538. How It's Built: How Usher's New Look Built an Impactful Marketing Playbook - Kimberly Williams

Meet Kim. She’s a marketing visionary whose experience has taken her from the newsroom to Usher’s New Look🎤, where she connects Usher's celebrity brand and the nonprofit organization to create opportunities for young people. She’s breaking down their robust marketing playbook that prioritizes authenticity, relationships and marketing fundamentals. Tune in for lessons on disrupting traditional nonprofit marketing and scaling impact through strategic yet creative planning🌟

💡Learn

• How Usher’s New Look has impacted the lives of 50,000+ youth 
• How to develop an impactful brand strategy
• Pro-Tips + Lessons Learned

Today’s Guest
Kim Williams, Chief Marketing Officer, Usher's New Look

Episode Highlights

• Kim’s story and journey to where she is today (3:15)
• Usher’s New Look + Their Marketing Strategy (8:40)
• How It’s Built: Your Marketing Playbook! (13:35)
• Usher’s New Look’s Programming (21:25)
• Pro-Tips + Lessons Learned (27:00)
• A powerful story of philanthropy in Kim’s life (35:30)
• Kim’s One Good Thing: Being your true self is the key to success. (39:30)
• How to connect with Usher’s New Look + Kim (41:15)

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:05

Hi friends, welcome back to how it's Built, a series where we explore the intricate and often overlooked elements that go into crafting impactful change brought to you by our friends at Allegiance Group and Pursuant.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Yes, they're fueling nonprofit missions with innovative solutions in digital ads, websites, technology analytics, direct mail and even digital fundraising too. If you need a partner in amplifying your brand, expanding your reach and fostering that unwavering donor loyalty.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Visit teamallegiancecom and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 2: 3:47

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 1: 3:56

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: 4:07

So let's get started. Becky, I see you trying to hold back that smile.

Speaker 1: 4:11

My dimples are going. I just want to sing Usher, usher, usher. I'm like my Gen X self is so excited for this convo today.

Speaker 2: 4:19

I mean y'all. I feel like this is like the Super Bowl of podcasts happening here. We're going to thread this all together. It is just a huge honor to have Kim Williams in our house today. She's the Chief Marketing officer at Usher's New Look and we are going to talk all about his incredible work on the philanthropy side and how he connects really his platform that he has built over so many years and fans and really channeled it for good. But y'all, to know Kim, to know her work, to see how she is threading her experience and leadership into this mission, is really remarkable, and so this is part of our how it's Built series, because we're having Kim to come into our house today and tell us about how to build your marketing playbook. And y'all, kim is the strategic visionary. She's the senior marketing leader. She brings over 25 years of diverse experience, from television media to management, consulting and advertising, into her role as the senior marketing executive. Now she is renowned for her adeptness at crafting impactful communication. Hello, thank you for that.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Kim's expertise lies in deeply resonating with target audiences to drive brand engagement and profitability. You know, some of those things we kind of tend to forget around the nonprofit space. But we need to be profitable too in our work, but she serves as this liaison between a world-renowned celebrity Usher's brand. That is just such an incredible platform in this nonprofit organization that's facilitating the utilization of this opportunity to generate opportunities for under-resourced youth and enhancing the nonprofit's visibility. So there's such a case study to unpack here. They're just really this catalyst for youth around the world to find their spark that's what we call passion and really to graduate and to reach their full potential. So this is not only just a cause that we're super passionate about, but it is so fun to just sit down and get a peek behind the curtain of one of the most prolific missions out there to hear how it works. Kim, get into this house. We're a little excited that you're here. Can you sense that?

Speaker 3: 6:04

Hello, thank you all for having me.

Speaker 2: 6:07

Well, it's such an honor. Yeah, I mean you know you've listened to the podcast, so you know we don't like to just like jump right into marketing tactics. We want to get to know Kim. We want to know your story. Take us back to some of your formative experiences and what led you into this work.

Speaker 3: 6:21

Okay, I am truly a seventies kid.

Speaker 3: 6:35

So going through just the iterations of that, like growing up, I always, you know, wanted to work in the news business, like that was something that I was passionate about from the time I was like in middle school and seeing, like Oprah Winfrey and visionaries like that in the media space, especially for people who are underrepresented, in those arenas and those spaces, especially for people who are underrepresented in those arenas and those spaces, I just always felt like I wanted to be able to tell stories, like watching a documentary or reading about someone pivotal, pivotal in our history.

