[Music] welcome to the rcd group thinkers podcast uh this is a show for nonprofit marketers and it's really about the people who influence nonprofit marketing and fundraising and and unlike shows that talk about the craft of fundraising we focus on the people the pioneers the uh the thinkers right and uh and so like past episodes today we're going to be diving deep into The Inspirations and motivations behind some of the brightest Minds in and around the nonprofit sector uh this is the first epi
sode for us for 2024 and our 89th episode overall and we're thrilled for what this year has in store for you as listeners of our podcast before we we get into today's conversation I want to take the chance to introduce Kate McKinley who is the host of arc's newest podcast arcade group chats thanks Justin and uh hey everyone um I'm super excited for this opportunity y'all both know that the thinkers podcast is a long form discussion with people focused on topics of leadership and Innovation um an
d group chats is new show and we'll bring you short chats with people who are working at and with nonprofits um I'm super excited for this like I said we want to really peel back the layers of who they are um what they do and what daily life looks like for people who work in Purpose Driven roles yeah Kate we're we're super excited about it too I think rkd group chats is going to be a really cool way to shine light on some of the amazing individuals who are working for good and and compassion and
purpose are the heart of what we do in this sector so I'm excited to see some of these conversations uh for our listeners chats will appear in the same feed in the weeks between the thinkers episodes so you don't have to look for it anywhere else or go find it it'll it it'll come straight to you yeah Kate's coming straight to you we are thrilled Kate uh and and know that you're going to be able to tell some amazing stories of uh these wonderful people that we are fortunate to get to work with s
o uh speaking of Ronnie um our episode today uh really has an incredible uh an exceptional thinker Ronnie tell us about our guest yeah in the spirit of newness uh Stephanie Russell is our guest she's arcade's new Executive Vice President of strategy and decision science um she has a really amazing career Arc she's been 25 years years working through research and data and analytics in various roles um and then you know as she got more into her career it was applying that into the learnings from t
hat into marketing strategy so we we go into a lot of back and forth with her in this episode and for me one thing that stands out was how she's thinking about audiences and people differently um you know something that we're is it's moving to in the nonprofit space um and we'll get more of that in the episode yeah uh very excited to have Stephanie on uh to kick off the year and so uh before we get there uh listen we love our listeners and uh are so thankful that you choose to regularly spend ti
me with us and so if you like this episode please uh leave it a rating or review on the platform where you're joining us from your reviews uh they help us bring you more discussions just like this so with that let's kick off 2024 with Stephanie Russell on rcd group thinkers wait I didn't hear the automated voice where was the automated voice sorry no automated voice today God you um new year new tricks New Tricks hi Stephanie hi guys how are you good morning we're good we're good it's a a gloomy
day here in uh and I know you're headed our way so sorry I am Hopefully the rain doesn't uh delay my flights it's sunny and beautiful and very snowy on the ground here in Maryland so yeah nice day yeah the uh we had our our one winter fit I think that we're going to get in the last couple weeks and and I think we're over it now so we're good for one like super massive tantrum it's the winter Tantrums it's usually a week was like four days yeah yeah yeah um Stephanie we're excited to chat with y
ou this is our first episode of the new year so you're number one no pressure no no no pressure um uh but we're we're excited you know uh we've gotten to spend some time with you uh but as happens often times whenever you uh when you start a new role like you you die immediately into stuff right like it's into the thick of of things in a lot of different ways and so um I've been really looking forward to this conversation because I want to understand more of Stephanie Russell and uh and figure o
ut like what makes you tick how those things got there all of those pieces sounds great so you uh have spent 25ish years in some version of research analytics and strategy yeah and where I want to start is uh how has that changed in 25 years how has it stayed the same and how has it changed well I guess it's always been very data driven right from the beginning and you sort of brought as you introduced you mentioned research and I was thinking gosh I feel like I haven't done all that much resear
ch but my career really did start in in research and a lot of kind of controlled studies and um and other research studies which is sort of a good foray into some training that was very analytically oriented and sort of moving into you know kind of more application into marketing and and fundraising uh use cases so yeah data has stayed the same the whole way through it's uh you know they say your strengths are also your bigest biggest weaknesses right so just kind of being mindful I'm a very ana
lytical person and that has always sort of fueled how I approach um you know all things marketing strategy fundraising um but it's also something I need to kind of check and make sure I surround myself with with creativity and and kind of you know outside of the box thinking um and not get too constrained by analysis and and things which some of us can can fall into that trap at times yeah I think about um some of the you know like season three of Mad Men uh I think is one of the first times whe
re I think strategy comes up in that series and and you know it's somewhere in the the plot where Harry Crane starts the media Division and he's the one media person and he he comes into a meeting and there's the the person that brings in the the dossier of information and Draper as Draper does kind of looks at it and tosses it you know there's data behind it yeah we've come a long way we really really have uh come a long way um how do you how do you think about strategy like what does it mean w
