Why You Already Have All the Donors You Need

Ben Greene:
We’ve built this tool we call Lifetime Impact. As I give to the spring every single month, my people served grows. So I’m providing clean water to more and more people and I’m watching that grow over time.

What kind of impact can I make in 700 million? Well now I’m looking at it, oh wow that’s 40 people, that’s 50 people, that’s 80 people. And then as I go out and even bring other people to into the mission of you know to give money to Charity Water, I can watch their lifetime impact grow too.

It’s just a unique way for us to say it matters. You matter.

Greg Sobiech:
20 years in the industry, you are right now Charity Water Chief Revenue Officer. That’s been a recent promotion, congrats. Thank you.

As of last year. What do you do as a Chief Revenue Officer?

Ben Greene:
So I oversee everything from brand marketing to our ultra high net worth fundraising initiatives and everything in between. So we have you know our brand partnerships, corporate partnerships in there, foundations. We have our monthly recurring product called the Spring and of how people can engage with the organization and give monthly.

So it’s really kind of runs the gamut from the top of funnel to the bottom of funnel as we would say in the marketing space.

Greg Sobiech:
So you really are a chief in the for-profit world, it will be Chief Marketing Officer. You oversee all of it.

Ben Greene:
I do.

Greg Sobiech:
The budget, revenue responsibilities, that’s the exact equivalent. I do.

Ben Greene:
I have an incredible team that helps me in that and I’m able to at certain times focus in one area more so than the others because of the really smart team that we have around us at Charity Water.

Greg Sobiech:
So we obviously spoke, we had breakfast this morning which was delicious. We know we spoke before and you spoke to me about the fact that Charity Water actually wants to solve problems. What does that mean?

Yeah.

Ben Greene:
I mean really at the heart of what we do it’s to provide clean water to everybody in the world. You know one in ten people right now, 700 million people in the world do not have access to clean and safe drinking water. It’s really unfathomable for us that are sitting here.

Greg Sobiech:
We can’t even imagine, I mean I have, there’s water right here.

Ben Greene:
I walked this morning to my sink, I brushed my teeth and never thought for a second about turning on the faucet, right? And yet we know that one in ten people around the world do not have that luxury. In fact, quite opposite, they actually spend many hours a day walking to collect water that even in turn with all of that walking and the hours put into collecting that water is still making them very sick and their families sick.

And so for us we constantly use it. And to be honest, we internally will say in our lifetime oftentimes, in our lifetime.

Greg Sobiech:
Solving it in our lifetime?

Ben Greene:
Solve it in our lifetime. And because we want to create a sense of urgency and for us it is not okay that one tenth of the world doesn’t have a basic human need. And so for us it’s how can we move faster and solve this as fast as we possibly can.

Greg Sobiech:
Well, give me an example, make it real for me. Like what’s one example of something that you guys do, how you allocate the hundred million plus that you raise annually in a way where you feel that you are solving it versus addressing it? What does solving mean like more specifically?

Sure.

Ben Greene:
I think a statistic that some people might be really surprised to hear is that not quite a third of the projects that have been built on the continent of Africa over the last 20 to 30 years to provide water to people are broken. Oh really?

Greg Sobiech:
A third?

Ben Greene:
About a third. Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
So that money is wasted you’re saying?

Ben Greene:
Yeah, essentially. I mean, there was a time where for a period of time people had in those communities had water access, but at some point along the way a part has broken, something has gone wrong with water yield or whatever it might be. And so one of our key goals is to keep water flowing.

It’s not just to provide it, but to keep it flowing. And so we have maintenance programs that are really focused on making sure that once we provide clean water to people living in a community that that water continues to flow for years and years to come. Okay.

So when we talk about solutions, we talk about solving things. It’s really focused on what type of solution are we providing and what is the quality of that solution for the long haul. We want these communities to experience this forever.

And so that’s part of built into our DNA.

Greg Sobiech:
Something else that I remember you told me is that what else is built into your DNA is this idea that you have separate bank accounts for the two sides of the operation. Can you unpack that?

Ben Greene:
I mean, this kind of comes from early on when Scott Harrison, our CEO and founder, was developing the organization, was launching Charity Water. He found that there was great distrust from the American public toward charity. And so one of the big things that was limiting people’s giving or limiting their generosity was they didn’t really trust where the money was going.

Am I paying for some CEO to have a big house or cars or whatever it might be? And so Scott said, I just want to deal with that on the front end and let’s just never make that part of the equation. And so in doing so, we created what’s called a 100% model.

We have two separate bank accounts. So if you go to our website right now and you were to give a gift, 100% of those dollars would go straight to the field to provide clean water for someone. So people say, how do you do that?

The staff are not volunteers, they get paid. We have a printer in our copy machines and all the things that it costs to run a business. So in order to run the business, we actually have a group of about 130 families.

They’re called the well. They pay for all of the overhead for the organization. So they pay my salary, they pay for my flights to get to places and visit the field and those types of things.

And so the general public never has to spend a penny of their money on any sort of overhead. So much so that if you were to go to the website and give, the credit card company would charge us a fee for you to run your credit card. We actually take, if it’s a $3 fee, we would take $3 out of the operations bucket and put it in the water bucket.

So 100%.

Greg Sobiech:
Paid by those families.

Ben Greene:
That’s right. So that 100% of the money you intended to give actually goes to the cause.

Greg Sobiech:
Now I want to shift gears. Let’s talk about the framework that you seem to have developed over the last 20 years. What is that framework and what does it mean to you?

Sure, sure.

Ben Greene:
So the framework is fairly simple. It’s called look in, look up, look out. And it is in that order purposefully, intentionally.

