Building Movements and Products for Justice with Matthew Fitzgerald

Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:00:00] All right, this is episode seven of We Can Do This and my name is Sean Pritzkau and I'm so excited that you are here and you're listening to this podcast. I can't believe we're already on episode seven and I've been really enjoying this journey so far and the conversations that I've been able to have with entrepreneurs and change makers.

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[00:00:23]And today I'm excited to have this conversation with Matthew Fitzgerald. Matt is an award winning campaign strategist and digital product manager who uses technology and storytelling to support people powered movements. I first discovered Matt's work actually through a podcast called How to Save a Planet, which is part of the Gimlet podcast network.

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[00:00:45] And on this episode, he was featured to talk about his involvement with Team Trees. Now, Team Trees is this campaign that raised $20 million in 55 days to plant 20 million trees. And it all really started through a YouTube comment.

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[00:01:02]So we'll talk a bit about this campaign in detail in the episode, and then  explore a few other topics related to this campaign. I mean, I think it's easy to fall into the trap of looking at other people's successes and other campaigns that have been successful and then trying to mimic or copy those same campaigns and expect the same results.

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[00:01:25] And that's truly rarely what happens. So we'll talk about how can we really look at other people's successes and other campaigns that have worked and then take some insights from those, but really combine that with our own context and our own creativity and innovation, and truly create something that is unique and meaningful and can have an impact.

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[00:01:47]So this is going to be a great episode. I really hope you tune in through the end of this episode because we explore a bunch of great topics. So with no further ado, here is my conversation with Matt Fitzgerald.

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[00:01:59] 

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[00:02:13]all right. Welcome to the podcast. Today I'm here with Matthew Fitzgerald.  Matt is an award winning campaign strategist and digital product manager using technology and storytelling to support people powered movements. His recent work has ranged from crowdfunding $22 million through the largest YouTube creator collaboration ever to passing, historic anti gerrymandering and ethics laws to earning global media coverage by projecting a visualization  of a hundred percent renewable energy onto the Eiffel tower during the Paris climate talks.  In 2019, he led grassroots communications for three fifty.org as they coordinated 5,300 climate rallies in that 181 

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[00:02:54] countries in What CNN called the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history. He is an Americorps public ally alumni, Startingbloc social innovation fellow,  and a trail builder and crew leader with Volunteers for Outdoor California.

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[00:03:10] The guardian once called him wickedly funny and evidence-based, but they didn't know it was him. Hey, Matt, welcome to the podcast.

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[00:03:18] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:03:18] So I'm going to be here.

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[00:03:19] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:03:19] Yeah. So thanks for joining us today. And I mean, right off the bat, that line, I just read the guardian that once called you wickedly funny and evidence-based. That definitely sounds like a story. What is that about?

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[00:03:30]Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:03:30] Yeah, it's funny. Most people don't ask me about that, but let's see if I can give you some background. So I had just started working at kind of a PR agency for the ocean. We were like an attempt to re-imagine like how you would tell stories about the ocean for the internet age.

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[00:03:46]And essentially we're trying to get our client, the ocean, it's various causes more attention. And so this indie rapper in San Francisco had come out with a rap about stopping shark finning. Shark fin  are sometimes cut from live sharks and use to make shark fin soup. And so this this rapper Had made a song where he dressed up in a full body shark costume and then like walked through the streets of San Francisco.

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[00:04:10] And this drama played out where, you know, someone tried to mug him and then all of a sudden he's in a bubble bath with some dancers. But it was this whole like rap about shark fin soup. And I was like, this is internet gold. How do I get this more attention so that we can help save sharks and I had, you know, as a rap fan, I had used this website called rap genius, which was essentially like rap lyrics that you could go in and sort of tag what you thought a particular lyric meant and embed multimedia content along with your interpretation of the lines. So I transcribed the shark rap, put it up on rap genius, got a real shark scientist to comment with some of the science, you know, he was saying like crazy stuff in, in the rhymes than sometimes it would be true.

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[00:04:53] And sometimes it'd be a little bit of you know, hip hop, braggadocio so to speak. And so I got a real shark scientist to comment. I put in  some lyrical annotations myself and then the guardian UK,  the newspaper  They mentioned that the shark science, shark rap, like it's sort of internet gold.

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[00:05:08] So they mentioned it in a piece. And they called out one of my annotations  as being wickedly funny and evidence-based but I did it under, you know, I'd done it as a campaigner. So I didn't really want to like attach my actual name to it, but I was pretty happy about that.

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[00:05:21] Especially as, as an English major and like one time amateur rapper, I  had a rap group with some friends in college, so yeah, it was it was a good time and it made a good end to my bio.