Speaker 3: 6:58

This always intrigued me and so I knew I wanted to be a storyteller from the time I was in middle school and so I'm, with the college Shout out to Ohio University's journalism program. That's where I was trained as a journalist and after undergrad I was a journalist for CBS station for about four years and, you know, loved it and was excited to reach that milestone, but then decided, you know, I think I want to do something a little bit more creative and so back in the 90s, late 90s, northwestern kind of kicked off this program that was really interesting to me, all about consumers, right. They had this bright idea and I always try to make it sound bigger than what it really is.

Speaker 3: 7:38

But they had this bright idea to like listen to consumers in the 90s, late 90s, right, and somehow I feel like we're still trying to do that Right, and somehow I feel like we're still trying to do that Right, Like so that's a never ending thing.

Speaker 3: 7:51

But you know, just really understanding consumers, the psychology around you, know how they think, what motivates them to buy and purchase, and this, really, technically, I could have just went and got a psychology degree. I always say that, you know, like I could have just been a psychologist to really kind of understand consumer behavior. So I transitioned out of the news business into formal marketing and so that led me to a world of management consulting where I worked in communications divisions, helping, you know, large clients with mergers and acquisitions and internal branding, external branding. And then I decided to go into the world of advertising and so there are just advertising. I always just say it's like a dream role, right, Like it just gives you an opportunity to take nothing and create something that's imaginative and resonates with people, hopefully, and build brands and do cool things. And then the synergies of teams, right, All of those things that come together to make something big, hopefully. So that's really been my journey.

Speaker 3: 8:58

And then, you know, did advertising for quite some time and, you know, with my last agency, loved it, loved it had a client that was just you know, amazing gave me like great opportunities to do the real cerebral things that I love as a marketer, which is a lot of analytics and data building and working with solutions, teams to come up with e-commerce opportunities to sell more stuff but got burnt out. And so I literally got burnt out, yeah, and seven days a week and just being on right, and just kind of felt like you know, there has to be a way for me to leverage the things that I know for good and so let that roll without really knowing what I was going to do next. Like that's how burnt out I was. My parents were not happy, Like who puts a job without a job you know that's old school but I've really just felt like you know, there's, you know, step out on faith, there's going to be something that aligns with where I am now, and so I ended up meeting the president and CEO of Usher's Midlip through a mutual friend, and so she'd been trying to connect us for almost a year and a half and we were just both too busy and so I was like you know, I have some time now, I just want to see what's going on.

Speaker 3: 10:04

And met came to what we call the Spark Center here in Atlanta and got to witness the programming and action and literally I fell in love and I said, you know, at the time it was 19 years going on, 20 that they'd been around and I'm like, I'm from Atlanta and I've never heard of you all. And I don't understand, because this is Usher's organization, Something you know, something's not right here. Like I can help you all build the visibility that you deserve because the work is amazing. And so that's how I ended up here at Usher's New Look.

Speaker 1: 10:37

What a great story. Kim, I just feel like you're my soul sister. I also started in the journalism school also and had that PR and marketing background and consumer behavioral marketing was still my favorite class my junior year. You get into the psychographics and the behaviors and you learn crazy things like that Strawberry pop tarts are the most purchased thing before a hurricane Like can you imagine the nuance, but it's so interesting and so but.

Speaker 1: 11:07

But I really value and appreciate that. You went through that entire news cycle into advertising and marketing and you understood the way the sector works and now you're applying that to impact purposes. So lucky usher, lucky us. We want to talk about this marketing playbook and we want to kind of reverse engineer it. We want to talk about the result and then go back to the beginning to hear how you and the team built this successful marketing strategy that just led to phenomenal growth within the foundation. So give us kind of an overview of what Usher's new looks marketing strategy looks like today and what has your impact been.

Speaker 3: 11:47

Yeah, and so you know, one of the things I always want to say from a marketer's perspective when you're transitioning out of like a corporate or agency world, is that, you know, it's kind of like these hard skills versus soft skills, right, in the sense of, you know, nonprofits don't always have the same level of resources or budget to do the things that we would do in a larger corporation environment. And so finding that balance right of kind of not coming in and saying, oh well, we don't have access to the CRM, you know database, with all this segmentation capabilities and all the analytics tools that we need, you have to really be able to bring in your business sense but then being able to apply it in a way that's going to still be able to move the needle, knowing that you have a little bit of the less resources. So I just wanted to, you know, start off by saying that With our marketing planning, it ties directly into the overall goals and objectives for the organization, and so we have annual planning and are always kind of looking at okay, and really we have a five year plan, but every year we're looking at it to really just measure to make sure that we've reached our goals and what needs a little bit more leaning into, and obviously we continue to do the things that are working. So for us, again, like I said before, one of the main things was brand visibility. You know, we've never heard of you. We kept hearing that over and over and over again and it sounds very basic, but you feel like a brand that has a celebrity at the head of it in its name. You have to be able to leverage that a bit more to be able to make the impact that you want to be able to make and increase your reach from that perspective right.

