123: Grassroots Giving: Women & Collective Philanthropy with Catherine Curry-Williams & Dr. Theresa Ashby
EPISODE 123
Grassroots Giving: Women & Collective Philanthropy with Catherine Curry-Williams & Dr. Theresa Ashby
About the Episode:
Y'all, we have a trio on the podcast today. I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Theresa Ashby and Catherine Curry-Williams to the podcast. Cat is a dynamic speaker and bestselling author known for her raw, authentic, and caring approach while Dr. Ashby challenges the status quo through her high-energy, cutting-edge, and humorous presentation leaves audiences re-imagining the future of business. Both are experts on collective giving and are reimagining philanthropy with their grassroots organization, The She Angels Foundation, where they are pooling their resources to make a big impact through $5,000 grants to underfunded organizations. What struck me most was their emphasis on making philanthropy accessible and fun – turning it into a "party" where members can see their dollars at work. They are challenging the notion that you need to be a major donor to make a difference, showing how small, consistent contributions can add up to create real change. After listening to this episode, you’ll feel energized about the potential for this model to transform the nonprofit and “community” landscape.
Topics:
The power of collective giving and using strategic giving to make a huge impact with small donations while fostering community
How Theresa and Catherine are reimagining what it means to be in community via diversity, belonging, openness and freedom – especially for women
Why Catherine believes people are inherently good, and how Dr. Ashby is helping people learn how to implement that good
Living out your values not even in your daily life, but through your philanthropic efforts too in order to emulate how others can do the same
Recognizing that the younger generations are now in the position where they can teach us about giving, monetarily and beyond
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“You don't need to have millions of dollars to be a philanthropist, what philanthropy means is the love of humanity. So it's about the size of your heart, not your wallet, and it's strategic giving.” – Catherine
“Small giving is huge impact.” – Catherine
“I can't emphasize enough about building that openness and freedom and caring and love for a purpose and a mission and how important it is right at the beginning.” – Dr. Ashby
“As women, this is so important for us to do. We walk in the door, we embrace each other. We don't talk about business. We talk about where we're going and what we want to do.” – Dr. Ashby
“We chose a grassroots organization because it’s people giving to the people.” – Catherine
“I think people are genuinely good, but they don’t know how to implement that good.” – Catherine
“Charitable giving is emotional giving but it is not your full on purposeful living for all the time. – Catherine
“Don’t wait until you think it’s perfect to take action, it’s always a work in progress. ”
“Go for it and don’t try to be perfect.”
About Theresa & Catherine:
CATHERINE CURRY - WILLIAMS is a dynamic speaker known for her raw, authentic, and caring approach. As the founder of Shane's Inspiration and co-founder of She Angels Foundation, she brings her personal expertise and passion to every engagement. Catherine inspires audiences to challenge conventional concepts of philanthropy. Cat will leave you inspired to move mountains and affect change in ways that you never thought possible.
DR. THERESA ASHBY’s high-energy, cutting-edge, and humorous presentation leaves audiences re-imagining the future of business. She challenges the status quo. She shares ways to stay relevant with technology automation and digital products in this ever-changing world. Her stories inspire people to unlock their full business potential and motivate audiences to take meaningful action. Theresa masterfully blends her street cred and scholarship so audience members walk away with measurable, actionable strategies they can use immediately to improve their businesses.
Connect with THEM:
Episode Resources:
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Christina Edwards 00:01
Y'all, we have a trio at the podcast today. I'm so excited to welcome Dr Theresa Ashby and Catherine curry Williams to the podcast. I'm gonna let you both introduce yourselves, starting with Dr Theresa Ashby, welcome.
