like, “Yes, of course the universe sent them to our house.” It’s great.
So, let’s take a break real quick and then after the break we’ll get into some of the practical, tactical things that you need to know about podcasting. And I’ll ask Anthony to share some of his best tips, one podcast to another. So we’ll be right back after the break with more on how causes and charities might use podcasts to build community with Anthony Wilson, So don’t go anywhere.
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Okay, we’re back with our discussion with Anthony Wilson about how to use podcasts to build community and get more specific about it right now. Let’s just kick it off.
What are the ways organizations might use podcasts to build community in addition to storytelling? Before the break, we start talking about ideas for storytelling. What are some other ways you’re thinking people could build community?
Anthony: Through our podcasts, you could create online community. Virtual community that comes together around this common cause. And I interviewed a gentleman by the name of Shane Sams. His episode number 34, I believe, on my podcast.
Tobi: I’ll link to it.
Anthony: And he created this, what’s called “The Flipped Lifestyle” podcast and community, and he teaches people how to kind like we were talking about before, you know? What is it that you’re an expert in that you can build a tribe around and get people together around this shared cause and teach them something.
And he has a great story and actually I found him from the Pat Flynn podcast. He was, I don’t know if he still is, but at one point he was one of Pat Flynn’s most downloaded episodes. And I met him at a podcast conference and he was telling the story. He was a speaker telling the story and I’m like, Oh my God, I’ve heard this before. Where have I heard this?
And I realized who he was and went up and talked to him and he was like, Yeah, I’d love to come on your show. And so his whole thing is teaching people how to build membership communities where people pay, you know, like 5, 10, 20, whatever.
How whatever it is that you think you can charge to get people to come in and be a part of this community, Share ideas, teach them new things. And for an organization like a nonprofit organization, that could be part of your revenue model, right?
You have absolutely people coming in, paying this. You’re basically serving up content that will help their organization, and your potential is limitless, right? It could be whatever’s important to you.
Tobi: Right. You know, I was thinking when you’re sharing that…we’re interviewing on Time + Talent a woman. I’ll have to link to it in the show notes later because I don’t think it’s published yet. It won’t be published yet. But she does a women’s empowerment series for women who’ve had support from the state in some way for childcare, for food insecurity, for whatever, leaving and leaving abusive relationships, et cetera. And they, instead of just doing case management, they decided that women needed to really learn skills and empower themselves.
So they started doing this multi-week, and they moved the program from inside a county organization, a county agency to a private nonprofit. So they moved it out because they wanted to do more creative things. And they ran it a few times and people kept saying, No, we need it longer. So now I think it’s something like 12 weeks long.
So I’m thinking about this now. The funding for the participant comes through grant money, but I’m also thinking you could build a community around a podcast. You could also offer something like a course like this, and you could include people from the community as well as people, participants in the program.
Or you could ask people from the community to sponsor people in the program. So that’s another creative way to bring in revenue to cover the cost of the program. O with the example of animal welfare, for example, you could do a very inexpensive paid community where you’re just teaching people about pet care, right?
Because animal welfare people all have their own pets. You know, I don’t think there’s anybody, Well, there might be, but most of the time they have their own pets. They’re either taking, you know, they’re either adopting pets they come into contact with when they’re volunteering, or they just happen to love pets and they have, so you could do a podcast on animal welfare for your cause.
But you could also say, By the way, if you’re interested in this topic, we have this online course or this online community where pet lovers get together. We share hot tips, we give instruction. So I can see how it’s not directly asking people to pay for the podcast, but you’re inviting them to be part of the greater community that’s built by the podcast.
Anthony: Yeah, and I say to that, Tobi, all of the above. All of the above. And the great thing about communities, you could do it on separate levels, right? Like you could have a free community. And that involves a certain level of access. Then on top of that, you could layer a paid community for a fee that you have determined is appropriate for your community. Because for the animal welfare community, the price might be different then it will be for the people who want to learn about online trading.
Tobi: I don’t know if there’s a lot of nonprofit with that as third audience, but you never know!
Anthony: Well, I’m just talking just in general. General or financial literacy. You could do a financial literacy if your organization is involved with helping people overcome poverty. You could put together a financial literacy program. And then there could be sort of another layer where, you know, people might pay a little bit extra for more access, like where there’s a live Q&A with the speaker.