Speaker 3: 13:26

But then also, programming is at the core of everything we do. Without our programming, we don't have anything Right, and so, being able to support our programming and be able to show and prove what we're doing, we work very closely with a PhD who helps us to be able to measure everything that we're doing, so then I can take that data and then I'm able to leverage the proof points of how we're doing and how we're doing it, the proof points of you know how we're doing and how we're doing it and, along with feedback from our youth and parents, to be able to make sure that we're communicating effectively to make those sponsorships and partnerships possible and making sure that we can clearly identify what would you get as a sponsor of one of our events or of one of our programs, just being able to make sure that we can always back that up, you know, with data. And so, again, going into partnerships to make sure that we can always back that up with data. And so again going into partnerships and strategic partnerships. We've really evolved by being able to lay the foundation for having access to data to be able to show, improve and back up what we're doing and the results. That's been a really important factor for us over the past couple of years is really moving into larger partnerships, that they get something out of it by being affiliated with us, and then we're also able to leverage that to be able to, you know, broaden our partnerships along the way.

Speaker 3: 14:39

And then, you know, from an additional perspective, storytelling.

Speaker 3: 14:43

You know we always talk about storytelling. I feel like it's a word we use all the time. However, you know, from what we do, I feel like I used to always say we're not getting the credit that we deserve, like when I walk into the Spark Center, we're in the middle of a session where we have 50 young people here that are learning from a mentor who came in from UPS or Procter Gamble or one of the local law firms, or one of our civic leaders one of our civic leaders. That's powerful. We are literally actively doing things to basically mitigate some of the challenges that we see in our world today, and so we need to I always call it, we need to get credit for that we need to show people what we're doing. If we're operating in a bubble, no one knows, and if we're not adequately telling our story in a way that's impactful, what differences are we going to be able to make to attract others and be able to not only gain followers but, I always say, build a community?

Speaker 2: 15:46

yourself. It's okay to shine a light on this because I think it's our natural bents to just kind of like be humble in that. But you, in even your own story, seeing it and like what that did inside of you and what it made, you want to like shift your life into speaks, to like the power of the program. So, kim, you're being humble, though a little bit, cause I I dug in and we got a little bit of stats. I mean this translated into 45% increase in media coverage year over year, 35% increase in social media engagement, 40% increase in event attendance.

Speaker 2: 16:11

I could keep going on, but it's paved the way for the partnerships that you talked about of just so much more visibility. So this is incredible. I want to like package up this playbook because we get to sit at your feet for a minute and like break it down to ask you how is it built? You know, so, as we think about some of the tactical steps to build something that has this level of impact, how would you, you know, share that, what are some of the core hallmarks, and maybe even start to take us into the steps of building a marketing playbook like this.

Speaker 3: 16:41

Yeah, I think you know one of the, there's a couple. Like I said, for us it was also just building the baseline right, Like really being able to build the foundational elements Because, again, when you're working in nonprofit, typically you just don't know what you don't know right. So when we're talking about, hey, hurry up, we need to do a campaign to help us raise funds for this particular program, okay, hold on, let's dial it back for a minute. What are we going to say? How are we going to visually show the impact of this program and why would people want to engage with us if we don't have clarity around our messaging and our visuals? So for us, foundationally, I had to really work hard to build the playbook as it related to brand standards. How do we look across the board? What are our key messaging statements that we want to be able to make? Who are we?

Speaker 3: 17:37

We literally started from scratch. When I say we started from scratch, I mean mission statement, elevator speeches, the brand guidelines, the visuals. We had to do that first before we could really just take off and run right, understanding also the narrative that we wanted to be able to speak. Okay, so for us, you know, initially we were very adult-led in our visuals and in our social, even how we communicated in email, or even if we communicated with someone. If someone communicated with our brand publicly, it was adult led.

