528. How to Foster Trust + Connection with Your Brand (NMS Replay) - Shelley Diamond, UNICEF USA

Meet Shelley.  She’s a passionate builder of global brands and businesses, with expertise across communications disciplines. As the Chief Marketing Officer at UNICEF USA, she's all about building connections and trust at scale. During the Nonprofit Marketing Summit, Jon and Becky sat down with her to discuss UNICEF’s journey to redefine its brand identity by leaning into trust, authenticity, a deep understanding of its audience and a renewed commitment to the mission🌍 She also shared lessons learned along the journey, key steps her team took to elevate brand relevance and strategies to respond to evolving needs. While you’re here, watch the “I Am” video Shelley mentions to see these concepts in action 🎥 You don’t want to miss this convo. 

💡Learn 

• Overview of UNICEF USA
• How to Foster Trust and Connection with Your Brand
• Responding to Your Audience
  
  

Today’s Guest
Shelley Diamond, Chief Marketing Officer, UNICEF USA

For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/528.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:05

If you can't tap into their values and their passions and their purpose, if you can't be culturally relevant it's a big thing we focus on you can't be relevant. And if you can't be relevant, you will be trusted, but to a very small group of people.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 3: 3:22

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 2: 3:23

And this is the we Are For Good podcast are for good.

Speaker 3: 3:30

Podcast. Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 2: 3:35

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 3: 3:44

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 2: 3:55

So let's get started. Hey Becky, what's happening?

Speaker 3: 3:58

Oh, I'm so excited to be here. We are talking about fostering trust and connection with your brand because y'all giving is personal and transformative. Change happens when people align with the values, the needs and the aspirations on your mission on this really deep level and as marketers, we just have this really unique opportunity to foster that connection at scale.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Can you believe we got to sit down with Shelly Diamond, cmo at UNICEF USA, for this conversation at the Nonprofit Marketing Summit man? The room, the chat, was exploding that day and we were just having so many takeaways that we're thrilled to bring it to the podcast. Today we're going to be diving into UNICEF USA's journey to redefine its brand identity by leaning into hello, trust, authenticity, deep understanding of its audience and this renewed commitment to the mission.

Speaker 3: 4:46

Yeah, what a rock star. I mean. Shelly is this passionate builder of global brands and businesses. With this expertise across an array of communications disciplines, we have the stars in our eyes talking to her, and she's really sharing lessons learned along the journey and just key steps that her team took to elevate brand relevance and strategies that are really responding to the evolving needs of our world. Shelly is this amazing mentor and champion of women in the workforce and she also loves her rescue grandpup. So, without further ado, Shelly, get into this house, Hi so nice to be here.

Speaker 2: 5:21

You know, Shelly, we want to give you a chance to tell a little bit of your story, but we know you're unflappable From just the minutes we get to talk to you about the work that y'all pour into. It takes a different type of person to be able to lean into some of the hardest challenges and see some of the hardships. But tell us a little bit about your story, Connect the dots of where you came from. What connected you to this work of pouring into one of the most prolific missions on the world today.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Yeah. So, first of all, I'm incredibly lucky to have this role at UNICEF USA. It's actually I didn't realize it was my dream until it came true, and I can say, indeed, it is the dream come true. It's beautiful. So my name is Shelley Diamond.

Speaker 1: 6:00

I joined UNICEF as the chief marketing officer in 2018. And that was after spending the entirety of my career at YNR in various roles running the New York office, running big global clients and, importantly, also running our social impact practice. That was always, always my passion and I had the opportunity to do that during my career at YNR. But even before that, I'm a first generation daughter of a Holocaust survivor and honestly, giving back and helping the world be a better place is in my DNA. Um, you know, every day, my mom would say you are so lucky to be born in this country where you have all these freedoms and opportunities. Do something with them. Um, and I mean, obviously, everybody has their own experience, but that and there's many other things, but that was the one that I thought okay, I'm here for a reason.