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[00:05:31] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:05:31] Yeah. That's yeah, that's fantastic. A well-deserved compliment there. I hope hopefully that made your client, the ocean. Very, very proud of that.

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[00:05:40]Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:05:40] We have good client meetings, you know, I just, I just pull up to a beach anywhere and we have a heart to heart.

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[00:05:45]Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:05:45] Well, yeah, I can't imagine  a better way to really introduce you. Cause  it seems like this kind of is a theme behind a lot of the work that you do is you have been able to be a part of some really important campaigns and achieve some impressive results, all kind of while being behind the scenes quite a bit and not really knowing that you're behind this.

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[00:06:04] So for our listeners, I actually was first introduced with Matt's work through a episode that he took part of on the Gimlet show, How to Save a Planet. And I'll actually link the episode in the show notes for anyone that wants to take a listen. It's a great episode. But, I heard Matt on this podcast interview later connected on a Facebook group .  I'll briefly try to summarize kind of the, the context of  this episode is the YouTuber, Mr. Beast, if you're familiar with Mr. Beast, he just has a ginormous, YouTube following and platform. And I think he has like over 60 million subscribers at this point in the story though, he was just reaching his 20 million subscriber mark. And the way I understand it is his audience really kind of spammed him with this idea of In honor of his 20 million subscribers to plant 20 million trees in celebration.

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[00:07:01]And Mr. Beast is really known for doing wild challenges and dares, and so he definitely took up this challenge and partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to essentially attempt to reach this goal. And that's kind of where Matt comes in and helps this. mission actually come to fruition and by the end of this campaign in 55 days, they were able to raise $20 million to plant trees.

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[00:07:25]So Matt, I mean, obviously that is a incredible feat right there. So I'm curious what was that like coming to the table of this idea of we are going to plant 20 million trees, obviously Mr. Beast has a large YouTube following at that point of 20 million, but 20 million from 20 million subscribers the math is still pretty tough there.

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[00:07:47] As long as the channel is, that is so what was that like, kind of coming to the table and having that goal presented.

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[00:07:52] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:07:52] Yeah. I mean, it was a little terrifying if I'm gonna be honest. But I saw the, I saw the possibility, right. I've worked for  a lot of organizations, you know, like sector leading nonprofits and advocacy organizations which often have really important campaigns. They've put together a, you know, policy, we need to change you know, power imbalances we need to correct. And, you know, increasingly the smarter ones, the savvier ones among them who have the resources are investing in digital media to tell their story and to make sure that they have an activated audience online, not just, you know, in person. And  thing that I noticed as a campaigner as I worked on more and more of these projects was that the thinking for some reason was kind of stopping at like making a video or, you know making some, some meme graphics that would go and sort of like a social media toolkit that you could share to your, your coalition partners. But the actual question of like, where is the distribution coming from for our campaign?

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[00:08:54] Like how are we actually going to bridge the gap between having a really compelling opportunity for people to take action on a meaningful topic? And actually getting that in front of them at a moment when your competitors for attention are like, not just the nonprofit down the road or down the down the web, but like Netflix itself or Tik TOK.

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[00:09:15]Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:09:15] Anything else?

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[00:09:17] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:09:17] Yeah, essentially, like we have an entire industry of technology companies trying to capture our attention. And nonprofits are competing in that game, whether they like it or not. You can always choose to intentionally divest from that game. But a lot of groups were sort of like dipping their toe in and not taking it seriously. Not thinking through like the full life cycle of when you put a story out in the world with an opportunity for someone to do something with you and you actually want them to do it. What does that look like? It was sort of this assumption that like, well, we have members or we have an email list and so of course it'll work and I like data. And coming actually from that same nonprofit called Upwell where I did  the shark rap annotation. You know, we were using cutting edge marketing tools to actually track the conversation about ocean related causes online. So like, you know, is ocean acidification  as an issue, like, is that spiking on the internet today?

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[00:10:10] Maybe someone put out a report, maybe we learned some horrible new thing about how carbon is being absorbed, right? Like there's, there's so many things that can happen in sort of the media landscape and then it's reflected on the internet or increasingly it happens on the internet and then the media catches up.  we were actually looking at the data and so we could say, okay, so here's a keyword set that describes most of, or hopefully all of the ways that someone might talk about ocean acidification. In the last three years when does it spike the most? What can we learn from those spikes by actually looking at the individual posts?

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[00:10:43] And then if we aggregate all the different ocean issues that we're talking about, that we're tracking and monitoring, using the same tools that like, you know, Coke would use to monitor their share of voice of Coke versus Pepsi on the internet vs. Mountain Dew the upstart, right. What were the biggest moments?