Speaker 3: 18:12

We had to take a step back and say, no, we're servicing young people. This has to be a brand that you know resonates with the youth, because that's who we service. That is who we, you know, want to be able to. You know, we want to transform the lives of the young people that we serve. That's our goal, and so you know. Another thing that I'll mention is, if you notice, I haven't mentioned Usher in my strategic planning one time. Right, right, and that was on purpose, because initially, when I came, you know it was the request for, can you know? Hey, we're having an event, can Usher come?

Speaker 1: 18:48

Hey we're our school, every board member has suggested that in Atlanta, in a nonprofit, I can assure you, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:56

It was exhausting, it was taxing One, because you have a desire to want to help people. You want to be able to support what they're doing, right. It wasn't exhausting because of the ask. You want to be able to support what they're doing, right. It wasn't exhausting because of the ask. It was exhausting because we know Usher has his own brand and his own job. You know that he does very well, I might add and so it's not always feasible for him to stop what he's doing, to come and speak at someone's graduation ceremony Right. So early on. You know, when I was working with our president, I said hey, you know what we have to build this thing without Usher being a central character, because, in reality, he is our founder. It is his vision that we work in daily that has come to life in a magnificent way. However, we have to be able to tell our story on our own Right, because we're doing great work and Usher is a central character. However, we just need to leverage him whenever possible to be able to raise funds or to be able to get him engaged when we need to, from a strategic partnership perspective, or at our main marquee event for youth. He comes and does the sermon every year, but otherwise we need to be able to stand on our own two feet and highlight the work that we're doing, because it's amazing and we have enough storylines that we could keep people engaged, and so that's a whole nother. You know discussion around you know celebrity brand nonprofit, where people assume, oh, you have the funds because of who he is, which we know that's not the case, but finding the ways around that, to be able to stand on your own two feet based on the work that you're doing. So playbook includes all of those foundational elements and then, when you're ready to move into actual execution, it's kind of who is the audience? And so are we talking to youth around enrollment time? We want to get enrollment for our programs. Are we talking about the fundraising elements that we do every, you know, november, on Giving Tuesday? Are we talking to potential sponsors and donors that we host our annual tea in Atlanta, new York? Who are we trying to talk to and what is the purpose of that communication? And then building out a framework for the marketing campaigns, right? So then, ok, what are we? You know, how are we going to roll out this campaign? What are those clear call to action? So, again, we're not selling a product per se, a tangible product, but we do want to be able to get people to be actionable in what we're doing, and so is it. Support us now through your giving. Is it be a volunteer? Is it to young people, get involved and come to our open house in the fall. So what do we want people to do? And then, what channels are we going to use? Right Again, you're not talking about these complex CRM systems.

Speaker 3: 22:44

You're talking really about disparate systems.

Speaker 3: 22:47

So you got network for good, you might have MailChimp, you might have had constant it just depends on what you have.

Speaker 3: 22:53

But figuring out how to leverage those systems in a way that there's synergy, so that you can get the right analytics on the back end to be able to measure the success of the campaign and make sure that you hit the target.

Speaker 3: 23:04

And then don't even go back to segmentation, because that's a whole nother discussion around big databases that we just kind of dump people into based on them attending an event, but we are not able to kind of peel back the onion to see, like, how do we segment these groups to where it makes sense, because you know we might not want to email sponsors and partners about a youth event, right, unless we're specifically asking them to participate in a way that allows them to get involved from a mentor perspective.

Speaker 3: 23:33

So all of those things are baseline things that need to be done in order to create a successful campaign. And then let's not talk about the content creation element of it, right, and so you need videographer, you need a photographer, you might have assets in the you know queue that you know you need, but are those on brand and being clear with how you communicate to those content creation teams around voice messaging visuals, how that comes to life in a way that's going to be able to make an impact on social and get engagement and make people respond in a way that's important get engagement and make people respond in a way.

Speaker 1: 24:11

That's important. You are just so smart, kim, and I love the disruptive way. I really do value how simple you make it sound, but it's also highly disruptive for this sector and this market, and I think that one of the things that I'm hearing over and over in this how it's Built, series this through line is how are you measuring, how are you looking at your data? And I think that there's been a propensity in our sector to have this sort of marketing set it and forget it, kind of a way where we build up to the launch of an event, of a campaign or something, and then we launch and then we sit. It's almost like we freeze or get paralyzed in some way.