Dr. Theresa Ashby 00:15
Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting the two of us. Here we are. We are so excited, and when we get to talk about our passions, we're all in. Yes, I'm dr, dr Therese Ashby, but my friends call me Dr T and you know, I've spent the majority of my career really helping businesses grow, and I think it's so important when we're looking at purpose and profit, to understand what that means, because we get overwhelmed. So I love doing it. Forbes.com called me a stratologist. So I love that. Appreciate that, and I'm an author of two books, really all about implementing strategy and also growing your business through digital products. So yeah,
Catherine Curry Williams 00:56
welcome and Catherine, introduce us and tell us about your work. Hi. I'm Catherine curry Williams, and again, I'm grateful, like Tori has just said that you had us on here, because profit and purpose and purpose and profit is those it goes hand in hand. What a beautiful title of a podcast I'm honored to be on. What I do is in the sector of philanthropy, and that seems big and scary, but what I'm about is changing and challenging the concepts of traditional philanthropy, because I feel like people think they need to have millions, you Don't millions of dollars to be a philanthropist, where basically and absolutely what philanthropy means is the the love of humanity. So it's about the size of your heart, not your wallet, and it's strategic giving. And so what I do, and for almost three decades now, have have, like founded an organization called she angels. I've co founded that that second that happened in 2020, but in 20, oh gosh, 1998 the 19th 97 I founded an organization in memory of my son, called Shane's inspiration. It's now called inclusion matters by Shane's inspiration. And we built playgrounds all over the world and have for children of all abilities to play side by side, but inclusion is the huge focus of what most of my work is. And it's not just in playgrounds. She angels is including women to be at the table as leaders. And how do we do that? And so that's what I speak on. I talk about how to be inclusive for everyone.
Christina Edwards 02:54
Tell us about your work with she angels, because you're already helping to set the stage here of understanding that it's not just about major donors. Amazing if we can get six figure gifts and beyond, but what you're saying here too is you can have a profound impact as an individual donor, even giving $100 a month. So let's kind of zoom out for a second and talk to me about your work with she angels, because it's pretty impressive. What you all accomplished. Well,
Catherine Curry Williams 03:23
it started because a statistic that still in 2019, I read the statistic that only one point, less than 1.8% at the time of all US charitable giving go to women and girls, causes like that included medical that that's less than animals received. So I always say I got angry, but that didn't matter, because angry didn't get you too far. So I called as many friends as I could to to help me understand that. Could this be true, and even though it's co founded by myself and Catherine Gray, I really call it co founded by all the founders, all the members. We started a membership organization because everyone was incensed. So how could we work immediately? Well, basically, in doing the math, it's like $1.40 a day. You can have $511 in a year. So in doing that, I convinced the first 10 friends, then the next 100 from their 10 friends, to start this collective giving organization. So she angels is really I call it founded by all of us, because we're all in this together in making a difference. Small in small giving is huge impact. And the way collective giving works is that those 10 friends. 10s at $1.40 a day, we were able to give our first $5,000 grant. That was four years ago, and as as to date, we've given 46 $5,000 grants from the simplicity so no one really could argue with me that they don't have $1.40 a day. Now, how that happens is they become a member of a collective giving organization, many at $500 also, we have lots of $1,000 members, you know. So you can go for collective giving, like you said, you can. We love the big donors. That's great. And people can donate more, and absolutely do, but as little as you give, you, you know you can make a huge impact, and that's my together, we can make a big impact, and finding a strategic way to do it is what we have found that giving grants to these female founded and operated nonprofits that provide resources for women and girls. Amazing.
Christina Edwards 06:07
Dr, T, anything to add to that. Well,
Dr. Theresa Ashby 06:10
I think I want everybody to really like how so often we get we got to do this big thing. We've got to put all these hundreds of people to put these conferences on or put these and we're like, going after, to me, that key point here was she got 10 of her friends together, and they started really just saying, How much, how much did our membership be? Okay, our membership, minimum membership is $500 what does that equal? It equals a $5,000 grant. So everybody wants to be a part of a community. And really, what she angels is, is a community of women with like minded ideas and thoughts and passions, and we come together for the collective giving part. I
Christina Edwards 06:57
think you made a really good point, because I think it's just human nature, but I can hear, I can hear it from my clients, where sometimes I'm telling them, we're doing the today version of this, not the 10 year version of this. The 10 year version is going to be so good and amazing, but that's not the one that gets you out the door to launch. And so what I'm hearing is you all both understood that, like, very keenly of like, this is, this is how we start and grow it. But it has since taken had incredible momentum. But how do you go initially, from like gathering those 10 women, and then I guess 10 more and 10 more and 10 more? What does the growth look like?