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[00:10:58] And like, what's the, what's the baseline of conversation day to day. And what can we learn about trying to hack that conversation or amplify it so that we can reverse engineer principles for our ocean saving campaigns. So I've always been about the data and at the end of the day when I looked at the data for like the investment that was going into these videos or going into like getting these campaigns to actually register on on new people, new audiences, mine's like the numbers just didn't add up.

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[00:11:26] And so for me, when I heard about what Mr. Beast and Mark Rober wanted to do in terms of planting 20 million trees, I was like, these guys actually have the distribution and, you know, we can, if we build a slightly bigger team I think that some of this back of the envelope math actually works out because every step of friction that you put between someone who watches the video and, you know, wants to plant a tree, is going to reduce the number of people who are able to participate. But you know, you can also streamline that flow, but you can also get a bigger audience.

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[00:12:01] And so what I pitched to them was basically look, instead of 20 million trees by 2020, and it's like Mark Rober and Mr. Beast, you know, presented or whatever let's make a big team. Like let's form Team Trees and invite in other creators and make it so that it's almost like a giant potluck where some people are going to bring really fancy dishes and other people are just going to show up and hopefully they bring a friend, but at the end of the day, like we have one hell of a party and that's essentially the framework for Team Trees.

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[00:12:33] And once I realized that we could do that and we could actually organize a bunch of other YouTubers, a bunch of other social media influencers and through them organize and reach out to their really engaged fan audiences. That's when I thought we might have  a really  good shot at achieving our goal, but, you know, saying that in the conversation and then actually executing on it was a whole other, that's a whole other thing.

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[00:13:00] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:13:00] Yes. I mean, I imagine even with, you know, like that platform, like you said, of his channel and having a big distribution network does not make this task any easier. And so I'm thinking of people that, you know, potentially might be listening to this episode today that essentially Mr. Beast and them have this common problem. That their audience doesn't necessarily match the importance of what they're doing. And kind of like scale of that big  audacious goal. But I love what you said that big problems need big teams. Mr. Beast can't necessarily do this on his own, but through collaboration and through teamwork and through some partnerships and things, this is actually a realistic goal. One of the things I also love too, is this goal could have been much smaller you would have approached it in a much different way, right? Like, Oh, you want to plant a million trees or 5 million trees. I think maybe the math lines up that we can do that just by ourselves, but actually having that giant goal  kind of forced you to expand that network and reach and really change the strategy. 

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[00:13:58]So I imagine that people kind of look at that story and if we look kind of the history of the nonprofit sector of some of these viral campaigns, some things that have really achieved a level of success, it usually leads us to say, Oh, well, how do I in this kind of  one-to-one way do the same thing and achieve the same results? Probably in this instance, I think if you or I, or anyone else we know really tried to do the same exact thing with not team trees, but team something, else probably isn't going to have the same effect. Right. 

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[00:14:29]So I'm curious, what kind of questions or ideas should organizations, non-profits different people listening to this, be thinking about who wants to get a level of attention that is much larger or wider than their existing audience. But they know they can't just go out and copy the latest thing or just do team trees again, you know, what kind of ideas or things should they be thinking about if they want to, you know, take a stretch and try to achieve a big goal, but not necessarily just copy the latest thing.

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[00:15:00] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:15:00] That's a great question, Sean. I mean, it's one that I'm constantly trying to answer for myself because you just can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. Even if you, like, let's say you had the perfect Instagram formula for your posts, even the platform itself is changing on a day-to-day basis.

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[00:15:15] And I think nonprofits have learned that by, unfortunately, a lot of them have been burned by platforms like Facebook, where they've built a big audience and then all of a sudden they had to pay to even reach a fraction of their audience. Right. So like owning your own data just cause I'm mentioning Facebook, owning your own data and access to your own audience is like, it's a must have, like, you have to do that.

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[00:15:36]And if you make a calculated choice to like, let's say you wanted to jump on Tik TOK right now massive upside, but like, you don't have those people's email address, you don't have their phone number. So if Tik-Tok decides that they don't want to, you know elevate your type of content anymore I think that's just like something that you've got to think about, like, how is your, what's your backup plan to get your data out and make sure that you know, it's an organizational resource, so I'm always on that soapbox for sure.

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[00:16:01]In terms of like replicability and what questions people should think about,  this is a question that vexes, even the more established, like more innovative organizations that I've worked inside of or worked with. I remember I was at an organization that literally has gone viral many times, but we were doing something slightly different and, you know, they knew that I'd worked at 350.org which is I was there in the early days as we were first kind of developing this global day of action model.