Look in, look up, look out. And look in is really this idea of, so often, and the reason why I coined the phrase is so often I heard people and saw organizations out there trying to do so many different things. And a lot of what they were trying to do was go out and acquire more donors, go out and acquire new audiences, go out and acquire more donors.

And they’re spending all of this time when so often they had so much just right under their nose of opportunity. And what is the experience of your existing donors? What are they experiencing from the organization?

Because what we know is that happy donors are your best acquisition source.

Greg Sobiech:
So we’re going to unpack this over the next X minutes. We’ll talk about, we spoke about mission. How does this translate to messaging?

How does this translate to audiences, channels, an engine, a revenue engine that we can build? And when you talk about looking in, looking up, looking out, how is in different from up and out?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. So in would be, who do we already have in house? What is the message that we’re sharing?

Who is our audience? It’s really understanding the kind of core elements of who you are today. Yes.

Looking up would be, how can my board connect me to more people in their networks? How can my executive team connect me to more people in their networks? And really kind of expanding outwards.

Looking out then is trying to figure out how do we go out and forge our way into new audiences. But again, they are consequential for a reason. They’re prioritized, look in, look up, look out, because you should always be starting with in.

Greg Sobiech:
And what is the origin of this? How did this come about? Because I have to admit, it’s a phrase that feels so natural.

It’s almost something that someone would have invented 50 years ago.

Ben Greene:
No, I think, and again, it just kind of came from me seeing organizations really spin their wheels, trying to go out there, tell so many different stories, really water down so much of their messaging because they’re trying to do too much at one time. And so, it came to me from this idea of, let’s start where we are. I was actually sitting in one of my first ever, it was actually, it was my first ever staff gathering at Charity Water and Seth Godin was speaking.

So, four years ago or so? So, yeah, a little over four years ago. And Seth is a generous donor of Charity Water and a great friend.

Greg Sobiech:
Very well known.

Ben Greene:
Yes, yeah. And he looked out at us sitting there as the team and he said, I want you to know you already have all the donors you need. You already have all the donors you need to fulfill your mission.

And it’s for us that are always kind of constantly thinking about what’s next? How do we grow? How do we get out there?

It was a sobering thought of, and what he meant by that is, if you do right by those who are already connected and are already incredibly passionate about your mission, you are going to fulfill your mission. You are going to grow. And I 100% believe he’s right.

And I believe it starts again, kind of going back to this idea of looking in.

Greg Sobiech:
Did that grow out of situations where you were frustrated?

Ben Greene:
Probably. And I’ve had so many times throughout my career where you feel like you try something and it doesn’t work or it’s failing and you’re trying to figure out why. But I also think that so often we become enamored with the new and shiny.

Sure.

Greg Sobiech:
And grass is always greener.

Ben Greene:
The grass is always greener. For sure. And we forsake the people that are right there in front of us who are passionate about what we’re doing, who are already invested.

And so how can we appropriately spend time and energy and investment on them to make sure that their experience is the best and they are going to be actually the best people to tell our story?

Greg Sobiech:
So how I translate this to the for-profit world is there’s this basic and often to know and not to do is not to know. And what I mean by this is we all know that product market fit, that standing for something and owning that niche with a clear message in specific channels. I almost feel like if you ask me right now, what is the number one responsibility of a chief revenue officer or chief marketing officer?

I think it’s being the steward of that vision, of the intersection between who I am as a brand, who is here as my team, what do they believe, who is my consumer, who is my donor that I’m serving and how do I own that? And when we spoke this morning over breakfast, you said this phrase, and I quote, you can do fewer things well with excellence. And is that what looking in is about?

What does that mean to you?

Ben Greene:
It’s definitely a part of it. It is, are we sharing, is our message clear, concise? Is our message simplified not just to where someone can hear it and understand it, but that they can turn around to their network and share it themselves.

So are we providing them a framework that is so easily understood that not only can I absorb it, but I can turn around and not only can I, I want to. I want to share it with my friends. It’s compelling.

Greg Sobiech:
It’s simple. Is it hard to be a steward of that philosophy in your role right now or across your 20 year career? Is this easy to do or is this hard to do?

It’s a leading question maybe, but I think it’s hard to do.

Ben Greene:
It’s incredibly hard to do. I will say this. I think part of, I have other non-profit leaders come to me quite often and ask, what is the magic sauce at Charity Water?

It feels like there’s some sort of magic sauce. I think it’s found in this. I think it’s found in the simplicity of message, being incredibly clear in what we do and providing compelling ways for people, not just to understand our message, but to also share our message.

Greg Sobiech:
So let’s talk about this a little bit more, because I feel like this is one of those things, again, to know and not to do is not to know. This is one of those things that we as marketers, it’s like, yeah, this is something I will be taught in marketing one-on-one, right?

Ben Greene:
Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
And then what’s the last time that I opened that book?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I mean, I think so much a part of it internally, me personally, understanding myself, understanding my blind spots, understanding what I do well, what I don’t do well, making sure that I’m building a team that helps support me in my weaknesses and can feed off my strengths. I think all of that is incredibly important.

I think about it as a DNA of an organization, as you’re building that and really understanding who you are, what your message is, how you simplify that message and really being clear about understanding who is connecting to you, how they’re connecting to you and why. I think all of this is related, right?

Greg Sobiech:
Well, and how I perceive this, because this is really interesting to me, is that how does someone like Charity Water, where you are the steward of the brand and you want to really look in to start, like you said, before you look up and out.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I mean, I definitely think that understanding who you are and having real clarity of direction and we often refer to it as the North Star of understanding where we’re headed. We just went through a practice where we wrote our vision.

