Meet ImpactUp - coming to a city near you!

Meet ImpactUp 🎉- the gathering for social impact leaders ready to shift the sector - for good. It’s a reimagined virtual experience for changemakers to unleash our collective power + impact on July 11. By day, we gather virtually to listen, learn, share + begin to shift. By night, we’re tapping the We Are For Good Community to organize local meet-ups in 15+ cities across the country activating the day’s conversations. Tune in to the pod to hear the heart behind this event directly from Jon + Becky. Then join us at impactuprising.com. We can’t wait to see you there! 🙌

Episode Highlights

• Meet Impact Uprising (0:50)
• Impact Uprising Theme (4:30)
• The vision behind an Impact Uprising (7:30)
• Getting activated (10:20)
• Meeting up locally (12:00)
• Reimagining the professional development experience (14:05)
• Catch the replay in We Are For Good PRO (18:00)
• It’s time for a shift (22:20)

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

Register for ImpactUP: July 11th!

Registration is live! Head over to impactuprising.com to learn more.

About our Sponsor Jitasa

Jitasa comes alongside missions to specialize in bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services exclusively for nonprofits. If you’re looking for a financial partner who truly understands your mission, visit jitasa.com to learn more.

About our Sponsor Percent

Percent helps nonprofits find new opportunities to save by unlocking product discounts from the world’s leading software companies. This month we’re partnering with Percent to highlight LinkedIn’s discounted tools for nonprofits. Ready to get started and begin accessing discounts from the world’s leading software companies? Sign up at weareforgood.com/percent

Meet - Good Friends - our listener support community here at We Are For Good. Good Friends comes with perks - exclusive episodes with Jon and Becky - including the Good Brief - our monthly cliff notes of the greatest takeaways + lessons learned from that month, PLUS exclusive bonus content and AMA episodes where we answer your burning questions and tap our community of experts.

Head over to weareforgood.com/friends to learn more 🥳

Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:06

Hey, I'm John.

Speaker 2: 3:07

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 1: 3:08

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:11

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 1: 3:20

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 2: 3:28

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 1: 3:39

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

Speaker 2: 3:43

Hey, john, it's here, the day that we have been dreaming about, the announcement that we have been dreaming about, the announcement that we are bringing to the community. Like, how high is your excitement level right now?

Speaker 1: 3:54

It's like through the roof, oh my gosh. Like you just think about, there's been so many conversations that have come through this podcast.

Speaker 1: 4:00

We have met the most amazing people pouring into this movement, that are pouring into their missions, that are surrounding that. You listening right now in the podcast, like, we think, the world of you. You're pouring into what we call an impact uprising. But, friends, we're done just talking. You know, the moment is here that we want to move beyond just conversations and move into activation, which is why we are so excited to announce impact uprising is coming to you as an event. That's right, friends. We are turning the impact uprising into a, a quarterly event. It's not just a virtual event. Of course, it's inclusive and we're going to have the most incredible content. But then we're going to activate in local communities, powered by the we Are For Good community, in cities all over the US, to take us from conversation to activation. And we cannot wait. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 4:47

I keep saying, like we're taking we Are For Good and the Impact Uprising out for a spin, like the most epic spin in the red convertible, and we are literally going to see what happened. Can I be honest? We have no idea what's going to happen with this event, but we are releasing Impact Uprising and it's a complete reimagining of a virtual summit experience. Who's it for? It's for impact leaders. It's for do-gooders, non-profiteers, like people who want to do good, to unleash their collective power and impact. It's happening July 11th and by day we're going to be hosting a virtual free conference. It's going to be conversations, it's going to be convenings to help awaken our collective power.

Speaker 2: 5:31

And then by night we're tapping the we Are For Good community, as John mentioned, and guess what? Communities all around the impact work to organize local meetups in 15 plus cities across the country. And why are we doing it? Because after all these conversations with you on the podcast, in the ecosystem, one-on-one, we have found that movements are activated at the grassroots level and large-scale solutions are found in community. We don't have all the answers, but we know we can figure them out if we go to the front lines and we are taking this car out. The top is down and we want you to be a part of it.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Yes, I mean this has been on our vision board. I'm I got to give Julie calm for a shout out. I mean we've talked about the unicorn.