hat does being strategic look like especially in 2024 yeah I mean it's sort of a combination of that kind of more creative thinking and bottom up analytical thinking right so again my Tendencies is to lean into data and and figure out where we can draw insights from data but I think it's also really critical to just think top down take a step back um so what's happening in the world right now what's happening in culture right what is sort of in people's minds and their moments and their context
right and sort of marrying that with the Nuggets that you get from data work and it's not you know data work to create facts but really to try to tease out insights um from those facts and sort of some of those aha moments I think it's easy to get kind of stuck in a rut of like data and Analysis just becoming reporting um which yes that'll feed strategy but not in a super thoughtful way so um really kind of miring both again that sort of like top down bottom up in in in both contexts trying to t
hink as insightfully as we can about it right because because everything we do in marketing is it's data like you're saying but ultimately each of those data points it's about people and it's about the audience like can can you tell us a little bit about that that connection between understanding people and then how you use that in strategy yeah and I think our Tendencies to want to get all the way down to one: one which yes there are elements of of personalization and marketing and fundraising
that allow us to do that uh but it's you know sort of really kind of getting into how can I think about audiences and groups of people and sort of again sort of that context they're in so that my messaging will resonate but also where can I find them and can I find them in the context and in the head space right that what I'm trying to articulate and the call to action I'm giving is going to resonate with them and then you know sort of how do I then think about also the combination of channels a
nd you know we have a lot of conversations about you know the role of direct mail and for whom does that resonate with and for whom does it not resonate with and um you know but also kind of thinking about long form and short form and you know what what can you really articulate in you know sort of a couple second impression um from a digital perspective but I think that combination of those things can be really powerful if you're being mindful of you know sort of individual and and group audien
ces and kind of where they are both again from a targeting and a messaging perspective what was the what were the like the formative moments that made uh that opened this space for you like what what if you rewind back to you know High School Stephanie or even College Stephanie what what were the things that made you think you know what this is uh this is the step that I I feel like I should take yeah I think I did an independent so in college I was sort of that nerdy person who you know was an
econ major but really enjoyed econometrics and statistics uh and I did an independent study um you know sort of focused on explanatory and and econometric modeling and the idea that you could compile that much data and I sort of enjoyed the art of programming um you know so I was once a Hands-On Keys programmer way back in the today uh and just the fact that again you could sort of shape that much information at your fingertips and kind of glean Insight from it was really fascinating to me and s
o the ability to then apply that skill set into the world was really compelling and that to your point at the beginning started with research and then I very quickly you know sort of leaned into marketing and just found marketing a really fascinating application for that you know kind of econometric kind of mindset I too uh benefited from an independent study I I'm a huge fan of you know taking a chance on doing something like that because yeah uh the accessibility typically of the professor tha
t you're working with and and having that help form and shape and it it you know stands the test of time for me as something that I look back on fondly uh and mine was in script writing right so it's like still yours in yeah yeah so uh screenplay writing uh with Brian Elliot was the name of the professor and it was myself and a um uh a guy who he and I wrote a lot of things together um he has pursued a career in stand-up comedy uh and so we both find like different aspects of Storytelling that c
ame from that independent study and so I do think that those can be super super formative okay so I have I have another question I'm sure Ronnie wants to get back to like modern marketing things like that but but but but we just learned prior to jumping on the air that uh that you were also a a soccer player a a very competitive soccer player and uh centerm and Center back and this is where Ronnie falls asleep as a part of the conversation it's fine um uh draw some connections for our listening
audience between the role of a center back and the role of a strategist yeah so I'm glad that you chose Center back right because it's ironically I was just talking to somebody on my team Friday because she played soccer as well and I was like I bet you played sweeper and Center back um and sort of the analogy I was using is you're sort of able you're able to see the whole field right and there's lots of different things happening and the ability to kind of anticipate those next couple of moves
I think is what really differentiates a good Center back from a great Center back um and so when you sort of think think about all the different moving Parts when we're we're sort of orchestrating an experience and and strategizing experience for um a client and their their constituents you kind of have to see all those moving pieces but then also too once you get into each activation and the production of that um there's also a lot of moving pieces in in each of those right all the different pa
rts need to kind of come together um and yeah there's tons of process and things that we apply to make that go smoothly but I think somebody who's able to understand the mechanics of all the pieces and kind of be able to take a step back to to have the mindset to take a step back um but also kind of see how all the orchestration is coming together that's a really really powerful thing both in soccer and in business ironically that that was an A+ comparison right there I gotta say I mean I I I di