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[00:16:30]Which sort of was one of the high points for what's now called distributed organizing sort of that idea that you could have a big, instead of a March on Washington, like anyone could go on a map on the internet and start or join an action near them. And then we aggregate all of that together into one big shared action. And that's something that you see all over the place now and there's tools to kind of facilitate it. But you know, this group was that I was with , Represent Us, I remember a very smart executive there saying like, you know, how do we make this the next Keystone XL, like of the anti-corruption movement and Keystone XL, you know,  the movement to stop it was a big effort from a bunch of different groups, but 350  was one of the organizational leads of that.

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[00:17:10]And so I sort of like chuckled when I heard this because my buddy John Warnow, the co-founders of 350  had told me one time that internally they go around saying like there's never going to be another Keystone XL. 

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[00:17:22]They were the ones who did it and they themselves  recognized that they couldn't just do that same thing. It was the combination of a moment and a movement and messengers, and like so many other factors that go into something really hitting like the cultural zeitgeist. And especially when it's a social movement you know, you need a good opponent, you need villains.

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[00:17:39] Like there's, there's so much that goes into that. And then multiple presidential administrations, right? Like that song is still going on. If you look up what's happening to Keystone and you look up what's happening to like the line three pipeline, which I would say is sort of probably the next actual Keystone pipeline in terms of the resistance, but it hasn't gotten the same amount of attention.

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[00:17:59]Definitely look up line three pipeline if you're into climate justice and you want to support that as I do. But in terms of what you actually do once you recognize that you can't just do the same thing for me, what I look to is like adjacent possibilities. So like industries or issues that I can learn from like, what are the campaigns or consumer activations that are going on around me that might not like they haven't happened in my exact issue area that I'm working in. Right. So like,  if I'm working on housing, for example I'm trying to make sure that everyone in my community has housing. Like I'm not gonna run  most recent successful housing campaign. I'm going to at least look outside of my geography.

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[00:18:39] Right? What worked on the other side of the country with a similar size city, right. I'm just speaking totally hypothetically. Or how are like, literally how are like the most successful apps in the country like how are they engaging their consumers in collective action, even if they don't call it that.

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[00:18:58]So I'm always looking for innovation where there's a case study from something that I think that I can take a piece of it and try to remix it. Getting back to hip hop, I guess, like, how can I, how can I do the mashup, right? How can I do the remix and make it my own and make sure that it really gives the folks that I'm working with and our supporters a way to participate in it, because that's one of the things that's super important to me is like, not just coming in with a top-down idea of how change happens, but creating a framework for people to at the ideal level, like co-create what that campaign looks like.

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[00:19:32]Bring something of themselves to it so that we aren't responsible for all the creativity. Cause we know that's a losing proposition, right? Like you're not going to have the brainstorm with your staff in the conference room that's gonna like be better than what the internet can think of. But if you can have a mix, right, you can, you can create a framework for them to invite the internet in and you can then harness some of that creativity and identify some new champions and things like that.

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[00:19:58] But you know, it. I think  there's a lot of different ways of answering that. But for me, it's like, how do I keep my mind fresh? How do I make sure that  I facilitate a creative atmosphere with my team and the people I'm working with. And then how do we remember to like, get out of the building and intentionally unleash some of the creativity that we know that we don't have as well as some of the perspective and lived experience that's usually not in the room. If you just look at like your typical nonprofit and where you're trying to create change.

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[00:20:25] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:20:25] Right. Yeah. That reminds me of a, there's a book by Austin Kleon called Steal Like an Artist that talks about there's actually very few original ideas, but if we can look and see what else is out there and actually create these intersections of things that actually aren't truly original. It places a lot less stress on us and just helps us be like aware and understanding what's happening, what is relevant, and really making some of those connections and collaborating and seeing what really works.

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[00:20:52] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:20:52] I love that. And like, Sean, if you don't mind, The thing that it makes me think of is, you know, my career, I've sort of been like a generalist I've worn a lot of different hats and a lot of different size organizations, right? Yeah. No, that's one of the things we have in common and it's incredible for putting you on your sort of your learning edge and also kind of scratching the itch of curiosity of like, what else is out there?

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[00:21:13] I don't know. There's a lot of people who are like seekers, right. And it's tough for them to stay in place. But for me when I thought about, you know, how do I develop myself as. For lack of a better phrase, like a professional changemaker like someone working in a nonprofit or adjacent to nonprofits doing mission-driven work.

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[00:21:30]I had this model of expertise, which sort of came, I think from like college where it was like, well, the grad students specialize in something that's so specific that they can get their PhD, but at the end of it, they're the world's expert on that thing. And no one else cares. And I was like, that's not what I want to do.