We call it a Vision 2030.

Greg Sobiech:
Okay.

Ben Greene:
And it’s our strategy for, as we kind of look to 2030, what are the series of things that we’re going to do? And we know these are going to evolve. They’re going to change.

But where we’re headed, that’s not changing. Yes. And I think as individuals, the best thing we can offer the world is the most authentic version of ourselves.

And so, really understanding who we are deep in our DNA and so much of that foundation is laid at the very beginning of the establishment of the organization, right? And then now, where do we go from here? How do we take that and extrapolate?

And again, we kind of come back to our mission is pretty simple, simple in thought and idea, right? It’s to solve the world’s water crisis.

Greg Sobiech:
It’s simple and it’s extremely complex and difficult.

Ben Greene:
Yes. Yeah. Difficult to do, but simple to understand.

Greg Sobiech:
So, the thing I’m taking away is this, because I know we’re getting philosophical, but I think this is terribly important. And you said it, that mission, clarity about the mission and looking in, defining that mission, right? You spoke about the fact that you guys have two separate bank accounts, about the fact that you don’t want to just address the water crisis.

You freaking want to solve it. And something as boring as, and it sounds boring, operating, making sure that this water pump is actually working and it’s not broken, right? Well, but that is solving the problem.

It isn’t just putting a pipe in the ground and one third of those pieces of equipment, like you said, breaks down. So, these are elements to me of your mission, being authentic, that your words, and it is actually a vision. And how many brands, if every brand that I interact with as a consumer had this clarity of mission, AKA vision, and was absolutely unapologetic about being committed authentically for the next decade, right?

Because it shouldn’t change to your point. I don’t know. I think brands will be more successful.

I absolutely agree. And to me that’s, and I know, look, I’ve been doing marketing for 25 years. And this is the thing that drives me crazy when I talk to a brand and they cannot tell me what you just told me.

It’s funny how it’s not easy to be committed to. Greg, can I give you an example? Yes, please do give me an example.

Ben Greene:
I was at an organization for a while that was doing incredible work. We were doing incredible work and we did a lot of things in the field and in the developing world. And the things that we were doing were inherently good, a lot of good things.

They were quite complex. And we wanted to tell all the different stories about what we were doing. And so we would try to educate our audiences as we shared our message.

Wasn’t working. And so when we started to hone in our message on one of the things that we do really well is this, and we would share about this over and over again and be very simple. All of a sudden our acquisition strategy started working better.

People started coming on at higher levels, a greater volume. And the idea was, okay, now we’re getting them in the door. Now let’s educate them on all the different things that we do.

So we started doing that. Well, then you start to see the attrition rates go up and it’s like, okay, wait, something is disconnected here. And so over time we go, nope, let’s stick to the message that brought them here in the first place.

Even though I think one of the greatest mistakes we make as organizations is at times we can get a little bit bored or tired with the same message that we’re sharing, not with necessarily the work, but with the message. And the issue becomes when we think that our audiences are bored with it too, because that’s oftentimes not the truth. And so we went back to sharing the message that brought them in to begin with.

And when we did that, we saw the retention rates start to rise, attrition rates going down, and we fixed the issue. We fixed our attrition problem by cutting attrition nearly in half just through simplification of message and trying not to feel like everybody needs to be educated with every single thing that we do. It doesn’t mean those things aren’t important and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing those things.

But what it might mean is that the message itself needs to be simplified. If I’m talking from a nonprofit standpoint, your donor doesn’t necessarily care that you do all these things from A to Z. What they want to know is that their dollar is making a difference in the lives of others.

Whatever the mission that they gave to, that you told them that they were giving to, they want to know that the impact is being made. And that’s where we get lost sometimes.

Greg Sobiech:
That impact, that emotional connection, that upside from being committed to that one story. Share the story of Helen from Uganda and how that can resonate. Gosh.

Because it’s a great story.

Ben Greene:
Gosh. Helen was a lady that lived in Northern Uganda in one of the areas that we were working in at Charity Water. When we talk about providing clean water for communities, we think about health.

We think about kids being able to go to school and not spend their days collecting water. And that’s all amazing and good and definitely a critical part of what we do. But Helen told us a little bit of a different story.

She said, yes, my kids have clean drinking water now. And yes, my family is able to do this. But what I’m able to do is wash my clothes now.

What I’m able to do is wash my face.

Greg Sobiech:
Which by the way, I would never think of that as, that seems so unimportant in a way.

Ben Greene:
Right. But if you think about, you have a very limited amount of water that you can use per day. I can either cook with this.

I can either give my livestock something to drink. I can, or I can take a bath and it’s either or. Well, now she had and.

Yes. And I can do this and I can do this. And what she said was, and I feel beautiful.

So sweet. And it kind of took us all back of, wow. I mean, we say a lot at Charity Water, clean water changes everything.

This was a perfect example of that. Clean water changes everything. It’s a really sweet example.

Yeah. And we come back to this a lot at Charity Water and it is the power of story and the power of the one of talking about a person’s story. Yes.

And so, for us, it’s about, again, kind of coming back down to that, telling the powerful stories of the one that help people understand and be able to absorb these critical stories that will then, you know, kind of inspire generosity. And so, you know, for us, it’s, if you’re just talking to people and stats and numbers and kind of, you know, 40,000 foot conversation, it’s not compelling them. It’s not inspiring them to act.

And so, for us, it’s been clear that we have to tell the compelling stories.

Greg Sobiech:
Now, but I think there’s also, because we spoke about this, there’s also a way to break the big number that’s overwhelming. I almost don’t want to think about it. It’s so sad and make it more real.