So you just sort of create, you know, I think that way too often we limit too many things in our minds. And we get into other people’s pockets, right? I would say this is the main thing I consistently get from my guests who come on my Groupfinity podcast and we talk about fundraising, is you cannot get in your donor’s pockets.
You have to let them give what they want to give. Don’t tell them to give $5, Maybe they’ll give $500. Right? Or you’re assuming that this person doesn’t have enough money to give to you. Don’t assume that, and don’t limit yourself to what you could do with this community or with this podcast.
Tobi: Yeah. Levels of access is a really smart idea. We, I should mention and you will hear my promotions. Folks listen to this podcast that we have a paid community. We have our VolunteerPro Membership Community and we do build an audience and we promote that community on this podcast. So if you’re wondering how it’s done, gang, this is how it’s done.
And I love how you’ve been talking about it, Anthony. All the different ways you can put the pieces together, gain what it’s really about is using the technology of the time to engage people in new ways, you know, as volunteers, as donors. As donors and volunteers, because most are both, and to really build a stronger understanding of your nonprofit and what it’s trying to get done.
And you know, when you hear human stories, people just feel more emotionally connected to you. And so when they, if they listen to your podcast on a regular basis, when it comes time to, let’s just say, giving Tuesday, who are they going to give to? They’re going to give to your nonprofit. Of course. Of course they are.
So, let’s switch gears a little bit and really get into it. We’re obviously not going to do a whole tutorial on how to do podcasting because there’s a little bit to it. But I imagine people might be thinking at this point, Oh no, this is way out of our reach. We can’t do this, we don’t have time, we don’t have the budget, et cetera, et cetera.
I can hear all of the “yeah, buts” coming in people’s minds. And you know, you can hear Anthony and I, we have been podcasting for a little while. But both of us started not knowing didly about how to podcast, nothing about it. Right? And so anybody can do this. It’s not impossible. How do you…talk about how you got started. What did you find easy about it? And what did you find more difficult about it when you started podcasting?
Anthony: Yeah, great question. You know, when I started I knew nothing about it, just like you said. And I said, Oh my God, that looks kind of hard. It sounds kind of hard, rather we’ll say, right? Like I’m listening to someone else’s podcast. I’m like, How did you get that thing in my ears?
And so, as I said before, I took Pat Flynn’s class, and then when I did the small 10-12 person group as part of that, he included basically a starter kit of equipment. Which was like $125. Tobi, I kid you not. And I’m still using it.
Tobi: Listen to that sound of his microphone! Isn’t it beautiful?
Anthony: And so it’s totally not expensive at all. You just need a computer. And a microphone and you know, a subscription to Zoom and maybe you don’t, if you keep your recording under 45 minutes, you don’t even need to buy a Zoom subscription.
And then you just have to learn kind of some of the systems, right? And so there are a handful of platforms out there that do editing. And so I have a Mac and so I use Garage Band. And guess what? When you have an Apple product, you could show up at the Apple store and ask for help.
Tobi: Yeah, and you know what? If you’re a volunteer-driven organization, you can put out on like Catchafire or one of these skills-based volunteering platforms and just say, or VolunteerMatch, and say, I’m looking for a volunteer. Sound engineer, right?
We pay a sound engineer. I did not jump on, I do have a Mac, and I record my solo episodes in Garage Band, but I don’t edit my own episodes. You don’t have to edit your own episodes. And if you’re a nonprofit, you can find volunteers to do it. There’s people who do editing for eBooks. Like audiobooks. There’s people who do editing for podcasts elsewhere and there are folks out there who would. It doesn’t take a lot of time once you’re really good at it, to edit a podcast.
Anthony: Correct. You’re absolutely right. And when I started, I wanted to do the editing at first because I wanted to know how it was done. And I also wanted to feel like I was never, ever dependent on someone else to do it, so if I were to crunch, I could do it myself.
But you’re absolutely right. Once I sort of got past that, I outsourced it to somebody else. But it’s not rocket science. It’s totally not rocket science.
Tobi: No. I had hired a person by the name of Alicia who was fantastic. She helped me get off the ground. She was my early sound engineer and helped me test my equipment, make sure it was really good. But you don’t have to do that. And the only other thing people might be wondering, you know, well, how do I get the podcast out on the different podcast app platforms? It’s actually really easy.
