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Episode 28: Rethinking How We Approach Philanthropy

Brian Crimmins, former CEO of Changing Our World, a trusted social impact consulting firm that advises leading corporations and nonprofit organizations, joins us for this episode of Change@Work. He and host Chris Thornton discuss Brian’s new book, The Generosity Crisis, which explores the current state of philanthropy and how we can change course to bring about a different, more connected future that benefits us all. For more information, visit his website here.

 

 

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated with artificial intelligence. It’s in the queue to go through a review with human eyes!

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;34;28
Chris Thornton

Change@Work is a podcast about the ever-evolving world of work and the human behaviors that drive it. I’m Chris Thornton, Senior Principal here at Daggerwing Group. Together with partners, clients, and leading experts from a variety of industries, we’ll share what’s happening in the world of work, how leaders can prepare for the future, and how to engage employees along the way.

00;00;35;01 – 00;00;58;02
Chris Thornton

Joining us today is Brian Crimmins. Brian is the chief executive officer of Changing Our World, creator and global managing partner of 100, the world’s first coalition of marketing agencies, United for Sustainable Change and coauthor of The Generosity Crisis. He also launched in as host of the popular virtual conference series Forging Forward. Brian, how are you doing?

Brian Crimmins

Doing great, Chris. Thanks for having me.

00;00;58;02 – 00;01;18;00
Chris Thornton

Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. So we just like to get to know people when we start the podcast. In fact, this is becoming so known as new hires come in. They are now interviewing me and saying, okay, let me get to know you. They’re following the podcast format, so I like that. So we’ll keep it going.

00;01;18;03 – 00;01;46;10
Unknown

Ask you questions to say, Brian ,what does your ideal summer vacation look like? Well, sitting here in the dead of winter, if that’s the best one. Well, I’d say at this point in my life, with the first kids that I have, my wife and I would say getting away with them probably at some beach, whether that’s where I am on Long Island or we often go down to the South Carolina area for some breaks in the spring, something I know that’s not the summer question, but I’ll probably hang out hang out at the beach with them.

00;01;46;10 – 00;02;09;12
Unknown

And because, you know, the kids are getting older quickly. And as I’ve been told by my eight older siblings, they’ll be gone soon enough. So hanging out with them would be the ideal summer vacation. That’s awesome if you won the lottery. And why not? Why, why, why wouldn’t you? What’s the first thing you would buy? Gosh. Well, for me, it’s I’m a big fan of some sports teams in New York.

00;02;09;14 – 00;02;27;07
Unknown

Might be, you know, some tickets to go see those teams that more to follow. What I wrote about in the book that my obsession, not even a love affair, my obsession with a band called Pearl Jam. So I would probably buy tickets to any and everywhere that they were going and travel to see them. That would be perfect.

00;02;27;09 – 00;02;52;25
Unknown

So speaking of Pearl Jam, Sure. What’s the best concert or show you’ve ever been to? Do you go to live performances? I do. I mean, I got to get out a bit more because I’ve only seen them be honest. And mostly it’s great if you know all of them. They don’t come around much. But so when I tell people the number of shows I’ve seen with them, which is a 58, they they realize I’m a little dedicated.

00;02;52;27 – 00;03;16;07
Unknown

Exactly. So my favorite show would just be I just had that incredible experience of seeing them play here in New York, up in Harlem, the Apollo Theater, just a few months ago, you know, the smallest venue I’ve ever seen them. And it was absolutely amazing. That’s so great. All right. Let’s dig into you and your work and your book, which is really exciting.

00;03;16;07 – 00;03;43;14
Unknown

Congratulations on the book, The Generosity Crisis. Thanks. So when you’re not writing books, you’re the CEO for changing her world, leading philanthropy and management consulting firm. And every once in a while, I get to find myself in a meeting with you, which is always a happy day for me at a high level. Can you help us understand what being the CEO of changing our world means and what you and your team are trying to achieve?

00;03;43;16 – 00;04;00;22
Unknown

Yeah, no, thanks. I appreciate it. You know, the company name might change our world. I often get asked, How’s that going? And go. As you can imagine, at any given day, the answer is sometimes not the best. But putting that aside for a second. Yeah, change our world. We do some some things which are very high level for you.