Catherine Curry Williams 07:37
It's been exponential because, as Teresa said, and we're now in, how many cities we're in, we're growing it past our own city, because we can, we give grants all over the country, whoever applies, if they meet the criteria. So people want to be I think Theresa really hit. The big point is people want to be a part of the community, and they want to make a difference now, and they want to make a difference for us. We want to our our strategy is to grow women into leadership positions and find and help them out of situations. There's so many organizations that are very worthy, that work so hard in the grassroots sector, they're helping their communities right then. And there they go. They have, they don't have a lot of red tape. They and now we give a big check so everyone sees that we're doing this like it's different than writing a check, sending it off. $20 here, $100 there, the next thing you know, you've done that, or you've gone to a gala once, and you've had you've paid 500 to $5,000 a ticket. And when we explain that this is everything is free for us because a collective giving circle, we don't spend our money in these areas outside where we're spending money to make money. We're actually taking your money, 100% of it in this program, which is the collective giving program. We have two programs, and we're using it right now. So come back next month, we're going to have a, what we call Angel power happy hour. We're going to give a grant. You're going to be part of it the the minute. They feel that way, because it's exactly what happened to me. So I've, oh, my God, I can see who I'm making a difference to right here, right now. They can't help but tell a friend, because it's, it's contagious, very it's, it's, I don't know that that's a great it is a good word. It is, everybody wants to feel good, and I think the majority of us want to do good, but we put it on the back burner. Oh, when I have this later, because it's so, as you said, it seems so far out of reach. And. I think when they see it, it's absolutely in the moment, in reach, and they see the difference, because we have tons of impact reports. They tell, they do tell a friend, it is extraordinary.
Christina Edwards 10:15
Let me ask you this, because this just popped into my head. Neither of you can take this one, but like, I'm thinking about a nonprofit who's maybe got a really great board member, or just a really connected, engaged donor who's like, I'm really passionate about X, I'm really passionate about what you do. How do they because it's like, almost recruitment, right? In that sense of like, bringing in their their 10, right? But I would imagine you experienced this where, as you were building she angels. Maybe you found a few people who were like, That's cool, but they didn't go all in. Like, how did you find your people?
Dr. Theresa Ashby 10:48
You know what I'm going to take that I here's, here's what I'm going to take. That is because we were on this the same line of thought here, Christina. So it has to do a lot with the the first, first of all, we all know that the person that starts the organization has to do a couple of things. One, they have to build the culture or the idea and the concept, right? The other thing is, they have to step out of the way. And I think that's kind of when, when Catherine dreamed this up, she knew what the vision was. She gathered those 10 people and was very, very, very clear about what the mission is, and it does not deviate. And often I go, we want to do this. Well, let's add this. It's very clear. So those first 10 knew it. So when they were out talking to other people, they knew how to talk and discuss the other pieces. When we have these events, everybody walks in the door, and it's a level playing field. We have members that are young, and we have members that are very seasoned in their life, and from every walk of life, every walk of life, and what we are doing is we walk into that door. And as women, this is so important for us to do. We walk in the door, we embrace each other. We don't talk about business. We talk about what we where we're going and what we want to do. And I and I just, I can't emphasize enough about building that openness and freedom and caring and love for a purpose and a mission. How important it is right at the beginning. Oh, I
Catherine Curry Williams 12:30
think people, and it's not, you know, money is important for us too. But again, simple change can go so far to make a big change, little change in your pocket. And I think they get that, that is, we are not selling them. And then there are some people who don't, and we go like, great. We thank you. And you know, or if you're doing awesome, I have some friends that only give to animals, you know, I have a very deep passion for animals, and I will say that if women were ruling the world, if we had a lot more leadership in charge, we probably wouldn't have as many animal shelters. We are about solutions, women, it statistics, it's that is what we do. We look for solutions. We've had to do that since the since the beginning of time you have a baby, if you if you choose to have children, or, you know, have family and so on, you have to you, that's what your day is about. It doesn't say you take this hat off and I, and I do that, and now I'm going to do that. No, you, you have to simultaneously do it all, so you need to find a solution, and that's what we talk about. And when we're passionate and authentic in that area, those people migrate, and we become magnets for that. And it would like to be money magnets more money, because then we can help more women to help, and the women help men. It's we love men. We love all, but we we need to be an on an equal, level playing field to do that right. And at this point, we are so tipped, the 1.8% shows us how tipped we are, and that statistic wasn't even available until 2016 with a lily family foundation came up with that statistic. So we weren't even in the mix of looking at what we were getting so crazy, I'll have to give the floor to one of you so I can take a deep breath every time I think about that, I'm like,