So, storytelling in the context of the $40, right? You shared with me how actually 40 bucks does provide clean water to one person. And there is something magical that you guys have.

That’s about the $40 that connects with all of these emotions. What is that?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I mean, I think for us, it’s about transparency. And from day one, that’s been a critical part of what we, you know, what we believe, who we are, part of our DNA.

And I mean, honestly, from day one, we have, we put every single project that we ever built on our website. So, you can see the, you know, Google, through Google Maps, go on and look at the satellite images. And yeah, we give the latitude, longitude, the whole deal, you can go see it right there.

So, it’s been critical for us to be able to kind of show that transparency. Part of the way we do that for our donors that are, you know, giving $40 a month or $20 a month, for every $40 across our portfolio around the entire world, you’re providing clean water for one person.

Greg Sobiech:
Right.

Ben Greene:
And that’s it?

Greg Sobiech:
This is like over a year, like over what period?

Ben Greene:
Well, so, no. So, let’s say, you know, a project might cost $10,000 to build a well in a community that’s going to provide clean water to 300 people. So, you know, the idea is that for about every $40, that’s going to provide clean water to one person.

Greg Sobiech:
A member of the community will be able to use that well.

Ben Greene:
That’s right. Okay.

Greg Sobiech:
That’s right.

Ben Greene:
That makes sense to me. So, and for us, it’s important, again, kind of coming back to that story of the one. Yep.

You know, that’s one more person. That’s one more person. So, we look at that 700 million number, and it seems so massive, and it seems so big.

Yes. But as you see, we’ve built this tool kind of we call lifetime impact.

Greg Sobiech:
Yes.

Ben Greene:
So, as I give to the spring every single month, every month, my person, my people served grows. So, I’m providing clean water to more and more people, and I’m watching that grow over time. And so, you know, again, for me, what kind of impact can I make in 700 million?

Greg Sobiech:
Yes.

Ben Greene:
Well, now I’m looking at it. Oh, wow, that’s 40 people. That’s 50 people.

That’s 80 people. And then as I go out and even bring other people to into the mission of, you know, to give money to Charity Water, I can watch their lifetime impact grow too. And so, I think it’s just a unique way for us to say it matters.

You matter. And that gift, while it might feel small in the light of the problem, it really matters.

Greg Sobiech:
So, you are really making the emotional also tactile, right? Yes. There’s texture to it.

It’s almost transactional. And I’m really tempted to talk about spring, and your recurring revenue model, because clearly you have made investments in technology. But I want to hold that thought.

I want to resist the urge. Let’s talk about audiences for a second and personalization, because we’re talking about mission, right? That’s the North Star.

We spoke about the message that has to be emotional. It has to also connect to something tangible. We just did that.

How are you thinking about audiences? Like, is Charity Water for everyone?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think we will resonate with certain folks. I do think there is something unique about our mission in that it is not divisive.

There is no one on the planet that’s going to come to us and say, I don’t think what you’re doing is a good idea. I don’t think what you’re doing is right. We avoid those arguments, right?

We’re providing clean water for people. Pretty much everybody can get on board with that. But I think we do need to know who we’re talking to, who is most apt to respond to our message.

But I think for us, it’s been really sharing this kind of compelling, inspiring message of providing clean water to everybody on the planet. And that seems to resonate with quite a few people.

Greg Sobiech:
Do you need to know your data well, your first party data to know who your super donors are?

Ben Greene:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, we definitely have some personas and we know who the people are that are most apt to respond to our message. And so, you know, when we’re looking at paid marketing and those types of things, we’re trying to target those types of people, a certain type of people, for sure.

And I think, you know, part of what’s built into the DNA of the organization, too, was when Scott first started the organization and thought, you know what? I know so many people are skeptical of charities. I actually want to be a charity for the skeptics.

What if we create a charity? We remove this idea of, I don’t know where my money is going. We have transparency.

We show them the projects on our website. We have 100% model where every penny that they give goes directly to clean water. And we almost become a charity for the skeptics.

So part of what our mission is, even outside of providing clean water for everyone, and again, staying singular focus, that’s our mission. But what we also want to do is inspire generosity for the world. Our hope is that people hear Charity Water’s mission, they become involved in Charity Water.

Maybe they’d never given to a charity before. And they decide to trust in Charity Water because of our model, because of who we are. That in turn, because of the experience we provide, again, we’re focused on them, we’re focused on their experience and making happy donors.

They then decide to give to other things, and they’re helping the homeless in their community. They’re doing whatever it might be, but we are inspiring a movement of generosity. That is really an unspoken part of our ethos at Charity Water.

Greg Sobiech:
So tell me about a brand that wouldn’t want to have their mission be something that people internalize, and then want to share with others. And isn’t that the best promotion from an organic perspective, right? For every brand out there that would want the audiences, because of that clarity of messaging, because of clarity of mission, to be so clear about what they stand for, that they’re going to sort of make this part of who they are, and it’s going to inspire them towards a movement.

Again, I think any brand that has some kernel of mission within them. I don’t care if it’s Allbirds using recycled materials, green materials, or Tesla, right? Promoting sort of electrification, which is really about climate change.

It can be really any brand with some promise of something bigger than themselves. So, I mean, what you’re describing is, I think, literally a marketer’s dream. And I’ll stand by that phrase.

Now let’s talk about donor journey. And I think that your founder had an interesting experience that has to do with Spotify. And I think that inspired you guys to really go in on what I kind of personally call individual giving or general donors.