dn't know you were gonna ask that question it literally came up on Friday so I that's amazing it was like a perfect connection it made me think of Justin when we had our our team meeting question of which which planet do you most associate with and we all had to think on the spot about that and come up with something that some sort of explanation of why too please don't ask me that question because I'm planting it now so that we can ask it later like just you need to think about it try to think
of my little acronym so that I even know all the right right right I'm curious I want to I want to back up a little bit when you were talking about um the application of strategy and you mentioned context being important to understanding people and and where they are can you like talk about that a little bit more like unpack that what what do you mean by context yeah I think there's a whole range of it right so like right now all of us are living in this context where there's inflation right the
re's some we were just talking in the beginning before we start recording about weather patterns kind of changing you know there continues to be sort of War right in in the world right which is kind of influencing we're about to go into an election cycle which is sure to be you know taking up a lot of people's headspace and conversation so I think there's both this sort of broader context of of of just being mindful of what's happening in the world and then there's an individual's context right
so I don't know about you guys but I hate nothing more than being on sort of a personal social media site like Instagram or admittedly still use Facebook and people bring business into it right just drives me nuts right so it's also being mindful of you know as you're trying to you know Target a donor or prospective donor constituent or anybody from a marketing context where you're choosing to have that conversation is it the right place right and does your messaging sort of align with the place
where you're finding them um and certainly you have more control over that um in a digital context as you're sort of pushing kind of print and other kind of broader maybe Video Communications out you may have less knowledge or um you know kind of ability to kind of control those things matching up well but I think it's that combination of both of them that that matters a lot and I think we sometimes get half of it right and then we forget the other half um and increasingly as we become much mor
e Tech and data enabled I feel like we're getting the latter half right right where especially again in digital we're kind of being contextually relevant in the moment but then sort of forgetting to toggle our messaging based on people's people's broader context and being audience specific about it right like it's hard to you know what resonates with different people based on what's happening in the world isn't going to be the same for everyone so starting to think about different permutations o
f your messaging is is really important yeah this is uh this is really interesting time in in nonprofit marketing and fundraising and for so many different reasons and uh and you mentioned just so much of the noise like in the current context or on the horizon and For Better or Worse we tend to think in 12 month Cycles uh and and many times I think it's for Worse right uh but you know the understanding people's context and putting them in cohorts has probably never been more challenging for nonp
rofit marketers and also never been more needed um and and here you are coming in to help lead that sort of effort in strategy and decision science and um and so how do you think about that in terms of the work ahead and helping U mature how strategic practices uh play out so that nonprofits can better connect with folks yeah I mean I think it's about making sure that the complexity you're introducing and being being audience specific doesn't outweigh the benefit of the value you're going to get
from it right so being mindful of where there's Downstream effort for deploying you know kind of audience specific you know kind of uh campaigns and messaging and personalization we just have to be sort of mindful of that I'd say increasingly the things that we can do in all channels whether you know ranging all the way from direct mail through to to paid search kind of the ability to be personal personalized is getting much and much easier and faster right in terms of availability of data and
then the platform's ability to execute that I think a lot of times where we're challenged is sort of that sweet spot of creating assets right that are both resident and you know kind of in that right right channel um and a lot of that starts with upfront planning right we're having a lot of folks in in planning Cycles now we're talking about lead times and you know why it takes as long as it takes right and kind of getting some of those assets organized and pulled together and again thinking abo
ut our plan planning in an audience Centric way um I think for a lot of the industry is a little bit of a shift as much as we've been talking about it for so long so I think sort of you know once we get past the socialization starting to plan in that way and then again sort of think about the pull through of kind of the audience data do we have it you know do we have the assets that are you know going to be audience specific and personalized and also making sure we don't to to my earlier Point g
o overboard there right because we've done that um as an industry at points to right where we sort of get complex for complexity sake because theoretically it feels like the right thing to do um you know but the kind of cost benefit isn't quite there but I will say just that the pace with which Tech is catching up with us and and sort of the ability to do Dynamic things and creative and even in a direct mail context is getting better every day and so it's super exciting time to be a strategist a
nd be somebody who thinks about audience first and in terms of the power of what we can do there is pretty fun I'm curious you just were talking about audience first um in the nonprofit space we often talk about how nonprofits are a little behind the for-profit world just just by nature of not having budgets for you know extensive R&D and things like that having worked in the for-profit space in the B2B world what are some of the things that you're most excited to be bringing to nonprofit organi
zations is it that audience first mindset is that one of them yeah that's definitely um a part of it and then also I think there's fairly traditional ways we think about audience in the nonprofit space in terms of like just the fundamental industry ways we think about you know new donors and cord donors and sustainers and all that which is great um I think we have opportunity to kind of further dissect right and think about people's context attitudinally right motivationally emotionally kind of