Christina Edwards 14:43
It's maddening, right? Anytime we talk about women's health, it right? It gets it get pretty mad fast, right? It's just so historically under underfunded, and we just are lumped in with men, and that's just what it is. And so I think that's why it's so valuable the work you're doing, and I'm already seeing just. Yeah, I think it's easy for it's both sides. I think it's easy for donors who give at an under $500 or less level a year, and for organizations who think of their donors at the small donors, to both discount themselves like, oh, it's all I can give. It's not that impactful. You're already turning that around. You're showing me in a couple of different ways, of like, how it's translating into these $5,000 grants to organizations who are historically underfunded, right? And that when we see our money being pulled together, what's possible, but I really like what you said, Dr t about everyone is on a level playing field. And that's the community piece. That's the identity piece. I know we see it with Gen Z millennials and everyone, really, but like, they want to be part of, like, change making and have that identity. I'm with them. They're with me. We see it a lot with, like, Charity Water and a couple of other sort of movement oriented nonprofits. Talk to me about, like, I have a love, love, hate. I don't know if that's the word, but, like, I have a relationship with the word community, where it's just it becomes a buzz word that means nothing, but you're really defining it here. So let's dig into like, community and creating a culture that is like, a true community. What is that? How do you do it? Give us all the all the details you
Dr. Theresa Ashby 16:19
want to take that Catherine or you want me to take that? I'll take it. I think, I think I just want to. I love the part about digging into this, because we hear also a lot about socially mission driven organizations in the for profit world, and often that is also misunderstood and and community is a buzzword until you define it as a group of people that come directly for a passion and a purpose and and they are not looking at what it is for them, but what it is for the greater good. And I think that's very hard, because often people go, I'm going to build a community because it's going to help grow my business. I'm going to get a community so that I, I'm I'm known this is not that kind of community. This is the community where, when you walk in, you understand why you're there. We're very focused on our outcomes, and I know that at the end of the day, my dollars and cents are going to go and to someone that now they can carry out their mission fully in the fact that that's what they want to do.
Catherine Curry Williams 17:36
A very diverse community.
Dr. Theresa Ashby 17:38
We have a very diverse community, don't we? And I think that's the other piece that we have to have, the diversity in, in every aspect of the word diversity, because, again, that's another word that we tend to, you know. But, yeah, imagine, you know. Just, just look at the people we have in our in our own life, and whatever you believe in, you know, if you have, if you have a certain faith, and you're attending your faith based organization, if you're in school, you're you're attending school, and we tend to get those communal groups that we gravitate to. And what we're saying is, is you take that communal group that we're you're gravitating to, and that person that's next to you goes and gets their communal group, and then their communal group and and that's how it spreads, and that's also how we spread the diversity. Yeah,
Catherine Curry Williams 18:31
this is, yeah, there's never, it's Margaret Mead quote, never doubt a small group of committed, thoughtful citizens will change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has. And, you know, when we come in and we lead from that, and we what we see is it in the instead of, if we can change the word community to committed, we're, you know, we're citizens. This is actually a, the grassroots meaning for the democracy, in this way, a democratic way of giving to people as you're like, we're all we're all at the table. We're looking how, how we can make a change where grassroots organizations and why we choose that, because it is the people helping the people. And so really, this is that old fashioned way of how we do it. We appreciate the help from all different aspects of it, but we have to start here and what happens with grassroots is now I believe in good full pay for we have a volunteer based organization, but I do believe in full pay and as in good pay for the executives that work. I. Organizations and grassroots organizations, unfortunately, don't have the funding. It's a, you know, an uphill battle, but it's like a circle that keeps on going. They need the funding to get the people that to get more funding, and they're not in a higher echelon where they don't get big funding, so they can't pay people well to go out. It's, it's, you know, it's