Speaker 1: 7:12

She survived. I'm here my brother, and he's also very much a purpose-driven person. So when I was given the opportunity to work with UNICEF, as I said before, it was a seminal moment in my life where my passion, my skills and talent and purpose sort of intersected and you know, every decision you made got you to this perfect moment. All of the things that I learned in my agency life provided me for the skills to do what I needed to do for the, for the UNICEF brand. So my job was clear to take this 78-year-old brand and make it relevant again. But we want to preserve all of the beauty of the brand and the trust and the stature and the esteem and the knowledge. But we really had to do some real work, growing our equity and driving momentum and, importantly, to continue to earn again.

Speaker 3: 8:15

this goes back to the subject earn the trust of the American public, which is obviously the topic on the table for today well, as someone who not only believes that you are doing a yeoman's job of taking care of the worldwide children's needs who are in crisis, but also thinks of you in response to emergencies, I just want to compliment you on this incredible brand that, when I see it, I see children's faces, I see I see humanitarian efforts, and so I really want to commend you for the brilliant job that your team is doing on the front lines and I think I love that.

Speaker 3: 9:00

You you asked this poll and I think this is such a good tip. We've got these tools in this house. We should use them. Thank you for using them. Marketers, you have tools in your own house. We should use them. But you are very much a research, forward facing institution. You value it and you've taken this data driven approach to engage, engaging all of your audiences, and I think that that's really helped build that trust component, built that brand affinity component, like, talk to us more about that and how that came to be in your ethos, yeah, so I'm.

Speaker 1: 9:34

You just said everything, everything starts with our audience. It's not about our brand, it's about how people interact with our brand, what people think about it, how they've internalized it, what it means to them at any given moment in time. So we started with audience understanding and I know we have a lot of nonprofit people on the line. When I joined UNICEF, I said, well, we've got to do this deep audience research so we can figure out ways to build the equity of our brand. And they were like we have to do what? Yeah, why? How much is that going to cost? What's it going to return on investment? And I'm really I mean that is a gross exaggeration because, in fact, my current CEO, he has not only respect, but he believes in the power of the brand to drive profitable revenue, to increase our audience size, to make us more relevant.

Speaker 1: 10:35

So, but that was then. That was 2018. That was the beginning of the journey, so we wanted to really get a much more nuanced knowledge audience. What do they care about? What do they say? Because people say one thing, but what do they do? Again, we're in a great position for that because you can do quantitative research. You can do qualitative research.

Speaker 1: 10:58

We do polling, both online and through an organization called Harris. We do a lot of the political polling and people say a lot of things, but do they actually do what they say? Well, we're also in that enviable position. We're a performance marketing organization as well. We know what they do.

Speaker 1: 11:16

So how do those two things drive knowing what people care about, knowing what they do, not just what they say. You have to earn their trust by respecting who they are as human beings. I mean, trust is earned, right, you can't expand your audience to the next generation, so the people who answer the call I mean I'm talking to people who know our brand, because we are all about children. That is our mission. We're a humanitarian organization that fights for the rights of children to be safe, healthy, protected and educated, but to the general public, you don't see that kind of polling, so we have to be able to expand our audience to the next generation of supporters. But you got to understand who they are. I think again, most nonprofits have older donors. We know them, they know us, we respect them. They give us money. We respect them a lot. They take advocacy actions. They're loyal. In fact, our research on brand, the first thing we did to understand how to build trust and get this nuanced understanding, is to understand what the people who love us think of us.

Speaker 3: 12:46

That is really smart.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Yep. And then what is an audience of people who are predisposed to be charitable, so they fit the profile, but they don't really know our brand. And to that audience, they really didn't trick or treated UNICEF but don't really know what they do. How do you build trust With someone who doesn't actually know you? So that really became our, our North Star. So we look at the data across the organization, because being data driven I mean it's not only a discipline of the marketing team. This expense extends well beyond marketing. This is about measuring.

Speaker 3: 13:37

Yes, preach it.

Speaker 1: 13:40

This is about measuring the impact of the work that we do. I mean, if you're going to trust us, you have to know what we've done with the trust, with the advocacy action, with the community fundraising. You know, with joining a club when you were a kid in high school or college. We have to also respect that donor journey. Where are you coming from? What is your preference? How are you engaging? What stories are resonating? What actions are you taking, when?