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[00:21:46] I want novelty. Yeah. I want like interdisciplinary breadth. I want like creative collision So for a while I had this sort of imposter syndrome about like, well, I don't, I don't have an advanced degree. Like how do I demonstrate my expertise? Shouldn't I just go back to school and get 150k in debt.

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[00:22:04] Then I, right. But what helped me was like, number one I heard of this concept from IDEO in terms of how the innovation consultancy in terms of how they look to hire people. They look for T-shaped people where they have a combination of breadth and depth. So the cross piece of the T is breadth. The depth is you know, subject matter expertise. And I was like, okay, so I've got the breadth, right? I've got the cross pieces of the T.

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[00:22:27] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:22:27] Yeah.

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[00:22:27] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:22:27] How do I get the depth? And what I realized was that I didn't have to just pick one thing and then become the PhD version of that. What I could actually do was stay at the intersection of the things that interested me.

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[00:22:41] Right. And in my case, it's an evolving circle in the Venn diagram, but it's basically like social media, technology, and movement building. And. You know, if I stayed at that intersection and I continued to find projects that were different blends of those things  that forced me to learn and forced me to stretch myself that actually by being at that intersection over time, that was how I was gonna create depth Right. So it was almost like, I don't know, like a, a double helix or something like Stay at that intersection. And. There's not going to be many people who have done that. Right. So, so that's sort of what I, how I've mitigated my imposter syndrome.

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[00:23:19]And it's also how I have a decent number of stories to tell over a beer about what it looks like, the ups, and frankly, the downs about trying to do this world changing work.  In the context of like the modern nonprofit and social innovation 

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[00:23:34] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:23:34] Yeah. 

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[00:23:34] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:23:34] There definitely are business models around it. And whether you like them or not like they exist and you got to figure out how to make your own course.

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[00:23:40] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:23:40] Yeah. Oh, I love it. Yeah. There's also like a lot of agility to that too.  There's also another book reference a book called. Range, why generalists triumph in a specialized world. And it really talks about being able to go to adjacent industries, areas that you don't have like specialized expertise in, but you can actually bring all these previous skillsets, these previous experiences. And you're actually more equipped than someone who might be a specialist from one industry, moving over to it next and just have no skills they're out in the wild and just don't have anything to protect them from. Prey or bears or something. Right. And

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[00:24:15] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:24:15] that book on my Kindle and I still haven't 

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[00:24:16] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:24:16] love it. Yeah.

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[00:24:18] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:24:18] but I did, I did for awhile call myself a specialized generalist. When I was, when I was casting around for descriptors you know, in the middle of one job search or another. So hope maybe it works for someone out there. I thought, I thought it sort of worked, but I realized that it was easier to position myself as being like good at one thing with the generalist skillset, which meant that I could bring other, you know, other domains of expertise to the task rather than pitching myself as a generalist. But I totally agree that generalists make fantastic, you know, leaders and synthesizers .

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[00:24:49] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:24:49] Yeah, and I think that's a really good segue. I think when we have talked previously, you've kind of referenced to yourself when you were beginning your career as like an accidental techie. Like someone who may have not been certified as a technician or a computer scientist or something, but you were just like the person in the room with the strongest ability or skillset for technology or tech type things.

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[00:25:13]So I know in a lot of the work that you do, like social media and technology plays such a big role, even though you don't see your traditional you know, experience in tech. Right. But what would you say is the role that social media and technology has, let's say in the modern nonprofit and what kind of mindsets should we have around them? Especially given that a lot of people that have these responsibilities might not be formally trained in them either.

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[00:25:39]Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:25:39] Yeah. I mean, when I first heard the term accidental techie it was kind of like a weight lifted off my shoulder because I was in a small nonprofit, I think it was just me and the executive director. Like I was her first hire. And at first I was part-time and then the business started growing and  the grant started growing as well as some fee for service.

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[00:25:59] And so she started giving me more hours and all of a sudden I was both helping on strategic planning projects for social change groups in California and across the country, which is what sort of our mission was around. But also we needed a new website. And so like that was a project that, you know, Was more suited to me than to her or, you know, frankly, the copier jammed, like that was also a project that was more suited to me than her.

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[00:26:23] And just by going through that first like web redesign project and working with graphic designers and developers and thinking through like the content strategy for the new site and things like that. I started doing what I usually do when I don't know enough, which is most of the time I started looking for smart, generous people who were sharing their knowledge on the internet.

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[00:26:42]And what I found was a community of nonprofit technologists who were in similar shoes or had been and. You know, had sort of formed a community, right? Whether that was on a forum or there's actually a book that's probably a little dated now, but called the accidental  accidental techie.