very unbalanced the way it is, because they have to have more volunteers. But what happens is that, say $5,000 will use that money goes like a $50,000 because they're not they're using it going directly to that community. And I think what excites people in one way, is that we are the community that helps out. We are literally the links to our fellow citizens, yeah, I think is it like a simple turn back the time? You know, we have to go back to the simplicity. There's certain things that I've been listening to lately that Louise, hey, and simple, simple, simple, like, yeah, my book so simple that when I read it, I'm like, well, simple, but you know what? That is? Not difficult. Things are, yeah, and we make it, you know, it's our neighbor, it's our friend. It's simple to say, Hello, it's simple to say, what can I do for you? But instead, we're making it. Oh,
Christina Edwards 21:41
isn't it funny how, like, technology can complicate things, like, it also can be a barrier. Like, I'm thinking of an organization where they actually, like, fessed up, and they were like, you know, my best friend was like, How come you've never asked me to be a monthly donor. And her, her thought was, I gotta go big, I gotta go wide. I shared another belief in there, which is, like, I don't want to bug my friend, right? But it was like, oh, simple, simple, simple. What if it just starts with, like, oh yeah, my network, my friends and friends, asking, picking up the phone, texting, like, we sometimes over complicate it, right? And going back to the basics too. Of like, not everybody is a major donor, but like, Wow, $1 a day, that's pretty that's pretty major, that's pretty compelling. Then we group it together. Now we're really on to something, yeah, and
Catherine Curry Williams 22:28
I do think this is the trend of philanthropy for the future. Well, certainly the kind of philanthropy that we're talking about to really going to this, you know, I don't know about changing the world, but we're changing the thinking, you know, eventually, but to it, but you know, it's not going to maybe, you know, cure climate change, and, you know, it's in a world of politics, I don't Think we're going to solve all the things. There's lots of things that are broken, but this is something that isn't broken. It is how much how people are good. There is so much good out there. I think genuinely people are but they don't know how to implement their good, yeah, and so I should throw this over to our greatest Dr T is the implementation specialist, which is why we are growing our organization as well, because she's seeing this working. So talk about implementation for a minute, if you will.
Christina Edwards 23:41
Yes, lay it on us absolutely Well,
Dr. Theresa Ashby 23:44
I think that it makes it really easy when you're doing these giving circles, right? Because that's a natural way to grow your organization in a very simplistic way. And what we did is, we're like, we have, we're doing so many great things here in LA. We're doing things in New York. But what if, and Catherine always uses the term, it's like a book club, right? It's just like a book club. You just, you're, you're gathering your your five to 10 friends, bringing them together and telling the story. So the question was, how do we do that? How do we actually start having those conversations? And once again, we put it out to our network, and they said, Well, I have somebody in actually, we have one in San Diego now, which is, which is a few hours away. But people from San Diego aren't going to drive three, four hours to come to the LA one. So now we have a circle there. We just opened our a big circle in New York. We just Cleveland. We're going to expand to Texas again, Cincinnati, gathering a small group of people and saying, let's make this happen. Here's here's the other part to that implementation. Yeah, so you talk about technology. So that is when technology becomes important, because of the way you can engage and track and start collecting your money, keeping track of your volunteers, keeping track of all the grants you've you've had the opportunity to reach out. And so we did do a lot of technology implementation. We have started those circles. We created all the beautiful standard operating procedures so that somebody, when they want to circle, one of us, goes out and opens it with them like we are their hand holding them to make sure that it's easy for them.
Catherine Curry Williams 25:37
It's a party and it's party and it's, you know, basically, most of us like to have, that's what we say. You know, if you have 10 friends in your community, and now you have some wine, have some tea, whatever, you sit together and talk a bit about, even a little bit about the statistics and women and what their passions are. And then in your community, you one of those 10 friends, or 20 or 30. And now we have 200 showing up at our door all the time. It just in LA and in New York, we have a lot of people coming into these, what started as 10 people book clubs. They are now 50 people want to be in it, but they then go out of those women, oh, I know this organization, they are doing so good. And do they fit our criteria? We say, go to our website, fill out. Yeah, very easy. What is that called a form for it's a submission for a grant. And then we have an awesome grant vetting team. We we check it out, make sure it's all good. We don't make this hard for the grant, the grantees, the the people we give the grants to. So now love
Christina Edwards 26:56
you for that. On behalf of everyone, thank you, right?