Speaker 1: 14:12

And you have that. You have it across your own channels, all our social platforms, our website, you have it our LinkedIn page. I mean we have a ton of knowledge about how you engage with us. We have our earned media. You know, Becky, you talked about coming out of PR. Pr is probably our most powerful brand building tool. Lift it, amplify it. Let's do it. Lawrence O'Donnell started talking about Malawi and educating girls and over the last years that he's been doing it, we have raised millions and millions of dollars. But at that moment in time, that earned media has to connect with your paid media. You have to recognize and respond to the channel and, again, not looking just at what they say but what they do, and then you start really getting a pretty deep understanding, but it's not just understanding and getting that information. What do you do with it?

Speaker 1: 15:11

So our challenge A and I, think many other spaces, is connecting the dots across all the data that we have in our organization, which comes in all different forms. I mean we have more data than we connect. So we're working there. That's a big initiative for us doing that and so that we can create powerful insights, because all this data is a lot of data, but what does it tell us about people? How can we act on what we learn? How can we build out a more thoughtful and supporter centric experience?

Speaker 1: 15:48

So, again, if you're tone deaf to what people want and what's happening in the world around them, how are you going to build trust? If you can't tap into their values and their passions and their purpose? If you can't be culturally relevant it's a big thing we focus on you can't be relevant. And if you can't be relevant, you will be trusted, but to a very small group of people. So we want to create an authentic bond, not just a transactional bond, which happens, by the way. We're an emergency organization. When something happens in the world that affects, we are out there and we are trusted to deliver and drive impact. We have a moment of huge engagement and then not so much, so we do have our work cut out.

Speaker 2: 16:32

I mean, yeah, Shelly, here's the deal. You're such a brilliant marketer, You're leaning into your data without losing your humanity. There is about 500 directions. I want to just go deep with you, but I want to kind of stay on this thread of trust building, because I think y'all have done this so well and y'all you've had the ability to elevate your brand amidst so much rapid change. I think of like coming into this role and then having the global pandemic, but then you overlay that. You're working with children that are in crises all over the world. I mean it's painful to even try to total those up. How do you do that? How do you really allow yourself to step back? Know what your vision know?

Speaker 1: 17:17

what your goal is and really elevate your brand, and not get distracted with all the things that are easily distractible. I would say we try, that's so honest, Us too. I mean we try. I think we have to understand that again, talking about the marketers, because I will say on the program side, they're just remarkable.

Speaker 1: 17:36

And they have to deal with emergencies that are happening all over the world, from we talked about this earlier Gaza to Lebanon, to Syria, to Sudan, to Haiti, to Ukraine, to Miramar. I mean, there's nothing but Unfortunately, I don't want to call it distraction, but trying to do a million things at the same time. But our job is to understand that what's happening in the world. Our job is to be the eyes and the ears, listening and understanding sentiment. While we're in that moment, it's like that, first, 48 hours after something happens, there's this emotional reaction, response, availability, and it's anger, it's sadness, it's helplessness, it's this deep desire to do something. So, number one, we have to hear. We have to hear what our supporters want. We can see what they want. We have to, sadly, listen to everything that's being said on social media.

Speaker 1: 19:48

We do use some AI so we can aggregate some of the sentiment. Basically, we're always on, we're 24-7 with our social listening tools and our polling data. So, on trust, we have polling data where we can look at the general pop and then our key audiences at a moment in time to see what their shifts are and act based on the activities that are happening with our brand and the world, and we can look at our trustworthiness and we can flex when we see that at least dig deeper. Ok, we just saw a dip in what happened. I mean sometimes no, and sometimes we don't know. A dip in what happened. I mean we sometimes know and sometimes we don't know, but we do know at the end of our fiscal or as we're ending our fiscal. Where we are right now is trust, is our number one attribute.