00;04;00;23 – 00;04;18;18
Unknown

One is we help not for profits raise money. As simple as that sounds, we primarily help them raise money on the significant end of things like Major gives big campaign they’re doing to build new wings, set up new scholarships, endowments, those type of things. And then we sit on what I call the other side of the philanthropic aisle.

00;04;18;18 – 00;04;49;16
Unknown

We help companies, foundations and high net worth individuals with their with their grantmaking, with their impacts and social, but their desires and social impact space. And so for companies that involves employees and allows non-for-profit partnerships, their grant making and increasingly open, especially since COVID looking at how it does their business, what they actually do day in, day out, how does that get infused with their social impact work in their strategy, in bringing those two worlds together?

00;04;49;16 – 00;05;12;28
Unknown

So that’s the two main areas of change world working with nonprofits and working with other organizations who are trying to make the world a better place. Listen, I didn’t grow up with my very hard working family, grew up in the middle of a cornfield, didn’t have generational wealth. Are there are a lot of people out there with generational wealth or with recently acquired wealth, and they’re saying, how do I make an impact?

00;05;13;05 – 00;05;42;10
Unknown

Or we’re talking like two or three people at most, and I’m joking on that, but I’m not naming names, but I don’t run with a lot of people who have that kind of wealth. So that’s a really important question. I’ll unpack it on high level so that the last year, which would be 2021, that they have given data, I’m giving you a say in organization who collects this, reported that we as Americans gave them almost 450 billion to nonprofits.

00;05;42;13 – 00;06;01;19
Unknown

So to answer your question more specifically, yes, there are because of the way, especially we’re going with the wealth and income disparity going on in this country, there are people I’ll use the term at the top end of the food pyramid. Yeah, very, very, very wealthy people who historically would have foundations. Now many are setting up what’s called donor advice funds.

00;06;01;19 – 00;06;24;12
Unknown

But there are a lot of people now, the question is not everyone who has money gets. Yeah, so so that’s a little bit more than I think of your question the the headline and not that we need to jump to the book right You know, right now that’s where we’re going. Let’s go to the book. Go ahead. So the premise of the Generosity Crisis book, my coauthor, Nathan and who was a client at one point we found out something was happening to our sector.

00;06;24;12 – 00;06;47;12
Unknown

By that I mean the philanthropic sector. At the heart of what you asked, Chris, about people and who gives and what have you, and what the heart of what we realized was, was that in 2006, Arthur Brooks wrote a book called Who Really Cares? And in it he said, which is true, 75% of American households gave to a nonprofit, 75%, three out of four of us gave.

00;06;47;14 – 00;07;07;08
Unknown

Last year, it dipped below 50 for the first time ever. Huh? So if you look at an online chart in just that small window of time, we are the amount of people in the U.S. economy or the U.S. market with who are given to a nonprofit is plummeting. It really started to change during the Great Recession and it never recovered.

00;07;07;11 – 00;07;33;03
Unknown

Got it. So we are on such a trajectory, Chris, going downward that if continued without any changes in 49 years, giving will cease to exist in this country. Yeah, if it keeps going, assuming it keeps going. So that sounds dramatic and traumatic in a lot of ways, sometimes coming from a very American mindset and I would say a midwest mindset.

00;07;33;04 – 00;07;55;12
Unknown

We certainly would help our neighbors right in times of need, often through religious institutions, less so through community, but say, you know, we have the community organizations, is I think about it, but there’s also this mentality of will, take care of yourself. Right. I guess I’m asking, are we going closer to take care of yourself, Look out for yourself, and don’t look out for others.

00;07;55;12 – 00;08;19;24
Unknown

And any thoughts on on why we’re seeing the decline? Yeah, you actually hit on a few of them. One major point is the if you look at the disassociation, particularly each generation coming of age, the disassociation they have with religion or faith based organizations, it mirrors the drop in giving. And so that’s one thing. And for me, that’s troubling.

00;08;19;26 – 00;08;44;20
Unknown

I don’t care what religion you are, but but most, if not all, religion teach the concept of giving, you know, out of tithing. If if we get back generation start to come of age, if are not being taught that because they’re not attending any religious organizational efforts, where will they learn? The concept is a question because the generations above you and I, Chris and all of them, we’re going anthropic by percentages.