Speaker 1: 6:15

Yeah, go, julie. I mean we talked about convening for a long time, but we want to build, always with community, and to do that we've had a lot of conversations of how should this look and how can we make sure that it really meets you where you're at but also gives you tangible, actionable ways to move forward. And so our vision with ImpactUp is doing this quarterly, so the first one in July is going to be followed Every quarter. We're going to be coming to you with a new ImpactUp because we want to create a cadence of gathering and talking and really shifting, being the shift that we want to see in the sector and that's where the real unlock comes.

Speaker 2: 6:48

It's the stacking want to see in the sector and that's where the real unlock comes, it's the stacking, it's like totally stacking, and so we're taking everything that we've learned, and here's the thing.

Speaker 1: 7:00

This is not your grandma's fundraising conference. It is not your grandma's summit, although she's welcome.

Speaker 2: 7:02

Yeah, your grandma's totally welcome, and her knitting circle. If they're doing anything to help impact their community, they're a hundred percent welcome. But here's the thing it's like. We want to unleash what is there and under the potential, so we're doing something pretty disruptive and that's our core value and that's probably why you're here and we're taking one topic. We are diving full into that lane. We have one theme. There is no breakout sessions. There is one track and, john, do you want to talk about the theme that we're going to be attacking from the front end? We're going to surround it with community and we're going to activate community into this one topic lane.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 7:38

I mean, we're always, you know, taking a bird's eye view of like what are the conversations we see, what are the movers and shakers that are, you know, disrupting the status quo doing in the sector?

Speaker 1: 7:47

And we keep coming back to this idea of power and you know this word because we talk about it so much.

Speaker 1: 7:56

So, with this day, with this theme of unleashing our power, becky and I don't think this is going to be solved in a day, but we do think that we could unpack the concept of power in the nonprofit, social impact sector over the course of a day and talk about the ways that it's holding back our funding, holding back how we're pouring into our missions, holding back us as how we step into our own agency and power and start a conversation that then can go in local communities and we can sit across a coffee shop or a brewery or a community center, wherever these impact up gatherings are happening, and say, what does that look like here in Baton Rouge, what does this look like in Tallahassee, or how about New York City? And have a meaningful conversation to start changing, start shifting, start using the power of the collective to influence change on a massive scale. And that's the vision. We're starting with power, but we have so many chapters to unpack in the future that we want to hear what you think too.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Yeah, I mean, this is not Becky and John's conversation. In fact, becky and John will maybe just be the maestros connecting the dots, but we want the voice of the community to be upfront, and I got to drift off a word you just said there and you talked about shift, and I want to say something to the audience and I want to share something really personal that we've been seeing. If y'all felt the shift in the energy in the sector right now, we have had more people come to us in the last couple of weeks and say something's happening. We're not sure what it is, but something's happening and we feel the shift happening and what we think that is is that there are a collective of tens of thousands, if not millions, of people who want to rise up right now and say you know what? The systems that we're working in are no longer serving us.

Speaker 2: 10:43

The way that we want to evolve has got to be that we skin that has been holding us back. We are going to lean into our power and that is what this conference is about. And if you believe in working, living and being a whole human in this work and working differently and being open to new ideas, that is what Impact Up is all about. And, john, we got to talk about what we believe is like the grounding belief of Impact Uprising, because this has been the North Star, for we Are For Good since the first day. We hit play on episode one and we want you to see yourself in the Impact Uprising. So, john, like unpack that from your perspective, because I know we have kind of a different lens on it and I love that everyone can interpret it in kind of a different way. But what, what were you always thinking, cause you're the one that coined this term.

Speaker 1: 11:38

I mean, here's the thing.

Speaker 1: 11:39

I think it's like twofold and everything always has a deeper meaning as you kind of reflect on it.