But I think you’re providing this experience for all of your donors. So talk to me about that Spotify example. And then I want to go into specifically this idea of kind of the revenue engine that you’ve built.

Sure.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I mean, the Spotify example is interesting. Scott, our founder and CEO had taken Daniel to the field to actually see some of the work firsthand, to see some water projects and that sort of thing.

And they were in Ethiopia. And they’re driving in the vehicle along this kind of dusty road. And Daniel looks over at Scott and he says, you know, your business model, it kind of stinks.

And Scott said, what do you mean? He said, you know, you get to the end of calendar year, December 31st and your fiscal year ends and you get to January 1 and you’re back at zero. And he just kind of, you know, he’s talking about what he’s building at Spotify and this monthly recurring subscription business and IDN model.

And it’s Scott’s idea was, can we build a subscription program for good that, you know, would inspire people to change other people’s lives through providing clean water. And so, you know, we launched the spring experience, which is a monthly recurring program for donors. And it’s a community of donors who are doing immense good and providing clean water for thousands and thousands of people every single year.

And so for us, it’s, you know, the idea of personalization. I need to, I can’t think of personalization without thinking of Carnegie and how to win friends and influence people. People love to hear their name.

And when I get emails from nonprofits that I give to, and they say, hey donor, or hey supporter, you know, it’s, I want to hear my name. I want you to, I want you to tell, you know, I want to know that you know me. And so we really try to go above and beyond some of this.

And, you know, we have a few stories and most recently I’m thinking of actually, I’ll give an example of our CEO and founder who was talking to one of our donors and she was talking about how her son was really in love to Star Wars.

Greg Sobiech:
So Scott, I love Star Wars.

Ben Greene:
I don’t want to get you started there. And so Scott immediately goes back to his computer, sits down after he talks to this donor and just mails them a Mandalorian Lego set for the son and just says, hope he enjoys it. And of course she receives this gift and responds with this email of like, oh my goodness, I can’t believe you do this.

But this is just, this is what we try to foster within the DNA of Charity Water, which is every donor matters. Every person matters. Everybody that is connected to our mission matters.

And so, and we want to honor that. And so we have something we call surprise and delight. Charity Water, I know a lot of people use the same terminology, but we use it quite frequently with inside the organization and it’s how can we surprise and delight our donors?

And I think it showed up many ways throughout COVID where we knew that people were fearful, they were hurting. They had family members that were really hurting or suffering. And so we really tried to do many different things from creating funny TikTok videos to whatever it was at the moment of connecting with our donors over this time that felt very heavy, but doing so in a way that maybe hopefully provided a little bit of light and delight in their day.

Greg Sobiech:
And does this mean that in order to deliver on your mission and to drive the point home about what you stand for and to embrace these specific audiences, did you have to make significant investments in technology to enable this type of messaging, this level of personalization?

Ben Greene:
Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
And how did that happen?

Ben Greene:
Yes. And we are still growing. We are still in the process of trying to establish the infrastructure that would allow us to do it even more because there is, I would say priority one for us, again, as we think about looking in, it’s really, really fine tuning that infrastructure so that we can do the best job of looking in and providing the greatest experience for those who are connected to us.

But yes, I mean, it’s data informed. You mentioned donor journey earlier. This is something that we talk a lot about at Charity Water is what is that donor experience from the time that they say yes and they give to us that first gift?

What does the process then look like year over year, month over month, year over year? And how does that continued growth, how do we pull them deeper and deeper and more engaged into the organization? And we want them to feel a part of our community.

We want them to feel like of the Charity Water family.

Greg Sobiech:
So I want to share another quote because I want to really drive this point home and I want to drive it home because I feel that I work with many not-for-profits and I don’t hear the phrase donor journey is used more and more often, but I don’t, and maybe it’s just me, I don’t hear it contextualize around personalization, but I think that’s exactly what it is. And under the quote, right under the factoid, 72% of consumers say that they expect the businesses that they buy from to recognize them as individuals and know their interests as individuals and know their interests. This is your, I think Scott sending that Mandalorian, which I think Grogu is cute.

I think Grogu is very cute. And I actually have a, I bought my Grogu mascot a while back and I have Crocs sandals with a Grogu on them, by the way. I really love my Star Wars, but you know, Scott sending it Mandalorian said, he’s, he’s making it them feel like an individual, right?

You telling someone that now that you’ve donated $40, you’re actually providing clean water for one person. If your friends also become part of this mission, maybe you have, your impact has spread across others, right? That makes me feel like an individual.

Does that drive a deeper relationship? Hell yeah. And does that give me some delight from the relationship?

Yes. But it sounds like it’s enabled by technology and data and just your approach to the messaging. And here’s something else.

Brands demonstrate their investment in the relationship, not just the transaction, when they are personalizing, right? Again, they demonstrate their investment in the relationship and you spoke, speak about building relationships, building the delight, right? Having deep connections a lot.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess the question I would have is how do you know what their interests are if you’re not watching their behavior and the data is what’s is, what is informing that behavior, right?

It’s, it’s telling us what are they responding to? Uh, what are they, what is, what is moving them? And you know, even on the, the, the major donor side of the house for us, um, if we’re not asking these questions, if we’re not asking what brought you to, to us, what, what compels you to give each time you give, what are other organizations that you’re giving to on a And, and we want to know that because, you know, when we come back to you and we want to make sure that we’re providing opportunities for you that are aligned with your values and your, you know, what you’re inspired by.

Greg Sobiech:
Yes.

Ben Greene:
So I think for us, it’s, it’s really, you know, if you’re not using, if you’re not utilizing data, um, in that to inform how you’re connecting to your donors and what that donor journey looks like over time. Yeah. You’re, you’re incredibly missing out.