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[00:26:58]But it's specifically about nonprofit technology and how you can kind of fake it til you make it  in your role. But it was, and then I actually found a group called aspiration technology, which. I love to this day. They have a manifesto, which just, any organization with a manifesto. Like I will always read it because I feel like if you have values and you're willing to put them out there. So publicly that you'll call it a manifesto. Like I want to know how

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[00:27:24] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:27:24] Right,

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[00:27:25] Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:27:25] even if I don't agree with it, but aspiration is fantastic in terms of helping grassroots organizations think about technology from sort of  power analysis lens.

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[00:27:35] And so thinking about controlling your own data, thinking about where your funders motivations and your motivations might not actually align when it comes to data in certain situations, if you're maybe if you're working with like vulnerable populations, like your funder probably wants as much data as possible, but that information that you're collecting might actually like put some of your, your constituents at risk if data leaked, which happens.

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[00:28:00] So. Aspiration was one of those touchstones for me as we're like the non-profit technology conference and like net squared, a couple of other organizations, tech soup but all in sort of the, the nonprofit tech space, what I found was that like nonprofits under-invest in technology. I think this is still true.

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[00:28:17]No more than a decade later. And also that there were a lot of people trying to do capacity building work, meaning train up staff who were already in place so that they can do more themselves and they can be less dependent on outside consultants. I now am an outside consultant and I still try to work with this mentality, like put myself out of a job because frankly I'm gonna be bored by that job by the time it's over.

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[00:28:40] So let me find the next thing, like, let me keep innovating. But let's make sure that we set you  good systems and training and support, usually peer support so that you're not left kind of flapping in the wind. But in terms of the role that tech plays in nonprofits now tech is infused everything, right?

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[00:28:58] I mean, it used to be that we had a desktop computer with like database program. It's like now that database is probably in the cloud or maybe at least a Google spreadsheet. And if you don't have a database But there's so much possibility  in terms of reaching new audiences, in terms of learning from your existing audiences or gaining more insight and more input from them into your work, which can only enrich what you're doing.

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[00:29:21] Although sometimes it feels like a can slow it down. You know, tech has become, if you just think about the evolution of the social media manager, At first, it was probably like the comms staffer who was most who knew that Twitter existed. Right. And so maybe they, maybe they just, yeah, maybe they had it as a personal account and they were like, okay, this might be good.

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[00:29:42] Like, let me just make it for my organization. Now, if you were starting a new organization, part of your branding process should be like looking up, which social media handles you can have available. And that should influence which name you choose because if there's a lot of friction in terms of talking about you or sharing your work, well, it's not going to go as far, right?

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[00:30:01] You're not going to be able to reach the people that you want to be able to reach. You know, I can already hear in the back of my head, I'm like, well, what about the groups that work with people who aren't, you know, on the internet as much for like, well, in that case, then your audience is the funders, right. And they care about your color profile. So either way, part of your brand has to be, you know, how socially shareable it is. So you had, you had a comms manager maybe an intern who created the account. Right? They were probably like realizing the potential, but also some of the internal roadblocks, like trying to convince staff who are less familiar with the potential of the internet or, you know, active users of it that it was worth spending money on.

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[00:30:39] Right. Like it's worth actually carving out some part of this person's time to To work on it  to tweet, right. We all made jokes about stupid tweets back in the day. We still do, but like I think we know the power of it now for good and bad. And then it became, you know, a part of someone's job, then it became someone's whole job.

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[00:30:58] Then it became like one person was posting, but someone else was making the graphics and someone else, if you're lucky was making some video and it was all housed still, probably under the comms department where the comms department might also be the development department. Like  if you just think about like the last decade and how  from the first adopters to like now your grandma is using it the same process is happening internally in organizations, and it's not just for the Twitter account and social media. It's also in terms of, you know, your operations, your grant making,  your grant reporting, collecting metrics I mean, literally any part of the organization can be digitized at this point, other than the people and the people that you're serving.

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[00:31:39] And so it's about making smart investments for your context at your budget and making sure, as I said before, that you keep your mission in mind and don't let the technology availability direct what you're actually using it for. You need to start with your why and then make sure that it's serving you right.

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[00:31:57] Not that. You are serving it because we've all experienced that in our own lives and how social media has kind of taken over more of our family time and time with loved ones and things like that. Like it's a battle. Like it's a real tension point. Yeah.

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[00:32:12]Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:32:12] The potential is so huge with literally everyone in your organization, maybe having a role to play in the marketing branding component of what you do. And, you know, everyone has a device in their hand that could be used, you know, for content creation. It opens up so many opportunities.

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[00:32:28]But there's then the flip side, a very real conversation into the it's all consuming. And could, you know, as a big mental health aspect involved in this too, it's a huge topic.  I think, like you said, we're the average nonprofit is probably years behind then both the adoption and maybe some of the conversations around the use and the good safeguards for, for implementing these things in the organization.