Catherine Curry Williams 27:01
And if you know somebody and they it fits in, then now your book club gets to they don't have to handle anything all the money from your your giving circle is tax deductible. We are the one organization holding this plate so you could then in your community and in your area, in your neighborhood, even if it's not your neighborhood, someone know or your community right there, and you say, I love this organization I'm in. Where do you live? Christina,
Christina Edwards 27:34
I'm in Atlanta, Atlanta. I'm
Catherine Curry Williams 27:36
in Atlanta, but I know someone in Carolina, this organization that I love, our giving circle, we would like to do this, and you give it, and you get to have a big check, you present them, and then your money is going to them. We're just, it's so simple. I
Christina Edwards 27:55
i love that you're saying this, because some of the things that we talk about often are like friction, and you're you're just removing friction. The other words you keep saying are simple, easy, and my favorite that you just said is, it's a party. Remember, like donors, like, no one's excited about being pitched to or sold to. I'm not excited when somebody knocks on the door and is like, let me talk to you about your windows. Not excited. I'm excited to go to party. I'm excited to hang with my friends and have book club. I'm excited for that, and I love that you've translated this movement into something that people want to attend. So I think going back to community, Dr T was talking about, that's what I'm hearing, is like an important part. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Theresa Ashby 28:36
And I also think because we can invite donors to these parties that we have. They see the energy. They see the excitement. They see us giving the grant. It makes it easier for them to see if I give X amount. I see my dollars working because, because, look, that's, that's the idea, right? But I, but I think what? Because there's, there's two things, right? We we're giving these grants away. So your membership dollars goes directly to the grants. We still have operational costs, so we still need the the folks to give us money outside of the membership. But what we have found with these giving circles is we can say we're expanding across the United States. We would love you to sponsor or help with one of these giving circles. And so that's another way that a donor can tangibly feel they're supporting the organization. And often what happens is our members are their members, right? But then they belong to another organization or they personally end up also saying, You know what, but I want to put some dollars and cents towards expansion, and that's what, that's sort of the continuation of what's building this organization.
Christina Edwards 29:55
I'm hearing a lot of transparency. I'm. Hearing a lot of just not formulaic jargon that nonprofits can, we love you, but sometimes use a lot. And yeah, that's gonna get me to act if I'm on your email list and it's like, hey, Christina, we're thinking about coming to Atlanta. Do you wanna sponsor? Or do you wanna be a part of this? Or what could you do, versus just sort of this generic, like, we need dollars, right? Yeah, we just need more and more. And that transparency, again, is that fun and easy? And then the other piece that's just, I'm hearing is like this ripple effect, because there's the ripple effect of the initial giving circle coming together and being, you know, granting that award, the ripple effect of what's possible with that, and then just growing, and then other people being like, Oh, I know a nonprofit they should apply. Like, it's so reciprocal. I mean, that must feel amazing to be like, we should. We're we're making moves happen here.
Catherine Curry Williams 30:54
We love to live. We're living our values in our everyday. Hopefully, we are, you know, integrity, and then value. We're living our values, and then we're getting to share and live our values in, if in philanthropic way as well, to emulate how others can I mean, yeah, Damn straight, we
Dr. Theresa Ashby 31:16
feel fabulous.
Catherine Curry Williams 31:16
Excuse my word. It's like, yes, what better feeling like? I love waking up in the morning for what I do, you know, and again, it's all volunteer. But I it just feels so great to be able to talk about this to everyone. Of course, if I could go out there everywhere, that's why I'm working on talking to more. Let's take the fear and the overwhelm out of philanthropy. Charitable Giving is emotional giving. It's a band aid and important. The the hurricanes, the the fires, the the you know, the floods, of course, are very important. So you you take care of that. But that's can't, is not your full on purposeful living for all the time, because we're not looking for, well, we can't wait till we give next time there's a catastrophe. That's right. So I think it's important This allows you to feel like wake up in the morning, and I love humanity, and this is what I'm I'm making a difference. And guess what? I I'm still walking the mall, shopping, teaching my class, doing what I do. Also, it's part of the fabric. It's part of the tapestry of who you are.