Speaker 3: 20:37

Well, I just want to compliment you because it's so beautifully done, and what I'm hearing you say is you have really built this culture of listening, and not only just listening but using that data to inform the next step. And I think we, as fundraisers and marketers and people in impact work, I mean there could be nothing greater to us than listening to what the community's needs are. What our beneficiaries needs are Hello, staff internally, what are our program managers need? What are they seeing? What are the people on the front lines need? And I really think that's such a great hallmark that you're lifting out and I kind of want to pitch this into the community too, and I would love to hear everyone's responses.

Speaker 3: 21:22

I want to know what you all are doing to build trust online, because I think we need a mosaic of ideas. What's working for you? How are you listening? How are you building that trust? How are you getting that drumbeat going of storytelling?

Speaker 3: 21:38

Because I want to drill into something that you all are doing, shelley, that I know everyone here is going to want to know, because we talked about trust-based philanthropy on the we Are For Good podcast all the time, but you all are using trust-based philanthropy audiences to unlock unrestricted giving, which is such a tough nut to crack, I think, and I want you to tell us one how are you doing this? And two, like, what is this unlock for you? Because we think there's probably some organizations out there that are either starting to really put a focus on marketing as mission in their brand, but also maybe even rebuilding trust with some of their brands. So we would love to know what UNICEF has seen and how you're able to do this and translate it to unrestricted giving has seen and how you're able to do this and translate it to unrestricted giving.

Speaker 1: 22:35

I'll start with the trust part, the unrestricted giving. Obviously, the first step is that I have to trust that you will be an honest steward of my money or my advocacy or whatever it is that I give you. So some of the things we've learned. To build and maintain trust, again, you have to operate at the agility, operating at the speed of culture. It shifts so much so when an emergency is happening, and Ukraine as an example, and people want all of their money to go unrestricted to Ukraine and it hits a point where Ukraine can't even absorb all that money because of what was going on initially. I'm talking the first 48 hours. You want to have an honest, trusted dialogue with your donors to say we would like to provide these funds to the parts of the world that need it most, because the impact that we can have on children around the world will be greater, and that's honest and that's fair and that's fact. But again, you're in a moment in time and so we have to be mindful of what it is that you are to build that trust.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Let's just say one thing about trust. It takes a long time. Let's just say one thing about trust. It takes a long time 78 year organization it takes about eight seconds Lose that trust and it can erode over time. So you know, I mean again social media. Think about the brands and all the misinformation that's out there. So again, going back to building a strong brand, a trusted brand has one thing that is critical in the world we live in today and that is recovery time. I am not going to completely discount you because you've done so many great things and maybe I don't like what you're doing right now, but I know you are an authentic brand, authentic and transparent. Authentic is a brand attribute that leads to trust and sometimes we can think of some authentic brands and people who we don't much like, but you know what they're saying is who they are.

Speaker 3: 24:44

They who shall rename nameless yes, they are.

Speaker 1: 24:44

They who shall rename nameless yes, we know that authenticity leads to trust and transparency is a critical brand value. Getting back to unrestricted and trust-based giving is all about that transparency. If I'm asking you, but I'm telling you and I'm giving you a choice. If I'm asking you but I'm telling you and I'm giving you a choice, I'm having a dialogue. And if you have more questions, we keep this communication going. We continue to show you the impact of the money in parts of the world that you are not even aware. The level of emergency that Ukraine had, because the press in this country determines where the emergency needs are greatest.