You’re missing the, you know, you’re missing the whole point.

Greg Sobiech:
And look, this is something that we didn’t rehearse this, but, um, you know, third party could be deprecation, large changes that happening right now in the industry driven through privacy regulations. Right. And, um, I always tell brands that first party data looking in, right.

Who are my best super donors, super fans, and actually also knowing who I shouldn’t be acquiring, not because there are bad people, just because I have a limited marketing budget.

Ben Greene:
Sure.

Greg Sobiech:
And there’s actually, if you look at direct mail, I always like looking back at what has been done because history does repeat itself in direct mail. We’re very used to suppressing lists and very used to actually allocating dollars to those lists that perform the best, right. This is really audience first marketing, but where does it start with your own first party data?

You understanding your data behaviors and driving decisions, driving media allocation through that lens. That’s right. Now there’s a story of a video that was posted online about water.

I think it was a 19 minute video over a hundred million views right now. And that one piece of creative, that one message in that one channel enabled you to almost conquer one audience and then sort of scale this up. Actually, you, you were able to look in one audience with that video and then I feel like you were able to look up or look out.

Ben Greene:
Can you talk about this? Sure. So it actually, it came right after that, that kind of Daniel Ek conversation of, you know, you really need to be thinking about the Spotify.

Greg Sobiech:
Yes.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. Conversation. You really need to be thinking about monthly recurring donors and how you can create this, this, this program for good and providing clean water for people.

And so yeah, we developed a, this was, this was before my time at charity water. And actually I’ll tell them myself a little bit here. How many years ago was this was in 2016.

Greg Sobiech:
Okay.

Ben Greene:
And, and Scott, Scott and I were, were friends before I, before I came to charity water, our CEO and founder, and he sent me the video and it was still kind of in its final rough edit phase, but he sent me his video. He said, Hey, I’d love to know what you think. And I, of course I responded with, Hey, I think it’s incredibly compelling.

You know, where, where do you, where are you planning on using it?

Greg Sobiech:
What was inside of the video?

Ben Greene:
It was 21 minutes.

Greg Sobiech:
Okay.

Ben Greene:
And it was, it really talked a lot about Scott’s story and kind of his upbringing and his kind of transformation into this idea. He went from a New York city night club promoter to now leading one.

Greg Sobiech:
Which by the way, when I first heard that story, that’s, that’s, that’s not typical.

Ben Greene:
Yeah, that’s right.

Greg Sobiech:
That’s right.

Ben Greene:
So it tells a little bit about his story, you know, and obviously it lays out the issue of, of, of, you know, the lack of clean water around the world. And, and so, but it was 21 minutes and this is great. Where are you planning on using it?

And I’m thinking, you know, okay, he’s going to bring a bunch of people into a room and show this video and we’re going to, we’re going to put it out there. We’re going to put it online. We’re going to use it.

And, and my internal voice said, this is never going to work. Yeah. People are going to watch a 20 minute video.

Greg Sobiech:
That’s right.

Ben Greene:
I think even eight years ago. Yeah. So, you know, 20 minutes of, and you know, the joke is on me.

Here we are. And thankfully they, they, they move forward with the whole project and then put it out. And, and it’s you know, there’s no telling how many millions and millions of dollars that this one video has raised.

And I would recommend for anybody, it’s just the spring video for charity.

Greg Sobiech:
What do I look forward to?

Ben Greene:
The spring video, spring video, spring video, charity water. And it will be the first thing that comes up. And, um, but it’s, it’s really incredible, you know, story of, of, of the organization and the organization’s, um, uh, uh, impact on the world.

And then for several years, we, we really, um, you know, utilize this video to tell our story and to bring on, to acquire, um, thousands and thousands of spring members who came on and joined and joined the mission. And it also was just a narrative. As I think back on my own nonprofit journey.

And as I look at charity waters history, even, I think there are moments in time where a single channel becomes your growth engine. It becomes what fuels you. Yes.

I think the mistake is one trying to do all of them at one time. Right. Um, or, or two thinking that just one is going to be your only growth channel forever because, you know, what we saw from 2016 to 2019 was that our monthly recurring this, the spring, that program, that experience for donors was our growth engine.

Greg Sobiech:
And this is again, general donors, right? These are like, how much are we talking about per month?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. So the average gift is around $26 per month. Okay.

Greg Sobiech:
Yeah.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. So just, just people like you and me, regular, most, most people can, can, can join. And, um, and so, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, that was what enabled us to, to really expand and grow our impact and providing more clean water for more and more people over those few years, 21 and 2022, but really drove a lot of that growth was, was really on the high net worth individuals who were stepping up, um, and, and really giving significant kind of transformational type gifts.

Greg Sobiech:
And that was our driver. I assume. I’m sorry.

That’s millions of dollars.

Ben Greene:
Oh, yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
Yeah.

Ben Greene:
Uh, you know, a lot of seven figure gifts and those types of things. So, you know, it’s, it’s interesting to kind of see as, as the organization continues to mature.

Greg Sobiech:
Yeah.

Ben Greene:
Um, uh, the idea is that, is that you would kind of have all of these different channels working in concert with one another. And we talk about that donor journey. Yes.

Someone might come in as a spring member and then they want to give a $15,000 gift and then they want to maybe even join the well.

Greg Sobiech:
Um, so I think this is especially interesting because you guys, well, many nonprofits have been around for quite some time. I think majority and they’re used to corporate donors. They’re used to foundations, right?