Speaker 1: 24:53

And I think you're talking about this evolved way, which again sounds so basic, but it's like no, we got to engage, we got to activate, we got to come back. Then we're going to iterate based on what we learn from that and the next time we come out, we're going to be better, we're going to be more segmented. We're going to iterate based on what we learn from that and the next time we come out, we're going to be better, we're going to be more segmented, we're going to be more focused, and I think that there's a lot of lesson to be learned there and I just think the way you packed it is really beautiful. So I want you to kind of take us back up to 10,000 Foot View, because we want to know a little bit about your programs. Give us a little bit about your programs, like give us a little bit of an overview of the program, and I want to know how marketing has helped scale them.

Speaker 3: 25:39

Sure, so our programming starts with really eighth graders. We have the beginning of how you engage with us. Your new look is powered by service we call it PBS, and powered by service is sponsored by partners. That allows us to go into different schools around the country. And so we start with like a middle school eighth grade class and we give them a leadership development training for the day. And that is, you know, one of the ways that we get young people engaged and just be amazed at just how impactful it is to just be able to give them that training for the day. And we talk about everything from leadership to financial literacy, to being able to solve a problem. We call it, you know, imploding the issue, where they're able to take a issue like mental health issues and come up with not only the challenge but what are the solutions. And so we are literally training them how to think like leaders and thought leaders, and that is a great way to get their interest peaked in the programs. So right now, actually, we're doing what we call PBS week. So we just wrapped up in New York this past week, it'll be in Atlanta next week, and then most of the time, with our sponsorships, we're able to go around the country to different schools and different programs and organizations who want us to come there just to be able to work with their youth.

Speaker 3: 26:47

For this, after eighth grade, then ninth grade, through 12th, you enter into what we call the Leadership Academy. With Leadership Academy that is a four-year program You've come into the Spark Center, orf in New York and Brooklyn and they get mentorship around different things throughout the whole school year and our programs are free. And so I say that and say, like it's literally, if you are enrolled in our programs, you're not paying for anything. Our programs are supported, you know, by our fundraising efforts. So it's an amazing opportunity for young people who the young people we attract are already natural born leaders, but most of them are coming out of their shell, right?

Speaker 3: 27:27

So this is for a young person who knows OK, I want to be able to get to college. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like, I'm not sure exactly what I want to be, but by the time that four years is up, most of our young people are not only peer mentors in our power by service programs, but they're also like leading within their schools and other activities that they're doing. So it's really amazing. It's like we talk about transformative. It is definitely that. And then we go into moguls and training. Moguls and training or MIT program, is for our college students. So once you graduate from high school, it's not over. We call it the family. That's hard to get out.

Speaker 1: 28:04

You are literally growing up with these kids. That is so cool. Yes.

Speaker 3: 28:08

Yes, and so you know, mog mobile and training is for college youth who at that point were still given the support to some of its wraparound support.

Speaker 3: 28:17

A lot of it's still the mentoring and access to weekly sessions with your program manager, a lot of gift baskets and things of that nature, but then help with internships as well, and so there's a really close partnership between myself and development to make sure that we're helping the programs team have access to the right partners at any given time, and the way we do that, again, is through a lot of storytelling, through a lot of. We have a lot of partnerships with our partners who come in and have a lot of employee volunteers for the sessions that they can come talk about a range of different topics, and so we're just constantly keeping our community of partners engaged and just always sharing with them. Here's what we have coming up on the radar. Here are ways for you to get involved. Our summit, which happens in July, which is coming up this year for us, is really I've really pushed for us to call it I call it the dog and pony show, which is you know we said a lot of advertising.

Speaker 3: 29:13

Right, it's like you gotta put on the dog and pony show, but that's a huge opportunity for us, cause I call it for people to be able to come and see the magic. Right, you've got a couple hundred young people in a room with so much energy, so much positivity. That is the time that we've been able to really invite our partners to see the proof in what we do, and so that helps to spark a lot of partnerships for the following year and new relationships that we want to be able to embark upon. So that's our programming in a nutshell. And then they move on to alumni, which we have a very strong alumni base. I'm thinking that they come back all the time and they're engaged with the young people. We're engaged with the young people and with them we're always talking about career opportunity. So it's not only is it just marketing or whatever role that you're in here, it's literally a lifetime mentor to the youth that we serve, because it's just that close and personal to you know, to what we're doing on a daily basis.

Speaker 2: 30:10

I mean what I love about this conversation, kim, I'm so glad we took time to talk about your programs because when Becky and I were dreaming of ever starting a podcast, of creating a table where people that we would probably never accidentally meet on the sidewalk, we could sit and have a conversation like this.