Speaker 1: 11:44

But some table stakes to me is that through my life and career, I fundamentally believe at the core that movements happen from within, like they have to start from within, and that comes down back to a belief, like maybe it's one person that believed that they could change the world, that they could do X thing starts with that one person, and so we have to address the inner work, the inner beliefs that are holding back us, our ability to build movements or to step into our power, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 12:12

But where I think impact uprising comes into, this is like to build a movement. To build an impact uprising, we have to work on our insides first, but secondly, we have to have this belief that the impact that we're creating in the world is not just the impacts, but for us, an impact uprising is this revolution that happens in the people, that become more charitable, that step in by volunteering or by sharing or by giving you know, in all of those ways, because that transforms you from the inside out. So when I think about an impact uprising, you connect both sides of that of like if we could get more people to just get involved with causes that they're passionate about and that revolutionizes us from the inside out, we really could transform the world. Like that's how a movement begins. That's to me what impact uprising is all about.

Speaker 2: 12:59

I mean, think about this, y'all. Trend number three this year is activate the one and release your movement. If you can really get that one person to believe that they can be the change in the world, however that shows up for them, whether it's volunteering, whether it's giving, whether it's hitting share on a social post that really leads to awareness, advocacy, change, whatever it is, we want you to feel like you are the one because what happens here, like you are the one, because what happens here we want to ripple. And so impact uprising is us saying that we're at a critical moment in not just our sector, not just in the places we live individually, but in this moment in time we need a revolution of kindness, of generosity, of activation, of getting involved in the change we want to see in the world. And we think that by locking arms for impact another John McCoy brilliant quote we believe we can do so much more. And y'all, everything about the stats show us. This is so good for us, it's good for our bodies. When we give back, it's healing and centering to us, it helps the one-to-one, it helps the person on the receiving end. Can you imagine if we can all get under that belief that we can be the change that we want to see in our community, in our jobs, in our lives and in this world, and that is what the impact uprising is, and we hope you believe that you are a part of this, and so let's think about this through, like this theme of reclaiming our power.

Speaker 2: 14:35

Here's what we really want you to think about. One, we want you to sign up and we want you to bring a friend. Heck, we want you to bring five friends. If you're a rabbit fan like, bring five friends, because we want to shift the power in the way we work. So, three chairs for vibrant cultures. We want to shift the power in the way we work.

Speaker 2: 14:49

So three chairs for vibrant cultures. We want to shift the power dynamics and funder grantee relationships. We want to shift the power and communication and ownership of our narratives and our stories. We want to shift the power in work life and balance and we want to shift the power and how we own our work. So come on in. We are going to unpack this with so many brilliant friends. We are not talking in a vacuum. We are bringing and curating friends from around the country, at the world actually, who are going to come into this and they're going to speak into how we can get our mindsets right, how we can get our teams on board, how we can start the 1% shift to really activate it on the ground level. And, john, I mean we got to talk about the local activation piece because we're going to be gathering by day and that's a free component and we want you to come and listen.

Speaker 2: 15:43

We got so many amazing friends who are coming in to speak into this and not just keynote and teach, but to support you and give you a pep talk and give you inspiration and give you wholeness and wellness and peace in this work. But the real magic is going to happen at night. So you got to talk about this because this is really impact uprising unleashed.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Yeah, I mean, it's the, the way that this is timing with my family's road trip around the U? S. You know I's the the way that this is timing with my family's road trip around the U? S. You know, I've gotten to meet people that I've never gotten to hang out with face to face on the road, and it's just solidified the power to me of community and we believe in the power of digital community. That's happened in through we're for good.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I mean, you know, none of this would have existed if we didn't have the power of digital community in the middle of the pandemic, right. But as we think about how do you really take something from conversation to activation? The heartbeat of that is empowering the people around this movement to gather in their own local communities and figure out what does this look like here? How can we support each other, how can we partner, how could we serve alongside one another toward this end? And so what's happening is there's already 15 confirmed cities and this could just grow. If you're listening today and you're like oh, I want to do that in Duluth, we want to have a meetup in Duluth Come on.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Duluth, get in here. We'd love to have you, but how it looks is we are giving the most basic of frameworks to people in this community that want to gather. Hey, here's how you get a registration link, here's how you. You know the times put it perhaps, but we want the communities to take these events and make them their own, and that's where we said at the top of the show is like. Some are going to be in breweries, Some are going to be at smaller locations, but the idea is connection. Some may be just a handful of people, which is beautiful and great, and some may be a lot bigger in some of the metro areas, but the idea is beyond networking. It's community building and continuing the conversation. And you know it's going to be fun because we're going to bring the fun element to all of this.