Ultra high net worth individuals. And in my experience, focusing on again, individual giving or general donors, people who give 26 bucks a month, that to me feels for those not-for-profits asset, not an afterthought, but it’s a, by the way.

Ben Greene:
Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
And you started differently.

Ben Greene:
Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
If you were talking to someone who works for an established not-for-profit and you were advising them, you were maybe on their advisory board, maybe you were coaching them and they really want to lean in on creating a general donor program or someone gives them 10, 20, 30 bucks a month. What would you tell them?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I mean, for one, I always say whenever I’m advising any nonprofit, I’m, I’m looking at where is your area of opportunity today? Okay.

Where is your zone of opportunity?

Greg Sobiech:
Is that looking in? It is. It’s looking in.

Ben Greene:
It’s looking in at your existing file and saying, you know, who are these people? What segment are they giving in and double down on that for a while and really focus and grow that, grow that for some, it might be major donors. If the, if your primary network is high net worth individuals, then that’s where you want to, that’s where you want to spend your time.

That’s where you want to double down. Now, now it, that might not be the same five years from now, five years from now, now it’s time to start growing this thing. And what does that look like for us?

You know, at the very beginning, Scott would, every once in a while I would say, you know, I’d almost rather see a million people give a dollar than one person give a million dollars, because for him, it was the idea that this, this is going to be a movement. And as I talked about earlier with, this is a, you know, it’s about creating this, this you know, generation or movement of generosity as much as it’s about solving the water issues around the world. Um, you know, that is a critical part of, of who we are.

And so it’s inviting everyone, you know, we had a little girl who, who, you know, sent in her, her allowance money one time and, and, you know, she sent it in to, um, and I, I can’t remember what the exact amount, I want to say it was $8 and 13 cents. Right. And it was some change and then a few dollar bills and things.

And with a, with it came a little letter and, um, we took that, went to her and said, can we share this story? And, and made a whole campaign out of it. I went out to our audience and said, you know, this little girl gave $8 and 13 cents.

You can do the same. Some of you can give $81 and 30 cents. Some of you can give $810, you know?

And so, um, you know, really taking these, these, um, stories and experiences that we see every day at Charity Water where people are giving sacrificially, you know, at times.

Greg Sobiech:
But you guys inspired generosity, uh, through looking at the whole value chain, meaning the kid resources program, right? Where you’re helping parents. Cause I want to riff of that example.

You’re helping parents make it easy for their kids to be philanthropically minded. What is that?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. It’s interesting as I have been in the, uh, the nonprofit space now for over 20 years, over the last 10 years, I think so many of my conversations have been with some of our, our major donors, donors that are giving $10,000 plus annually. So many of them are raising kids that they want to make sure that they’re raising compassionate individuals.

They’re raising generous kids. And, and so, uh, at Charity Water, we’ve really taken that to heart. We want to, we wanted to resource and equip parents.

Um, we wanted to, we also just have loving kids and compassionate kids that are trying to do what they can. They’re setting up lemonade stands, they’re doing, you know, whatever it is at their schools to, to raise money for Charity Water. And so, you know, for us, it’s about how can we better equip them?

And so, you know, we’ve, we created a video series called the journey video series, which you can just, you can go on the Charity Water website. It’s right there. Um, and, and just, uh, using, utilizing kid resources.

Every summer we do, um, something called our tiny heroes campaign. And we’re, we highlight a few of those kids that are doing amazing things and having incredible impact, um, and providing clean water for people. So, um, we’re really trying to, um, you know, uh, hopefully one resource, but to inspire this idea of this movement of generosity.

Greg Sobiech:
I think what you’re saying is that, um, if I am a not-for-profit and I want to be durable and I want to be future-proofed. Yeah. Because so, so many of the marketing leaders I talk to in the space, uh, you know, they have an aging list.

Direct mail seems to be a big thing, right? Still with many NFPs. They want the fresh blood.

They want to go after younger audiences.

Ben Greene:
Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
They struggle being relevant. They struggle with knowing how to reach those audiences. Yeah.

And if I look at me, there are some causes where I donate 10 bucks a month. There’s a handful where I will donate 10,000 a year, right? Maybe not, not consistently, but occasionally.

Sure. Then we, as a company will donate 50,000 to someone. So it’s not, there’s not one persona meaning we are all complex multifaceted.

And I think what you’re saying is that if I can have a program that speaks to me as a parent, me as an individual, me having kids, me as someone who can give maybe 25 years ago, 10 bucks a month. Yeah. And maybe right now it’s $10,000 and maybe in the future, you know, I would love to be in a position where I can donate several million dollars.

Not right now, not today. Yeah. But you know what?

Maybe in five, 10 years, I’ll be exactly there. And if I’m donating 26 bucks a month to charity water right now. Yeah.

And I’m part of that mission. And I know that with $40, one person gets access to clean water. And I know that you guys have separate bank accounts and I know that you want to, you know, create a kind of a mission of generosity, right?

Yeah. And of course I’m talking about charity water, but I’m really talking about any other non-for-profit out there. Anyone that is mission driven.

I think that you are going to be that non-for-profit that I will specifically want to donate that million dollars to in 10 years. Yeah. Because you have taken the time to establish that relationship with me because you have had the North star that has stayed consistent.

Yeah. Is this it? I mean, am I, you know.

Yeah, absolutely.

Ben Greene:
Absolutely. Creating brand loyalty, you know, understanding. And again, I think for us, we truly approach this from the standpoint of even if the $26 donor is giving us $26 for the rest of their lives and that’s all they can ever do.

That’s great. Sure. Of course that matters.