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[00:32:50]Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:32:50] Whatever Beth Kanter says. I mean, I could probably quibble at some point  if I started reading every single thing, but if you want to look at the evolution of the nonprofit sector and technology, like read Beth Canter's books the network nonprofit. Now she has one about with Alison fine about I think it's the healthy nonprofits.

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[00:33:06] So it looks at like, you know, creating good organizational culture and also a good relationship with technology. But  both a lovely human being as well as one of the legitimate thought leaders in nonprofit tech. And I think she's a consummate blogger, so she's always sharing her facilitation tricks and how she leads workshops to teach other people about how to do the things that she knows how to do and I just take so much inspiration from her.

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[00:33:30]Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:33:30] Yeah. So we'll definitely include in the show notes. I think we've mentioned a bunch of books already but I'll definitely put work in there as well. But yeah, as we kind of bring ourselves to a close, Matt, I'm curious, kind of given your vantage point of the proximity that you've had to these causes some of the movements that you've been a part of when it comes to social impact this term is growing but with that, it's also getting a little bit mushy and we don't really know what that means.

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[00:33:57] Like what is a social impact organization or business? Apart from one that's not. And that was actually when I was starting, this podcast is someone on the internet in the forum actually asked me, like, yeah, I'm really interested in what you're talking about, but what do you mean by social impact?

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[00:34:10] Like that means a different thing to me than it might to someone else. So I'm curious,  what does that really mean to you and what are some of the nuances that make that, something that makes it worth pursuing for your career?

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[00:34:23]Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:34:23] Yeah. I mean, I think in one level there's so many different layers to that cake.  At one level it's like for some audiences, it's just a more inclusive way of saying social change, where they might be afraid of like the activist connotations of social change or for me, social justice I think one of the reasons that I used it is that it signals for better or worse, more of a willingness to pursue to a change-making mission beyond the strictures of the nonprofit sector.

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[00:34:52] I think there's a lot of different models for creating change these days. And your tax status is like a choice you make to pursue your mission. It's not the thing you start with. You can show me a nonprofit and. I will know absolutely nothing about whether they're doing good work or not. Similarly there's some companies which do fantastic work but you know, they're not nonprofits, but one of the great advances we've seen has just more options, right.

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[00:35:17] In terms of B Corp's in terms of social benefit organizations. So  it's sort of a signal that like I'm, I'm not stuck in any particular label. I think. To me. The things that I think about are more so than any, any phrase, which I admittedly just sort of use depending on the audience.

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[00:35:33]think about who has power is it power with, is it power over? Who needs power? Like who should have more of it? Are people directly affected by a problem or a challenge? Are they involved in the solution? If not like my default is to work with them to build their power.

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[00:35:51]And so I always think about power when I think about social impact,  even in relationship to the words themselves impact is a very, like, I don't know, kind of like philanthropic, like. Business efficiency type word. It can default to what's quantitative rather than a holistic understanding of humanity and, and environmental improvement and things like that.

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[00:36:11]But I, so I think about, I think about power, who has it, who needs more of it, like where I want it to be aligned. That comes down to my values. Right. And so social impact by itself, doesn't carry, it carries values in terms of the words, but it's just a vessel for actual action that has results in the physical reality.

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[00:36:28]I'm getting real trippy on you, right? I'm coming to you from Berkeley, California, I'm going all the way Berkeley. And then I think the other thing is like I had a really wise mentor  through starting block fellowship which is a network of young people trying to build careers in social innovation and across sectors.

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[00:36:43]And one of the people who presented used to run international development agency where they they built water Wells among other things. And what they realized was that actually the change that mattered the most was the change that happened  after they were gone. So they would do a project and they would do their best to engage the local community. And then they would leave, right? Like the funding would run out and they would leave at some point they were clear-eyed about that. But in some places where they were successful, new funders would come in, new community groups would have sprung up and new capabilities would have been recognized among the residents of that town among themselves.

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[00:37:24] Right? Like that's actual empowerment. They. Learn something about themselves or unlocked some latent capacity that they had through collaboration or knowledge exchange or whatever. And so in the places where they ended up with like a thriving town, right? Like the project was a catalyst to  that future state.

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[00:37:45] Right. In other places, when the project ended, they built no capacity. People lost interest and eventually the Wells stopped working. Right? So  the lesson he took from that, which he shared and was really resonant for me was  the change that matters most is the change that happens after you leave.