Speaker 1: 25:30

Yeah, it's not always the case, so so I would say that the other I would say is that we also have an attribute that we're working very carefully to cultivate, called visionary. People want and trust, and this gets back to unrestricted giving too. If you're visionary, you have a view for what needs to be done in the future, and so the money that you give me now, given to me unrestricted, it's cross-cutting climate change, it affects education, it affects nutrition, it affects health, it affects adolescent girls, it affects children all over the world. So you just have to tell people, you have to educate them, you have to give them, let them educate themselves. I don't want to be so pompous to say we have developed a strong, cohesive brand voice that captures our positioning, which we shorthand as badass do-gooders audience. It's shared internally, it comes directly out of the work that we do and it's the enabler for delivering to children everywhere in the world.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Again, if I believe that you have a vision for here's the other thing with restricted or unrestricted, will my money help? Look at this world oh my God, people are. These kids are starving. What is my $10 going to do? But if we say, trust us, if everyone felt that way, we would have a much bigger problem than we have now. But if we can raise unrestricted funds and give the money to the countries that need it most at a moment in time, or the initiatives or doing things today that will actually help them tomorrow, doing something with excess water today so when the next drought comes they're prepared, giving things that are sustainable, so we get out of that. Everything isn't about an emergency. So I mean, it's hard to do and I understand it, because we have metric around Charity Navigator. That just does not tell the story.

Speaker 2: 27:54

Yeah, it's true. I think, shelley, this is such a superpower, especially for fundraisers that identify as marketers A lot of them in the room today is that, this vision, what we're calling people into, that is how we're going to change the world. I think it's a superpower to be unlocked. And so you talk a lot about audience. I want to start to transition about audience, because this is something we can all relate to. I mean, give us an example of how just listening and understanding what your audience is saying changed the direction of maybe how a campaign went and, as a result, that probably built stronger trust. Yeah, I love campaign went.

Speaker 1: 28:27

And, as a result, that probably built stronger trust.

Speaker 1: 28:28

Yeah, I love that question and I thought of so many different ways to answer it. And, to your point about hope, I just decided to answer it in a more hopeful way. So we and again, I'm assuming many others on this call have the same issue how do you bring in youth, how do you bring in Gen Z, how do you get past the I don't trust the man? You know, how do you give them hope when they think we've screwed up their world right? So we went into a piece of research with an assumption. Well, we knew because we have a, knew because we have 30,000 youth who are part of either a high school or college club, and we knew one of the top, top issues on their mind is climate change. We also made assumptions that, just like the rest of us, that there's huge anxiety, eco-anxiety, and it's a thing, right, it's an actual conflict that happens especially among the young. So we decided to do a piece of research I think it was done in 13 countries and what we learned was our audience is, in fact, passionate about climate change, but listening to them and seeing the answers to their questions, we saw that actually, what they wanted was not to be reminded of the anxiety of climate change. Like enough, you keep telling me all the horrible things are happening from climate change. But they were optimistic. They said give me the tools, the learning, the education, the support. And we said wait a minute, it's not eco-anxiety, it's eco-optimism. That's the space that we have to begin to identify, starting with our youth audience, but taking it much broader. And we have an incredible group at UNICEF and an organization that's embraced this with both arms, that our thought leadership platform, which we were developing. We were going to kick it off with eco-optimism. That absolutely was a time when we learned something from the, the future of our organization, a group who everyone covets.

Speaker 1: 30:58

Let's look what's going on politics. We all want Gen Z and what we saw was, yes, they don't really trust. Actually, they don't really go to social media when it comes to things like that. They go to influencers who they follow, who they believe are the experts in that area, actually believe that government, particularly at a community level, can be game-changing. But what they don't know is how do I go? How do I, how do I engage um in a way that's effective with government officials, what, what can I do to make this change? And then here we are because we are. This is what we do Advocacy, policy change at the local level, at the federal level. We're doing green skilling because we're working on climate resilience. These are the things that resonated with them. And now this isn't about give me a donation, give me a. Join us, join the mission, join the movement, and that's what we did.

Speaker 3: 32:01

Okay, let's, let's all just geek out about that for a little bit, because I think all of us could say we have some eco anxiety. But marketers know something, and it is that words matter, the way you position messaging matters, the way you invite people in matters. And so I'm really going to challenge everyone to kind of take this UNICEF approach, which is this instead of the cynicism, first, let's take this like activation and optimism and grit and moxie and let's like put that out in the world. And now you have a video, and I know you have brought a video that kind of illustrates some of this. So we want to tee that up. Do you want to give any? Just like some context.