And so I think for us, it’s, it’s how do we provide these incredible experiences for everybody along the journey in every single area of, you know, whether they have greater capacity to give smaller capacity to give, we can all make a difference. And, and so how do we inspire each and every one of those? And that’s a part of that journey piece too, is how do we talk to those folks?

Greg Sobiech:
And it’s part of, you know, it’s goes back to what we said earlier. What we do is complex. Marketing is awesome because it is ambiguous, right?

It is emotional. It is financial.

Ben Greene:
Yeah.

Greg Sobiech:
I mean, look, business, you know, when I, when I talk to other business owners, what is business about? It’s about psychology and money. It’s about emotion.

And you have to also make sure you have money in the bank, right? You can’t just emotion and you can’t just have money. You have to have both.

I think that that’s what marketing is also about. If you’re a CFO, it’s not about emotion. It’s about money, right?

If you’re just thinking about, if you’re a creative shop, it’s about, yeah, you can say it’s about, you know, money and, but it’s really about emotion, I think. But a marketer is about emotion and money and technology and data and messaging and mission, personalization, right? That’s right.

Ben Greene:
That’s right.

Greg Sobiech:
It’s freaking overwhelming. And focus, focus.

Ben Greene:
Well, you know, this is the looking in, you know, I think so often in nonprofits and one of the biggest issues I see is them trying to do far too many things. And we struggle with it at Charity Water too. You know, we’re not perfect by any means.

I think everybody does. Part of our, you know, part of what we have to decide daily is really this idea around focus. I was hanging out with, he’s actually one of our very generous donors.

He’s the producer of the movie Elf, you know, Todd Komernicki. And he was saying, he said, you know, Ben, he said, no is one of life’s greatest vitamins. And I thought one of life’s greatest vitamins?

No. And he said, because it nourishes you for what you’re actually meant to do. And I thought, oh my goodness, let’s take that right into Charity Water and let me apply that now.

Because, you know, if you, you can do so many things and as you, you start to stretch yourself so thin that you compromise quality and you compromise excellence. And can we decide to do a few of these things really, really well? We have very smart people at Charity Water.

There is no shortage of ideas. And I think for us, it’s deciding which ideas are right for right now. What are we going to tackle?

How are we going to do it? And really focusing.

Greg Sobiech:
It’s funny how the art of saying no, right? The permission to protect myself from doing too many things, like your example of, of your donor for the director or producer of Elf, the movie, which is a great Holding movie. So you guys actually decided right now to say no to being lower in the funnel.

And you decided to say yes to being 50-50 top and bottom and allow yourself to be okay with screwing some things up and yet succeeding at other things.

Ben Greene:
That’s right. Did I hear that correctly? That’s exactly right.

That’s exactly right. Yeah. I mean, we could put all of that investment into the bottom of funnel and we could pull that lever and we could pretty much scientifically understand about where we’re going to land.

Or we can take half of it, put it in that bottom of funnel, take the other half and say, we’re going to take some risks on some things. We’re going to step back.

Greg Sobiech:
Give me an example of something. So of course that 21 minute video, 2016.

Ben Greene:
Which was an investment, by the way.

Greg Sobiech:
Top of the funnel.

Ben Greene:
It’s not cheap to create a 20 minute video.

Greg Sobiech:
Pretty risky move. Risky move. Right.

I’m sure that wasn’t cheap. And why not just put those dollars into paid search, for example. Back in 2016.

So give me an example of something you guys are thinking about this year, if you can share. That’s risky top of the funnel, but maybe it’s, I like this word, terraciting. A good friend of mine told me this.

It’s terrifying and exciting. So is there something that’s terraciting that you guys are working on that’s in that 50% top of the funnel?

Ben Greene:
Yeah. I don’t want to give too much away. Because I do want to have a little bit of surprise element.

Greg Sobiech:
I don’t know anything about this.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. So we’re working on some things built around the summer Olympics right now.

Greg Sobiech:
Of France.

Ben Greene:
Some commercials and what we might be able to do to talk about, to highlight this idea of water changing everything. If you look back on some of the historical campaigns that Charity Water has run, we’ve done the water changes everything campaign where you look at a plate of spaghetti and it’s the hard pasta noodles, right? With red sauce poured over it.

And we say water changes everything. You look at a baby bottle where it’s just the dust of formula in the bottom. But that’s it.

And we say water changes everything. There’s these kind of provocative type of ads that we’ve run. We’re drumming up some new things for the summer Olympics that I think are going to be really, really interesting.

Greg Sobiech:
I think it’s the July, correct? That’s right. In Paris, if I remember correctly.

That’s right. So do me a favor. This was awesome.

It’s great to be here. No, thank you. Thank you.

So give me a summary, right? We started by talking about looking in, look in, look up, look out.

Ben Greene:
Yeah. You better do a real deep dive of who you have right in front of you before you spend all of this time, energy, and resource on reaching out. Because what people often overlook is all of the incredible opportunity that is right under their nose that they are standing on top of.

I think it’s interesting. I think about the parallel. Charity water is working all around the world, providing clean water for people.

Often this water is not far below their feet. They just need the resources to drill it, to get it. Right.

And so build your infrastructure, let data inform your decisions. But look in, look in, because a lot of times the greatest opportunity, the greatest resource is going to be right below your feet. It’s going to be right there, right in front of you.

Greg Sobiech:
Ben Greene, Chief Revenue Officer, Charity Water, 20 years of experience in the industry. So many amazing lessons, so many great examples of how marketers can create what feels like exceptional value through the practice, the discipline of being obsessed about, may I say, doing fewer things well. Yeah.

But also there is an element of the art of saying no. Ben, thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me.