Christina Edwards 32:46
Yeah, it's, I'm really hearing that you found something, which is that everyone has philanthropic goals, and I think nonprofits are trained to care about the philanthropic goals, the white guy with lots and lots of money and to just court that guy right? And then they get in the bottleneck of relying on the same handful of donors to make or break their budget. And what I'm hearing is tapping into the philanthropic goals that we all have. There's reactionary fundraising that's, like you said, urgent crisis, that's not part of my philanthropic goals, though. I'm there when you need me, but I hope you don't need me. I hope you don't need me for that fire, that flood, but really tapping into somebody who has a philanthropic goal, who, like I said, can give it a couple $1,000 a year, a couple $100 a year, and for them to see what's possible, I think is, is really part of the movement that you're creating. And Dr, T, I'll kind of let you take this one of just, is this what you see as the future of nonprofits who are finding success in this, in this, in the next decade, two decades? Is this a trend you're seeing? Well,
Dr. Theresa Ashby 33:56
I think if we look at the difference in our you know, I don't, I don't have kids myself, but I have a niece and nephew that I'm, by the way, I'm the perfect aunt and Auntie Theresa, and I'm the perfect aunt to them. But I, but I, but I see, I completely see the shift from when I was growing up. They, they will not buy anything. They will not come to an event of anything that they really don't believe in. And I also think they're they're more of a, and I mean this with all due respect, they're more of a transient kind of opportunity, like they want to travel the world. They want to be a lot freer. And I think what this allows is not that behemoth of a nonprofit that looks just like the corporate world that I don't want to belong to. And when you open this up to the generation of just come and hang, because, right, that's what they do. They hang. I know. In another year or so, it'll be a different language, and my niece will have to teach me all of it, but right now, they want to hang that's what we do. That's that is our party. We hang with each other and talk about important issues to us. And I so I do see this as a trend, and I see that it's important because also it allows them, not it allows them to start giving now, because I think when for me, right, I was career oriented, I was driven, I was working, I was doing all this stuff, and I was the check giver, you know, in corporate world, it just comes out of my paycheck. So I didn't even know where the money was going. I just knew I needed to give up, you know, and I could say I gave. I think we're just saying like this. This is now the passion giving. This is the important giving. I want to see results. And so, so the answer is yes, and I got there the long way. But because it's super important for me to see how my nieces and nephews are growing up and what they want.
Christina Edwards 36:06
Yeah, isn't it so funny how just I've been saying this a lot lately, consumer habits have changed, but has it changed with that generation? The way that they shop, the way they consume content, content, the way they want to interact with brands and make choices with the businesses they they support, like all of that does end up moving over here to the way that they give, and the expectations of what, what's going to keep them there and what's not going to keep them there with the organization. So I think that's so smart. Yeah,
Catherine Curry Williams 36:38
yeah. They want to what, where it goes to. I mean, they, you know, the gofundmes and all the platform giving, it's good. They want to make a immediate difference, but it doesn't the ripple effect. It can't happen from that, because that's individual again, particularly crisis, but they give that way, because they like to see the immediate. It's
Christina Edwards 37:05
immediate. That's it. And I also think the the average GoFundMe that does really well is absolutely stripped down of the formulaic, sterile language. It's the real, real, it's a crappy photo, it's a daily update. It is. It has a vlog style, almost to it the good ones. And I think, again, that's what we're looking for. And I think that some nonprofits are like, Yeah, but we can't do it that way. And I'm like, there is a way you can adapt that to work for the story you are telling. And
Dr. Theresa Ashby 37:38
you bring up a really good point, because it's straddling the generations. But if you don't learn to straddle the generations, your organization is going to die. We have seen it over and over and over. It doesn't matter nonprofit or for profit, if you don't learn to straddle the vastness of the generations that exist. We are, we are losing such important information. And to me, it's up to me now to be also mentoring the folks you know, the younger folks like I just look at the 2530, 35 year olds who want to absolutely do something. I mean, listen, there's kids now that have businesses at age five and six and seven they want and they're all socially mission driven, and they want to do something. So why don't we engage them differently and show them how we can bring them up, not up, as in, raise them up, but bring them forward. And guess what? Who's the best teacher for us? They are my niece, who's 18, going on. No, she's 20 now, going on. You know, 40 teaches me everything I need to know. That's why I get excited when I go to these parties, these giving circles, as I just look around and I'm like, wow, this is just and also, when I grew up, there wasn't the women's groups that were kind and generous and non competing. And you sit there in a room and you're like, we are really making a difference.