Speaker 1: 32:50

First, yeah, because obviously, everything you said. First of all, thank you Geeking out on something I saw You're doing it. I'm so proud of you my heart burst. Thank you, Very appreciative. No, we back to the youth, and it's not just the youth. We want our supporters to see themselves as representatives of the brand and as brand champions, Because we all want our brand supporters to be brand champions. Again, we have a very for a brand perceptually giant, we have a remarkably small supporter base. So how do we bring in people who can see themselves in the mission? And we came up with this idea, which we will show you, so that we could find a way for people to see themselves, so that they will want to be more involved in our mission. So that's my lead into the video.

Speaker 4: 33:48

I am the student who lent a hand and started a thing and took a stand. I am the runner raising funds to share via truckers and workers and helpers, by air. Pass on that box, deliver that smile. I am the teacher who gives voice to a child, a community calling to keep hope soaring. I am the doctor, I am the nurse, through time zone, war zone and weather adverse. For I am the child, a natural survivor whose future looks brighter, whose mood is much lighter, thanks to people like her and people like you, inspired as a team to build a child's dream. We are UNICEF. We won't stop working for children.

Speaker 3: 34:45

Okay, who feels inspired to go join UNICEF after that and I'm not saying because Orlando Bloom was front and center there in the hoodie at the end, but that was such a human way to approach the work. What do we all have in common? We were all children at some point. Work what do we all have in common? We were all children at some point. We remember that vulnerability, that fear, also the optimism, the hope. I think that is such a video and it's such a call to community and activation. Brilliant, john, do you want to emote?

Speaker 2: 35:08

I mean, yeah, I want to emote because we talk a lot about, we geek out about is the donor the hero? Is the beneficiary the hero? This is the collective, is the hero? Like to me, that is what we're stepping into a better way to storytell. It connects to community-based marketing that we talked about this morning with cameron. It's about building this collective energy that we're in it together. No one's above each other. So, yes, I love it. Yes, I have the chills. I'm radiating with all the commentary.

Speaker 1: 35:33

I feel all those hearts okay, so she'll oh go no, you said something and you don't even know when we first launched. We Won't Stop. It was through the eyes of our badass do-gooders in country offices. We're making things happen, putting their lives on the line every day. It just breaks my heart when people say things in social media about our workers who are in the world, that I mean they really, truly are putting their lives on the line, doing things to get emergency support to children that you can't even imagine. Flying out of helicopters, you know, driving in boats, going on mules it's really quite remarkable and at scale, I mean 10,000 blankets, we're talking 250,000 blankets. Trucks and planes.

Speaker 1: 36:20

It's really something. But to your point that's, we won't stop Now, it's got to be. I won't stop, right, right, because I am UNICEF. It's not just they, it's not just the donor or the hero or the recipient, it is the community, and so thank you for saying that. And we don't just leave them at the end. So if anyone is interested, they could go to our website. Well, this isn't there yet, but when we have it, come on, let's do a little telethon right now.

Speaker 1: 36:51

Great stuff on our website. When you do go to the landing page from this campaign, when you do go to the to the landing page from this campaign, it gives you a way to join us and, by the way, we're not just asking you for money. You can join us by learning more, you can join us by taking an advocacy action and, by the way, it wouldn't break our heart if you also wanted to join us to give us money. But the point is find a way. These kids are so far away. The work we do is so far away. How do we sort of bring it to you in a personal way so that you feel the impact of what you've done in some way?

Speaker 3: 37:31

You've made it so relatable, I feel like to the one, and you also mentioned something that I don't want anybody to miss, which is how are you asking your audience and your community to activate, if you?

Speaker 3: 37:42

are only asking for money. You are leaving so much on the table, because really celebrating in community now what someone can bring, it's story, it's network, it's lived experience, it's testimonies, it's opening doors to other people, and when you can value someone for what you can bring, they're going to be your donor and your believer for life. You talked about impact. I just want to double click on that, because we need to know how to measure impact, and I think that's something that every marketer struggles with, and we specifically want to double click on this for the tiny nonprofit who feels like they want to do it just as well as, maybe, someone as colossal as UNICEF. So talk to us about what measurements are important for your team to pay attention to, and how does that actually inform the strategy later on?