Anthony: It is, and this was actually a surprise to me and I learned how easy it was, right? It was, yeah. It was that you have your RSS feed and you post it to your host and then all the players just come and get it from there. And I saw them like really, like I thought I was going to have to post this on Spotify and Apple and Google and iHeartRadio. Now it’s basically one hub. You post it once and they all come and get it from there. I thought, Oh my God, this is fantastic.
Tobi: Yeah, we usee both Libsyn and BuzzSprout. We use both for our different podcasts. BuzzSprout is really easy and we’ll put some links in the show notes. BuzzSprout. You just, it’s just like set up your podcast and then you go through each of the things, you click on it and it tells you exactly what to do. Like, cut and paste your RSS feed here, or go to this website and do X, Y, Z. And do you remember the first time you saw your podcast on Apple?
Anthony: Yeah, I do. I remember when they sent me the email saying, “You’ve been approved.”
Tobi: I know I was. I remember I got in my husband’s car and I said, “Get your Apple Podcast up. We’re going to put something on.” And I put my podcast in. I’m like, “Look, honey, I’m in your car.” It was so crazy!
Gang. People are doing podcasts around the world. This is not impossible. It is a great way. I believe the ROI on podcasting is only going to go up. I mean, people are more and more either. You can’t even, you know, if I were to choose between YouTube and podcasting, for example, YouTube, people still have to sit in front of a screen to watch it.
Podcast, you can garden, listen to podcasts, you can go for a run, listen to podcast. You can go for, you can clean your house, you can drive to work. There’s just so much more opportunity and I feel like there’s a certain type of intimacy you develop with your audience through their ear holes. You know what I’m saying?
Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. And let me add one more thing to that, Tobi, which might, you might know this, but maybe might blow your listeners’ minds.
Tobi: Right. Okay. Lay it on me!
Anthony: “I want to get this right. Oh, I don’t want to do so many. “But there’s so many podcasts. Everyone’s podcasting.” Maybe, but maybe not. There was an article recently that there are 4.4 million podcasts on Spotify. And so most people read then and say, Oh my God, I’m, I’m, I’m not going to be 4.1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. Right? But if you peel back the onion, only 1.3 million or 32%, about a third, have more than 10 episodes. And if you dig even deeper, only 675,000 have more than 10 episodes and have produced one new one in the last year.
Tobi: There’s a lot of stuff just lazing about gathering dust on the internet.
Anthony: There is, but let’s go even deeper than that. Only 155,000 or 4% have more than 10 episodes and have produced the last one in the last week.
Tobi: Wow. Yes. I mean, you have to be consistent, right? But that’s all it takes. Learning once you have it set up. It’s not that hard once you have to set up, there is a, I would say the most frustrating thing for me when I was trying to start the podcast was figuring out how all the equipment hooked together.
And getting it, you know, I did get a little preamp, a little scarlet. I got a better, I upgraded my microphone this year, but I already had my laptop and just kind of figuring out how it all gets plugged in, how do I plug it and how do I plug my headphones in? All that. Once that’s set though, and you stumble through it a little bit.
And you know, if you take a podcasting course, we both like Pat Flynn’s podcasting course. We’re both, we both have active podcasts. So that just shows you that that podcasting course works. But once you get it set up, after that, you can relax a little and enjoy your conversations with your guests.
Anthony: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Tobi: What would you recommend to people who are interested in getting started with a podcast to build community and a following? What’s one thing you would recommend they not do or a mistake they should be looking out for? You might as well, we might as well give people a little bit of heads-up.
Anthony: Yeah. I would say, and this sort of goes back to one thing I said earlier, is being authentic, right? Do not be inauthentic. Be yourself. Don’t lie. Don’t make false promises. Be yourself. Becuase people can see that. People could see if you’re not being authentic or you’re trying to be somebody else or you’re, you know, you have this front.
So I would say definitely make sure that you’re authentic. Other thing I would say, and this is because I did this and you did this, I would say, you know, take a course and you don’t have to. You could stumble through it, certainly. But to me the course was a roadmap. One. And two, the course is like my resource, right? So if I get stuck on something, I can go back and find it in the course and get unstuck.
Tobi: Yeah, exactly. We’re a huge proponent of courses around here. We do our own Volunteer Management Fundamental Certificate Course. I’m just calling it out right now. Doors are open. People, I did not set this up, but seriously, we are a huge fan of it because, and you know with Pat Flynn’s podcasting course, with our Volunteer Management Fundamentals course you have lifetime access.