Speaker 2: 17:39

These are not going to be stodgy, also not your grandma's networking experience at all. They're actually going to be fun and we're going to bring the joy and the activation.

Speaker 1: 17:51

So on impactuprisingcom you can see all of the local meetups that are already confirmed and if you're interested in hosting, there's information there. But I got to give a shout out to all the hosts. They're all listed on the website, like the hosts that are stepping forward.

Speaker 2: 17:59

We love you so much.

Speaker 1: 18:02

It's so beautiful to see this happen in real time, and just the belief in, in how this can grow and ripple Like we are just so excited. So do you want to talk about how, overall, this is like a different type of professional development experience?

Speaker 2: 18:14

Yeah, I think that we want learning and growing and evolving within yourself, within your organization, to be absolutely key. So we put one track in. We're talking about power, we're going to talk about how it relates, because we want less overwhelm. We want the content and experience to be centered in taking care of the whole human in this work. We want to take care of you, not just the work. We want these conversations, the content and all of these convenings to be curated around these guided topics to really inspire collective action. You all that's not going to surprise you. We are an activating community, but we also want it to be entirely accessible. That's why we're making the virtual event free. We want it to be virtual free, but we also need that component of having your voice in the mix. So having that local community building is totally disruptive because we want you to be an active part of guiding the next conversation.

Speaker 2: 19:15

John mentioned this earlier. These are quarterly events. We're going to be attacking the systemic issues and we want to upend them. But we know we can't do it alone. We're going to have to do it person by person, city by city, community by community, and it's going to start with belief. But I also want you to know we're not just going to talk to you, we're going to give you tools, we're going to give you playbooks, we're going to give you all the things to help you feel unstuck. And, guys, we keep saying this year, joy is a vibe and joy is going to be weaved throughout this entire conference. I hope you feel seen. I hope you feel a sense of belonging.

Speaker 2: 19:51

And the thing that makes me most excited, john, if I'm being honest, is we're going to take all of your comments at those local meetups. Our hosts are going to push them back up to us at the we Are For Good content table and we're going to see what's trending and we're going to see what people are struggling with and we're going to curate more content around that. And we're going to see what people are struggling with and we're going to curate more content around that and we're going to keep solving, like talking and figuring out the solve for these issues. And we want you to fall back in love with this work. We want you to feel motivated. I'm getting chipped up. I want you to believe that you can still change the world and we can still be healthy doing it, that we can make an impact in the space that we're in right now. And the fact that you keep coming back to this podcast means you believe.

Speaker 2: 20:40

And our number four core value is it's not just about giving, it's about belief, because if you can build a movement of people who believe, if you can build a movement of people who believe, they will show up with more than donations. They will show up with their stories, they will show up with their network, they will show up with whatever you need. If it's bringing eggs from your chicken to the event so we can spread those out, I don't know what you're bringing, I don't know what you have, but knowing that you are a human being who can create impact in your life, in your corner of the world, and if we can put that belief on fire, that is what we think the impact uprising movement is going to be, and we are hella honored that you would choose to join us in this.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Oh my gosh, how do I even follow that? I mean, friends, don't miss this. Registration is live, Like we want you involved. It's live at impactuprisingcom. Like Becky said, bring your community, bring your friends, bring your board into these conversations, because that's how we can start a bigger movement and conversation around it. And so when you get there, I wish I'd got to put a plug in here, because a couple of things we've been working behind the scenes is that we don't want content to just come for one day and then go away and something talking about power. That's going to be a lot of people pulling toward change and a lot of hard conversations. We're bundling up that replay access to the day so you can really take it as almost like a kit back to your team or back to whatever influence you have. And so one way you can upgrade and help power this movement is by upgrading to the full replay access of impact up. It's going to give you access to all the session recordings and slides and there's going to be worksheets as well, so you can find that full replay access on impact uprisingcom. But y'all, there's one more toggle switch that I just got to talk about and that is we are for good pro. You may have heard us mention it, but I got to break this down because it's really been re-imagined to a two or a 3.0 level here with impact up. So not only is pro now going to come with all access to all the impact ups quarterly, but y'all.