Speaker 2: 30:26

This is the power of getting out of our echo chambers, of only talking to people in our smallness, of our local communities, but what y'all are doing to disrupt, to play the long game, and how you show up and serve, and then to put that on steroids with this beautiful marketing plan. I'm just so rooting for y'all and I I can't imagine the long tail of doing it this way the rabid fans and the believers in this mission is just growing and snowballing, and that is unstoppable. So as we start to round this out, I've got to ask you for some pro tips, because so much of this work is trial and error and innovating, and you do that so well in the way you explained building this playbook. So I'd love to hear from you just some pro tips that you've garnered throughout your career that you would impart to everyone listening today.

Speaker 3: 31:10

Yeah, you know, again, I keep going back to data because that's where my comfort zone is, and so I've really learned a lot about embrace the data but trust your instincts more. I think sometimes we can be so stuck in terms of looking at the data, digging through it and I'm a geek at heart, so that kind of stuff I love it but then sometimes things don't add up Right Like it doesn't. Data isn't everything and it doesn't always give you the exact answers that you're looking for, and so being able to have that combination of analyzing and using the tools that you have to do that, but then also, after you've gained some experience, there's some ways to be able to trust your instinct, to know if you're going in the right direction or not, and then sometimes you kind of be able to use a little bit more creativity in what you're doing, right. So that's one of one of the things I would always say. Also, just being able to understand your audiences is really important in what we do.

Speaker 3: 32:06

When you're talking about fundraising, there's a, you know, especially post pandemic. I think that it's been tough. It's been very challenging to really have some of the same conversations the same way, right? I think you really have to be able to dig a little deeper and really be more granular with what you offer and differentiate yourself in ways that kind of challenge you to rethink how you've been communicating, how you've been talking about the work that you do. I think that we have to be very clear around what we're doing and how we want to accomplish our goals, so that we can clearly articulate that to other people in a way that they understand. And so to do that again, we go back to storytelling. Right, but storytelling is an art form because you have to be able to look at you know.

Speaker 3: 32:52

I always say you know, there are a lot of magical moments, you know, that happen when, typically, we're not really paying attention. You know there's. There could be an event or there can be something that we're talking about just in a general format, and there's some magic. There's that moment that just makes you tear up when you hear someone's experience and you know something authentic and it's something that's true, that you know people might not have experienced it, but they can. It resonates with them, right, and so I think catching those moments, um, like you said, you know earlier about, you know, just, we don't like to talk about ourselves, and sometimes it can be feel a little disingenuous to to capture a video in the middle of a moment where someone's sharing their story and there's a little bit of judgment that goes there, depending on you know how you want to be able to protect people and be able to be respectful, but then there are opportunities to be able to share in some moments that are true and that are authentic and that are rare, and so what we've done a lot of times is really ask for testimonials. You know that helps us respect people.

Speaker 3: 33:54

Some people have really tough beginnings and they're still in the middle of some tough life things Right, and so, with the work that we do, you have to be sensitive to that. But giving people an opportunity to have agency over their own story is very powerful, and you know, what we found is they can own their story. We don't have to recreate it in a way that doesn't feel authentic. And giving people a microphone is very powerful and it's a great opportunity to be able to help them explain why your organization has made an impact on them the way that it has. So those are some key things that I would say in terms of toolbox items.

Speaker 1: 34:33

If we were close and if I had your consent, I would grab your face and kiss both of your cheeks and just thank you for saying those things, because there's two things I want to lift from what you said that were so brilliant that I don't want anybody to miss, which is we talk often on the show that we get so focused on those hard skills, on trying to figure out what is the thing and what's the widget, and how many times that we get so focused on those hard skills, on trying to figure out what is the thing and what's the widget, and how many times that we forget about the soft skills and the humanity and that is the connective tissue that takes us and connects us with people long-term.

Speaker 1: 35:08

And so, yes, your quantitative data is so darn important, but it does not tell the complete story, and so that qualitative data is where I feel like your magic moments are going to happen. So, having this incredible background in media, you had to bring some of that into the organization, and we've got this trend right now that we're really watching in 2024, that media scales impact, and I would love to know just how that's played out with UNL and what you've seen that you've been able to leverage. That's been really successful.