So you can go back over and over and over again and remind yourself and rewatch stuff. I mean, I go in there and download stuff from, he has, you know, downloads. So do we. It’s a fast track. You know, whether it’s our fundamentals course or his podcasting course, if you’re trying to get from here to there, an online course is the way to do it.
Anthony: You know, one thing he does that’s different from what some other folks do, which I absolutely loved, was he holds weekly office hours. So whenever you’re stuck, not only do you have to the course there available for you to go back and re-look at the lesson, but once a week you can log on and ask him questions.
Tobi: And he hammers through those questions. I’m getting all those calls. So awesome! Well, this has been fantastic, Anthony. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope that we have inspired at least one or two nonprofits out there to give it a go. This is a great, I know a lot of leaders of volunteers listen to us.
It’s a great way to share volunteer stories. You could actually have a volunteer team take this over and be co-hosts of and interview people in your nonprofit space and fellow volunteers. This doesn’t necessarily have to be done by one person. It can be done by a team. It can be done by volunteers. So you know, you can set it up that way as a community-run podcast as well.
As long as you have some specific sort of branding, you kind of keep it a little bit consistent. It can really work. So anything else you want to share about podcasting? Any other advice?
Anthony: Yeah, I think what I would leave your listeners with is advice I heard from an experienced podcaster once. I was at one of these conferences, and this was, you know, a big hitter and someone raised their hand and said, hey. And I don’t remember exactly what their question was, but effectively they were asking for advice on their course,
And the guy asked, “Well, how many episodes do you have?” And the person said, I mean, it was a number, let’s say kind of in the teens or low twenties or something like that. And he says, “Don’t talk to me till you have at least 50.” Because you will just learn so much just by doing it.
You just have to try stuff. And I say from my own experience, like the second 10 were better than the first 10. You know? 20 to 30 were better than the first 20. 30 to 40 were better than the first 30. Right?
Tobi: I think I’m at 25 or 20. I might be up to 30 by now, and I can feel the difference. I’m much more relaxed.
Anthony: Yes. Totally. More relaxed, more confident. And I’m about to hit 50. I just posted my 49th episode. So I’m just about to hit that magical number of 50, and I would say looking back, that is totally true. Just do it. It won’t be perfect.
You’ll stumble through it. Not every episode will be perfect. Not every guest will perfect you afterwards. “Oh, I meant to ask this and I didn’t ask that,” or “Yeah, I didn’t ask that in the way I want.” It’s okay. Just take a deep breath. You just gotta do it. I recently heard this quote and I just thought it was spot on and sort of appropriate for your question, and that is to be really good at anything, you just have to take chances.
You’re not going to learn by watching or listening to someone else’s podcast. You just have to do it.
Tobi: That’s true. Okay, we’re going to end right there because that is a great message. Anybody can start a podcast. You learn by doing. Just do it. Anthony, how can people learn more about you, your work, and how to get in touch with you if they’re interested in learning more?
Anthony: That’s great Tobi. Thanks so much for asking. They can go over to groupfinity.com and there you will get, as of this recording, 49 episodes. But maybe by the time you post, I’ll be over 50 and so all of our episodes are there. And we have resources for all of those episodes that people want to learn more about those guests and what they’re offering. I’m starting a blog soon, hopefully.
Tobi: You’re an entrepreneur on fire!
Anthony: I’m hoping that’ll be up and going here pretty soon. And if you want to reach out to me, we have a contact page on our website. You can sign up for the group. If you just click on join the Community, you could sign up and keep up to date with everything that’s going on with the Groupfinity podcast. Thanks so much for having me today.
Tobi: Yeah. Thanks for joining me. I’m going to ask you one more question as we wrap up. What are you most excited about in the year ahead?
Anthony: Yeah. Well, it’s that virtual event that I told you about. We are going to host this virtual event coming up soon, and to date My Town Roots podcast on my city, on Oakland, California, has not monetized.
I’m hoping that’s going to be the first step to monetizing that podcast. And we have, I have a couple other ideas of monetizing that podcast that I haven’t done yet and we didn’t talk about here. But that’s going to be our first step, and if that works, then I’ll know that we’re really onto something.
Tobi: Then you’re off to the races. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining me today and everybody who’s listening, think about starting up a podcast and building a community. There are fans of your nonprofit, they want to support your nonprofit and they’ll keep your nonprofit sustainable. So thanks for everybody for joining us for this session of the Volunteer Nation. We will be here next week. Same time, same place. Take care everybody.
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