where are they um I will say the commercial space this is one of those areas where you know we've often done that and then sort of the ability to actually deploy it at scale gets tricky right commercial organizations love to field um Quant and qual studies and understand all these emotive things and then you get to the point where you're trying to apply that to tens and hundreds of millions of people and you're like oh I don't know their attitudes and motivations right so I think making sure you
're starting with end in mind and knowing how you're going to deploy and execute and then sort of you know overlaying some some research and getting more kind of motivational attitude Insight on that in a way that you can then sort of scale I think there's a ton of power there and frankly you know even sort of in the commercial space I think it's spotty where we've done that effectively but I you know I as we think towards you know future from a fundraising perspective I think there's a lot of p
ower there to just you know continue to adapt and be audience Centric from a classical life cycle perspective but then starting to get into to motivations and emotions pretty cool there's so much of this Stephanie that I feel like is um has the potential to propel the sector forward and to solve for many of the longtailed challenges that we see in the sector and so I have like George Burns dressed as an angel sitting on one shoulder telling me that and then I have George Burns dressed as a devil
sitting on the other shoulder saying dating yourself uh I try to work in as many George Burns references as I can all the time really 18 to 24 different but like but we were talking earlier just about the the noise and and so um in the midst of still this season and storm of uncertainty why is now the time that we are going to be able to take these leaps forward so tie that back to your George Burns reference in terms of why we can why we can't is that sort of what those George Burn are giving
you yeah I mean look I think change is hard for everyone right and and especially in fundraising a nonprofit being mindful of how accountable we need to hold every dollar is is constantly top of mind uh that said I think the push towards audience centricity and personalization and also right thinking about privacy and handling of data has been part of the conversation for so long and it really does just take time and repetition and a little bit of comfort in terms of Yep this has been proven in
the commercial space right and we're we're prepared and ready to adopt it um on the fundraising side I think we're sort of at that sweet spot where we've we've had the conversations for a while and they're starting to become much more comfort with it and and more willingness to to kind of deploy and and move that forward so so many George burnses Stephanie I'm curious um along your career we've talked you know about 25 years of your path who who've been some of the people that have have shaped y
ou have helped you grow you know have taught you things that you you're applying today yeah so it's interesting I was thinking about uh this earlier and kind of back to the sports reference I actually had a coach in uh I think it was my juniversity basketball team who was just sort of really resonated with me in terms of like there's always going to be things and I had some business conversations this week and last around this as well there's always going to be challenges that are thrown to you
on the court right and you just have to push through and persevere and and not make excuses right because we're all dealing with stuff right so when we think about sort of the complexity of the world of marketing and fundraising like just that message has always stuck with me uh and then certainly from a professional perspective you know I've had a lot of great leaders and mentors and managers and I think starting from the top I had the really great benefit of having a CEO for you know well over
a decade who just was a fantastic Visionary right and was someone and I I didn't realize how important that was until I was in places where we didn't have that presence as much um with that Vision I sort of took it for granted right but the ability to kind of set the vision and the charter for an organization I think is critical um super excited about Chris's role and and doing that for rkd tons of um tons of potential there and I think you know sort of already seeing a lot of that same style o
f leadership um and then also along the way I've just had great sort of day-to-day managers who always you know left me with really good nuggets along the way in terms of you know just things that have stuck with me sometimes you need to ask forgiveness not permission and you know just kind of some of those mantras that I don't you know sort of realize but have pervaded kind of my dayto day and how I operate so um you know just in in wrapping our time Stephanie because I know you get a a flight
to get to um in in wrapping our time for our listening audience you know it's it's a combination of of practitioners and uh leaders and uh folks that sit in various parts of the nonprofit marketing and fundraising cycle in space um if you were going to give them one uh piece of advice in terms of moving forward how they think about or Implement strategy stry this year what would that what would that be yeah so actually to to quote that kind of visionary leader I mentioned uh what got us here won
't get us there so I think the the sort of Reliance on you know what we've been doing and what's working not to toss that out right but to kind of think about how we turn the corner particularly we had a lot of great fundraising momentum over the pandemic right so we saw a lot of good results I think it's easy to rest on your laurels there um you know but continuing to challenge ourselves um in terms of how we think about our strategy and take that step back um as we look to the future is really
that's a good word that's that's that's GNA go in my notes I've got little soundtracks and that's gonna go in there so for sure for sure Stephanie thank you so much for spending time with us uh travel safe and and uh I get to see you in person this week so I'm excited I know I'm excited good to see you guys get to chat all right thanks [Music]
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