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[00:38:02] And I think, you know, if you think about team trees, for example, we had like 900 million organic video views about trees, about tree planting from like the top YouTube and TikTok creators in the world. And yes, we have raised nearly $23 million mostly through donations of like five bucks, but also the occasional millionaire.

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[00:38:22]And those trees are great. But to me the most enduring legacy of team trees is the fact that like two generations of YouTube viewing young people around the world. Have combined their  values to do something good for the planet, with their fandom, for some of the most influential media creators in their lives.

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[00:38:43]And my hope is that those kids are going to be growing up and making different choices about what they choose to pursue academically, who they choose to work for the companies they choose to found the nonprofits they choose to invest in and shape like. It's that identity part of environmental action.

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[00:39:00] Like I think that's the legacy of team trees and yeah, it's a gamble but to me, if that vision is fulfilled, that will be the greatest change from team trees. So not the trees planted themselves,  although. great. So yeah, that's how I think about social impact from a couple of different angles.

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[00:39:17]And yeah, it's not a, it's not a pithy definition, but hopefully it gives you some insight into how I approach it.

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[00:39:22] Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:39:22] Yeah, no, I think that's a really fantastic way to look at that, especially in terms of what you were saying about power, you know, who has it, who doesn't have it, who would benefit if they had access to it. And even in your story about these villages, right? If they were equipped with more power, they could actually do some transformation themselves. There's so much there  a helpful way to look at change-making impact. And then, yeah, what happens after you leave?

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[00:39:46]  But thank you so much  for this conversation. I think it has been really helpful and I think there's a lot of good things here that I hope it is going to be beneficial for listeners. But as we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd like to share? And if anyone wants to kind of learn more about what you're doing, the campaigns you're working on, where can they find you online? 

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[00:40:05]Matt Fitzgerald: 

[00:40:05] Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean it's so rare that I get the opportunity to really like dig in on some of these questions and I'm sure we could have kept talking for longer. If people want to connect with me directly my website is Fitz partners, F I T Z dot Partners PARTNERS.

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[00:40:20] I can't even spell. I'm not going to bother if you actually want to get in touch with  me, figure out how to get to my website. But yeah, I mean, if you want to plant a tree, a $1 plants, a tree team, trees.org, I'm still trying to break 23 million. I think we're about a hundred thousand short.

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[00:40:33]So you plant tree with me there. And yeah, if you're interested in what Mr. Beast is doing next he's already announced that. He started a channel on YouTube called Beast Philanthropy, which I think is going to be really interesting for folks who work in and around the nonprofit sector, because the channel is going to be, as far as I know, the first one to fully fund a nonprofit.

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[00:40:54] So like that's the channel is actually the revenue stream for a nonprofit that is already sort of a mobile food pantry, like giving away tens of thousands of meals to folks. And so you can watch videos about that. You can follow along with his next, like brilliantly wild creative, philanthropy.

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[00:41:10]And yeah, I think, you know, you can also help build our audience for that. So  subscribe to Beast Philanthropy. I don't usually say that, but it's a new thing and I think it's really exciting. And yeah, just, you know, thank you for listening. I try to listen more than I talk, but it's kind of hard on a podcast when you're the guest.

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[00:41:26] So just know that that's a little bit different. If you meet me in real life. 

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[00:41:30]Sean Pritzkau: 

[00:41:30] Awesome. Well, Hey Matt, thank you so much. We'll have all those links in the show notes and anything that we referenced during the talk today. Of course, if you're interested in learning more about Matt, you can find them on social media all that's in the show notes. But again, Matt, thanks so much. It's really fun talking to you today. 

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[00:41:44] 

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[00:41:59]Sean: 

[00:41:59] All right. Well, I left that conversation with Matt, just feeling really inspired and motivated, and I hope you were able to take something away from that conversation. I know we, we covered  really, uh, array of topics there, everywhere from tech to campaign strategy and design to generalist versus specialist, right.

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[00:42:18] A bunch there, but I hope you were able to take away something. And if you're interested in team trees or the work that Matt does definitely check him out. Um, there's a bunch of links in the show notes that you can go in and learn  a little bit more about the work that he's done. If you've been listening and have any comments or feedback, or just want to connect, you can reach out to me my email is sean@wecandothis.co, and I'd love to hear from you. And if you want to leave a review on iTunes it only takes about a minute to jump in, log in and just leave a few thoughts about the show. I'd love to hear feedback, and it really does help grow the reach of the show. 

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[00:42:55]So next week , I had my really good friend Lauren Davis on the show. She's a marketing strategist and social media consultant  and we talk a lot about small businesses during the pandemic and some takeaways and learnings from this past year and what to look forward in this upcoming year, so really good conversation there. So definitely tune into this next week's episode. So thanks again for tuning in, and I will see you next week.

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