Speaker 3: 35:45

Yeah, one of the first things I was able to do was bring on a publicist consultant, somebody who had their ear in the ground, who had the press connections already built, somebody who had their ear in the ground, who had the press connections already built. And then whenever we had opportunities, like I've talked about, with our big summit in the summer for our young people or any of the bigger fundraising events especially when Usher is included in those events we've leveraged the heck out of it. So one of the most fun stories as of late is, you know I talk a lot about seizing the moments and you know we can plan and plan and plan as much as we want to. However, there are some times where you just have to seize the moment. And, as a nonprofit working with a celebrity brand, you know we have a lot of dialogue right around what's appropriate to share, what's not appropriate to share, and so you know we're not entertainers, we're not trying to teeter on the edge of that, but we also want to be able to leverage our founders stories whenever we can.

Speaker 3: 36:42

So the big brouhaha last year was the Kiki Palmer concert incident where her husband, her boyfriend, was jealous and you know she was making a big deal out of it. Yeah, and so we had the night before the Disruptivator Summit. We had a fundraiser at Nobu and Usher was there, and so he's, you know, talking about his passion for UNL and why he started it, and he's standing in front of our Usher's New Look signage. It's perfect, he's placed perfectly. It's perfect, he's placed perfectly. And so he out of nowhere comes up with this joke about you know, he's the assassin and he'll steal your girlfriend. Or you know some joke around the Kiki Palmer situation. We all laugh about it. My videographer's captured it on camera, and so we're kind of dialing back after the event. I'm working with the content and looking at it, and my camera guy sent me the clip, and so I'm talking to the leadership team and I'm like I got to use this guy I don't know.

Speaker 3: 37:43

I don't know this is teetering on our. This is kind of going outside of our comfort zone, like we got to use it. We got to, we got to use this, like, first of all, yes, you know this is, this is a hot topic now. Yes, you know this is, this is a hot topic now it is. It does not relate to youth development, however, it is relevant. It's something that people are really getting a kick out of right now and he's literally in front of our signage.

Speaker 3: 38:05

This is a huge opportunity for us to be able to shine a light on Usher's new look, which people say we didn't know it existed, right, and so took the footage, edited it, worked with usher's own publicist to get it to where we were comfortable and pitched it to a couple of, you know, entertainment outlets and entertainment tonight picked up the story and it was amazing.

Speaker 3: 38:28

It was amazing and so you know we gave them, you know the the key communication points around usher's new look and how long we've been around, which at the the time it was 24 years, because now we're going into, we're in our 25th year and it was magical, right. It was kind of like. You know, we took something that we normally wouldn't have done. We pressed against kind of our own judgment of something that we would have normally played it a little bit safe on, because we don't like to get into the media takeout drama and everything else that could pop up in any moment. But it gave people an opportunity to learn about Usher's new look. And so I'd say, when it comes to media, yes, use your standard. You know media process and build those relationships and you know, do your press releases and all those things, but look for the moments that are going to give you the most buzz in some of the most unlikely places. So that's my advice there.

Speaker 1: 39:16

What a good story. It's like the Bernie Sanders mittens, it's like. I bring that up every time. It's like and you have a platform in TikTok and your audience is very much going to agree with that. So I think that was just brilliant, and we want to know a story that has changed you, that has made your life imprintable. Take us back to a moment of generosity.

Speaker 3: 39:39

You know there's so many. But one of the things that I realized early on, before I got into the work that I'm doing now, is, you know, you watch the news and you sometimes you can just feel so hopeless when you see these stories of people are in need or people are going through tragedy. And so I you know, years ago, just started being able to figure out you know what. You know, we don't have to be huge or huge nonprofit to do something to make someone else's life easier. And so at the time I realized that and this is before I had my own child that there were young people. At the time it was Cary Still Pits Orphanage here in Atlanta, which was one of the only orphanages left in the whole state of Georgia, and so I was able to meet with one of their caseworkers, and she was telling me that they had youth there who didn't have the support or didn't always have any but one in their family. They were just pretty much there on their own, and that was pretty sad. And so I asked her was there anything that we can do? And so she gave us an opportunity to start coming in every year and doing holiday parties with the kids, and so the caseworker would give me I'd say, OK, how many young people do we have? And she might say I have 50 kids. I say, okay, so she would give me their case sheets which had very, you know, personal information that shared a little bit about their background, shared a little bit about why they were there, which, if you read through those, you would be in tears.