Speaker 1: 38:35

Yeah, so we I mean we have different levels of measurement. We have our brand level measurement through Harris Poll, which really gives us really, as I said before you have, sentiment, and we look at that data versus our we don't like to call them our competitors, our comparators, right, so we can see. But we also need to see how to continue to drive momentum right. We want to be a momentum brand. That's about being visionary, intelligent, daring, forward thinking, because that's what people want, and so we are looking at that all the time.

Speaker 1: 39:12

We also have a paid media campaign and our agency shows us not only how much money we've raised through performance marketing, but the attribution of brand and other brand moments and activities to driving new donors to engage with the brand. And we also look at our website metrics so there we can see who engages with what story. We look at all of our social channels and all the social listening tools to get a sense of sentiment and we ultimately, of course, get the dollars generated. So we also do a lot of qualitative. We've got a built-in, as I said, 30,000 kids. We don't do enough of it. We're going to be doing more market segmentation now to get a deeper understanding beyond just demographics, lifestyle. We're really pushing hard and we're almost there, creating personas.

Speaker 1: 40:10

So, when you can, turn data into a persona and I know that. You know Becky is okay. We don't really care how old you are. More important to know you're involved in your community. You give money to children's charity. You know we know more about you as a human being and things that you care about. By the way, you also have the um giving potential to be maybe a mid or major donor and you work in a large corporation where you can influence how social the CSR activities. I mean you're a whole person, so we want to under your. You live in Washington and you can help us advocate for children's rights. So we really are trying to move from just demographics to personas and we are on that journey and it's long and it's, but it's going to yield results. I know that it will.

Speaker 3: 41:05

We're so proud of you and we really love to celebrate story on our podcast and in our community and I want to know just like what is a story of generosity, a philanthropy of kindness that has stayed with you in your lifetime that you might share with this audience.

Speaker 1: 41:25

There's so many, yet not enough. I'm going to. Actually, about a month ago I went to Ghana and we went with seven donors. With seven donors, we went into the country office and I knew about the programs because we've you know, we've learned about them, we read about them, we see the reports out on the impact of them. But we walked into the Ghana office and sitting around the table were the most remarkable people that I have ever met, from the nurses, the doctors, the teachers, law enforcement official, community leaders.

Speaker 1: 42:04

And then we met the adolescent girls. We met them in the hospital vaccinating their children. We met them while they were being instructed on family planning in a very careful way. We met them at their schools where they were bringing their on family planning in a very careful way. We met at their schools where they were bringing their babies, because the teachers found a way that these girls, who had babies way too young, could continue their education. We heard the stories of the girls that did continue their education and their plans to become engineers and teachers. We talked to their mothers. I mean, it was okay, I believe. I believe I don't want to insult the men, but I believe these young women are going to change the world. They are.

Speaker 1: 42:49

Back to unrestricted giving. Our donors who came to that Ghana trip, who went specifically for one thing, said wait a minute. These young girls are affected by everything in this country, and so how do we ensure they get the resources they need? First of all, hopefully, preventing child marriage so that they don't have babies at 15 and 16 years old. But if they do, let's give the money to the educators so that they can find a way to get care for the baby, so that the girls can finish high school. And it goes on and on, and it's wonderful, and it's hopeful, and it's impactful, and it looks to the future and it's sustainable. So that's my thing.

Speaker 2: 43:38

I mean, my goodness, yeah, we could sit and just hear your stories and just rooting for the work that you're doing, the way that you're doing it and we like to as we round out every podcast. Really, shelley is a human like reach out and follow her work on LinkedIn and her incredible team that surrounds UNICEF. We're just so honored to have this time with you today. I wish we could keep going for the next two hours. It's such an honor, shelley, thank you. What an honor. Thank you. This has been great. Thanks so much for being here. Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.

Speaker 3: 44:13

We'd love for you to come join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. Sign up today at weareforgoodcom. Backslash hello.

Speaker 2: 44:24

And one more thing If you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community. Thanks so much, friends. Can't wait to our next conversation.