Speaker 1: 22:45

This is your hub. You know how many DMS and questions that Becky and I get of like hey, I remember this one episode where you talked about boards and I just wanted to figure out and share that with my team. Yeah, we have created this as a hub. So every piece of content created by we Are For Good in the last four years is fully searchable and has an AI wisdom tool built so you can ask a question and get feedback of a referenced you know notes of. Not only here's the answer to your question, but here's the four episodes that you can listen to in the exact place that are going to talk about this.

Speaker 1: 23:17

This is hub in the AI generation that's curated from experts. You trust people that you can actually follow and it's community at its core. You know it's just going to get better as we use it and figure out how people are looking for content. It's going to help us create more content. So by being part of pro, you're a member of we Are For Good, You're powering the impact uprising and you're going to have this not only resources at your fingertips, but you have the pro community around you, because our core belief is that you don't need to do this alone and you don't have to Like. We built the place where you can do in lockstep, lock arms with fellow people in this community that want to go further, together in the impact uprising.

Speaker 2: 23:53

Can I tell you why I am so obsessed with Pro 4.0? You said 2 or 3.0. I'm taking it to 4.0. It's 4.0. Do you remember?

Speaker 2: 24:01

Everyone remembers this time where they have been in a meeting with either their manager, their team, and they're like we really need to figure out how to build a digital campaign. We really need to figure out. I remember our boss coming to us and saying you got to build an employee campaign, and what do we do? We go to Google, we like, type it in. We get some ideas, but we don't get the specificity. I am geeked out by the fact that I can type in ethical storytelling into the search bar and boom, not only do I get the experts, I get the content, I get the links and I can figure out who's doing it. Well, and it's like this is the premium experience for somebody who really wants to elevate and go further.

Speaker 2: 24:45

So what we're saying is impact up, releasing this movement out into the wild and watching what it does in community. For those of you who are like I am bought in and I am ready to take my org to the next level. We are modernizing and we are going to make this organization a movement. Come into pro. We want to have you there, but y'all, this whole conversation, this whole concept is and we are for good is all about everyone matters. Community is everything, and so we need you to be that ripple and we're so excited to just start this conversation.

Speaker 2: 25:21

So I got to give a shout out to our presenting sponsors, who really believed in this event. Classy and GoFundMe RKD Group came in as these presenting sponsors, so grateful for your belief, and also got to give a shout out to Attain Partners who came in and said you know what? We want to sponsor all these local activations because we really want these individuals, these hosts, these people on the ground to feel activated, empowered and supported. So thank you to those sponsors who are coming in. There are more. There's so much more to come. We're going to be unpacking. Who's speaking? What are we talking about? We're going to. Swag is going to be a component, because why the heck not?

Speaker 2: 26:01

And the thing is is we want you there, we want you in the mix and however you want to show up for this event, for this movement, I can tell you it is needed, it is valued and it is deeply helping us move the needle on the shift that we want to see in this world.

Speaker 1: 26:19

Yeah, friends, I hope you can feel the enthusiasm in our voices, but we want you to head to impactuprisingcom and get registered today so you can lock in your spot as part of this event. But listen, we're going to use the power of this media ecosystem, we're going to use the power of these conversations in this community to truly lean into collective power together, to lean in collective impact together. We feel like this is an unlock, not only for our sector, but for us as humans, to be more connected and more engaged in this work than ever before. So, friends, have we hyped you up? You got to be at Impact Up.

Speaker 2: 26:53

Come on over. You are already our friend. Now we want you to be a believer in this movement. It is time for a shift, friends. It is time for a massive shift Impact work, whether you're a nonprofit social enterprise, a volunteer, if you're just somebody who's doing good. We all must evolve, and it's going to take a big community. It's going to take a lot of voices, a lot of lived experience, a lot of different expertise, but we all have that same passion to do good. This impact uprising is building and it needs you. And a movement is best when it's organized and it requires believers, and we hope that you're one of them. So it is time to impact up. Let's be the shift. It is time for that revolution of kindness. Let's make good, let's make it just, let's make it abundant, let's make it inclusive. So please come on in, join us. We would be honored to host you in our house, See.