Catherine Curry Williams 39:23
That is one thing we hear all the time. We have women that go that that are that are very wealthy and can afford $25,000 and they give, and they love being in our in our group, they say, Well, you know what I'm going to stop and give me there I want to hear more because I'm included. Where I feel like my money speaks to me, that it speaks as me, rather than me, speaking as me. Of course, again, the you know, the the money is important, but it. It's really, if it's your whole picture, it's, again, what is the you know, it's holistic. It's all the things. And of course, as Theresa said, it's like they, you know, if we don't change, we have the ability to where corporations and major organizations, they're so wrapped up in their bottom line that that's what they have to fill before they go out to their mission. And I know this, being 33 decades sounds a little less, but going into 30 years of being on both sides of this nonprofit world. And I have mentored, you know, executive directors in huge organizations, and what they do is always say to me that, Oh, my God, thank you, because I can let them off the hook as this is the person, this is what you're doing. So let's talk about you and how this works versus all the technical aspects of it. Tons of people out there that will do that, but heart driven, my mentors, fortunately, were were much older who have passed on now, but they were very heart driven and philanthropic in the way of love for humanity. So I was, and, of course, my mom and, you know, it's a lot of times I'll ask people when I when I speak of like, where did you come up with philanthropy? So like, we have to go back to the roots of, what was your thought of it? What was your idea? Even with the young kids, and that's when we're hearing all the different parts of it. And I love that
Christina Edwards 41:47
question, yeah. Oh, that's so good. I could talk to y'all for another hour. But instead, I'm gonna ask the question we ask all of our guests, and whoever's ready can take it first, which is, would you share with us? One go to thought you like to think on purpose. This could be an affirmation, a mantra. Sometimes I call them power thoughts that keep you just kind of keep you going. Would you share yours with us?
Dr. Theresa Ashby 42:15
Catherine, you want to,
Catherine Curry Williams 42:16
I'm going to say, you know, don't wait till you think it's perfect to take action? It's always a work in progress. There's That's right,
Dr. Theresa Ashby 42:28
great one, yeah, my mine is, go for it and don't be perfect. Oh,
Catherine Curry Williams 42:32
let's see.
Christina Edwards 42:35
We have a theme. We have a theme. Yeah?
Catherine Curry Williams 42:37
Someone told me like Reese, well, you know, I should know this perfect is not ever something, so you don't really take action if you're because I said, I'm not a perfectionist, that's the only down flaw about me. I move and I make decisions. And this was Liz swaddick, and she said, Well, if you know you didn't, you're detail oriented, that's great, which is a good way to make decisions. But if you were looking for perfection, those people have a harder time moving forward. I don't want to, you know, knock all the perfectionists out there, but I thought I was not a good person in handing in a paper, or, you know, doing something very corporate, or, Oh, I'm not a perfectionist. This is not going to, you know, maybe the comma is missing, maybe I didn't dot that. I go back. I would just move forward with it. Sometimes
Christina Edwards 43:32
I tell my clients, imperfection will make you a lot of money, and it lost gives them peace. It will make you a lot of money. Just let it be imperfect, because we, I think a lot of leaders struggle with that, like dotting eyes, crossing T's. This is my life's work. I'm like, it's an email, and we go and we go, I
43:56
do you
Christina Edwards 43:58
listen. You're just in the arena. I'm in the arena when I get my there and there's uh huh, mixed up and Grammarly didn't catch it, you know, whatever, right, whatever,
Dr. Theresa Ashby 44:07
whatever.
Christina Edwards 44:08
Where can everyone? Let's go around. Follow you, get touch with you, find you all the places. Dr, T, I'll
Dr. Theresa Ashby 44:15
let you go first, absolutely. LinkedIn, go to LinkedIn. Theresa Ashby, Facebook, I'm out there. And then, of course, here's the thing, because I love people, I love talking about this. If you go to my website, kaleidoscopemediaservices.com, and there is a contact page, I would love to have somebody just sign up. Let's just talk in the comments. Say that you know you heard me on this beautiful podcast, and I would love to just have a 15 minute conversation, because I love to hear what people are doing.
Catherine Curry Williams 44:52
Love that Catherine. I can be reached at LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my social media. Place where you can find me. My book, philanthropy on a shoestring had to make a difference on $1.40 day Amazon or my website, which the short version is catcurry williams.com or Catherine curry williams.com and also I can be reached through those medias, because there's messaging, and of course, we'd love you to join us as a change. You'll member. We'd love that if you're interested in finding out more. We call them circles instead of chapters, because we love the full circle of giving. So and it's not, it's we do the heavy lifting, you do the the the giving and so find us on she angels foundation.org,
Christina Edwards 45:48
as well, and we'll link to all that. And that is great for organizations who are interested in applying for a grant, or if women would like to join the giving circle as well. Amazing. Thank you both for generously sharing your time today. I know this was helpful, because we gave people a 360 degree view. I feel like of philanthropy, giving circles, community engagement and just changing the culture, think of how they talk to their donors and prospects. So thank you both for your time. Thank you.
46:20
Great.