Speaker 3: 41:10

And so I got to work and I started being able to ask friends. I'm like, OK, I need 50 friends. You know, I need people in my network to help. Here's what we're doing. I need you to take one of these sheets. It has this young person's story. It has their Christmas wish list. You know, I want these young people to feel as if they are supported and feel loved, and this is an opportunity for us, just as regular people here in Atlanta, to get involved and do something for someone else.

Speaker 3: 41:36

And so we called ourselves Friends Helping Friends, because it was just friends helping friends. Right, it wasn't anything around, you know. You know something to make people feel less than it was. Just, we wanted to be able to be of service, and so we did our holiday party for a good five or six years and then also started going back to do Easter as well. So that lesson for me really gave me an opportunity to see that you don't have to be some fancy nonprofit, you don't have to have your you know paperwork in order. And I'm saying that that's not important. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that you know, we all have the power to do something real. We all have the power to do something real and we all have the power to just take a minute out of our own lives to just do something that can help to change someone else's life. And we went back a couple of years ago and some of the young people remembered us that were younger at the time and they were just so thankful and excited. Thankful and excited.

Speaker 3: 42:36

And so you know, you can be a part of someone else's life in a way that you might not remember, but they will typically remember that for the rest of their lives. So that's a story that will inspire me forever.

Speaker 2: 42:43

We already liked you before that story, Kim.

Speaker 3: 42:48

This is why we're making me blush today.

Speaker 2: 42:51

I can't help but think of, just like the cornerstone of what y'all do, like this whole mentorship, like the power of passing it on, even the humility of Usher to say this isn't about me. It's about like helping each of us find a way to plug into something bigger than ourselves and everybody listening. Whether you're in nonprofit work and this is why I love our community so much, because not everybody is in the day-to-day work Some of us are running a social business that wants to have deeper purpose, or just doing different pieces of life, we can all pour into that in our own way, and so I love your friends. Helping friends. That's a beautiful testimony, oh my gosh. Well, as we start to wind down, we always ask our guests for their one good thing. This could be a secret to your success or a habit, or it could just be whatever's on your mind as you kind of think about the community listening today.

Speaker 3: 43:38

What would you share with us? You know I always believe in authenticity. Being your true self, I think, is one of the keys to success of a long-term career. I am who I am. I've had long-term work, relationships that I can call people from you know, my first career all the way to now. Just being able to be my true self and bring that to wherever I am and whoever I'm engaged with, I think is so important.

Speaker 3: 44:06

And the second part to that is relationships. You know, building relationships that are two way streets, right In terms of where, how can I support you? And I'm one of those people where I love to be able to connect the dots between people. So I hear someone say, oh, I'm looking to do this or I'm looking for a resource for this. Hold on a second, I've got somebody I can connect you with. So it's that authenticity and being able to be who you are. I don't care what color you are, I don't care what color you are, I don't care where you come from, I don't care what your religion is. It's being able to respect people for who they are and be able to be true to who you are and finding your group of people that can accept each other. For that, I think that's been something over my career that I'm very proud of.

Speaker 1: 44:50

Well, I just want to tell you, it comes through. It comes through beautifully in just 45 minutes. I just have felt every bit of that and the thing is, as I look at your socials, I look at your website, I look at what your team's created, and it's baked in there too. So well done, great culture. I just think this has been an extraordinary conversation and I know people are going to want to connect with you, kim, so tell us where you hang out socially online and what platforms and how they can connect with Usher's New Look.

Speaker 3: 45:24

Okay. So Usher's New Look. You can reach us across the board at Usher's New Look IG and TikTok. If you really want to see more of our youth voices is there on LinkedIn. It's a little bit more thought leadership where we're connecting you know with our partners and sponsors. But for me personally I'm also on LinkedIn Kim Williams, and then Marketing Life KW. That is like my moniker right that I, you know, so special of a marketing person that I had to have a marketing name.

Speaker 3: 45:56

And a brand and a logo Right right right, so yeah, so marketinglifekwcom is my web address as well, so I hope to connect in any time. Anyone need any resources or thoughts? Happy to always support.

Speaker 1: 46:13

So thank you for the way you're just generatively showing up in this world. I think I don't know where your end point is in your career, but this is a really special one and we're just really grateful for you to come in and just add all this wonderful content and ideas and creativity to the mix. So appreciate you so much.

Speaker 3: 46:33

Thank you both. I appreciate the work you do as well. I'm honored. Thank you both. I appreciate the work you do as well. I'm honored. Thank you all. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 46:39

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 1: 46:49

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. 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: 46:59

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.