00;08;44;20 – 00;09;01;25
Unknown

The same point about authority. We learned it somewhere and then it became tradition and it became a habit that is that is eroding. The other thing that’s eroding is it to back to you. What are your other questions as you get the Bill Gates and the Mackenzie Scott who are giving massive amounts of money and thank God they are.

00;09;02;00 – 00;09;20;09
Unknown

Yeah, well, there’s a part of the book that we explored called The Crowding Out Effect. If Mackenzie gave Habitat for Humanity, which she did, I think for $30 million last year. Wow. The $1 per donor to Habitat for Humanity has every right to ask, Do you really need my hundred dollars? Mm hmm. And so there’s another aspect there.

00;09;20;09 – 00;09;45;13
Unknown

I mean, we also think and we talk in the book about how we think. Also, nonprofits are partly to be blamed. They put us on what we call a transactional way of talking. Yeah, for sure. Bombarding us with emails. And you gave a hundred. I was actually to 105 without even acknowledging it. So we talk about how that’s got to start going back to the relational way nonprofits existed for 50 years before they became more transactional.

00;09;45;19 – 00;10;07;01
Unknown

So, you know, I set you up with this religious promise. I don’t think you’re necessarily saying, everybody join a local church or synagogue or whatever, right? That’s not it. Or mosque. You’re not saying that. But but it is. We’ve lost the example from the previous generation. This is what we do. We take care of others. We we give it is is part of it.

00;10;07;01 – 00;10;32;22
Unknown

And once you don’t have that model, then it won’t be top of mind. It’s not a way of existing and society that’s learned from a previous generation. Is that right? That is correct. And the thing that it is we should talk about right now just because it’s the context of the whole thing is what people don’t realize. And as I’ve gone around now, starting to talk about the book, even people who work in the nonprofit sector don’t truly appreciate the scale, the magnitude.

00;10;32;22 – 00;10;57;25
Unknown

If giving were to stop, we’re talking about hospitals, we’re talking about access to education. We’re talking about access to health care. We’re talking about social service organization. I was just at a council of We Deliver in New York City yesterday toward their facility. What an amazing organization. Phenomenal. Yeah, Phenomenal, Right. Fee going and feeding people who are homebound because they’re sick, like the money to help those organizations run the the safety net of our society.

00;10;57;27 – 00;11;17;10
Unknown

And if giving were to dry up, that’s what’s at stake. And that’s the call out. We hit the right in the very beginning. I’m not saying go join a religion or go during this. I what we were hoping to really inspire people of how important the not for profit community is, how large it is, how intertwined it is to our well-being, and wanting to make sure people realize if you give or don’t give, that’s up to you.

00;11;17;10 – 00;11;34;07
Unknown

But I just wanted to make sure you understood the significance. If you choose not to give to what’s happened to our system. And I think one of the things is I was reading the book, you know, some of it really hit home like my in my home, right? So I used to work for a not for profit children’s hospital.

00;11;34;09 – 00;11;58;26
Unknown

That’s you know, the government’s not always going to pay the bills of those who can’t afford care. And yet there’s an obligation and a moral duty to to provide care for those in need. So so that’s one thing. Another thing is some education. And growing up in the public school system, father, superintendent, that, you know, the donations that are made, not just the taxpayers right.

00;11;58;26 – 00;12;20;01
Unknown

But the donations that are made to make things work, that the government and that taxes won’t be paid for. Right. Right. And then my wife is on the board of a local theater and she’s involved in, you know, helping get those grants to to make sure that that theater can continue to serve the community. Nobody’s making any money there.

00;12;20;03 – 00;12;44;09
Unknown

Right. It’s part of the community and an expression of the community. So what clicked for me as I was I was reading it was it’s pretty easy for people to talk and focus in on. People will like there’s a dire need right? Like there are people who are right on the edge of of making it or not making it because of your donations.

00;12;44;09 – 00;13;06;11
Unknown

And that’s very, very real and urgent. But then you’ve also got people that communities that are dependent upon Why do we live here? Right? We could live anywhere at this point. Brian, do you see any challenges with people understanding the spectrum of giving and the impact of of their donations and giving of time? 100%. It was only about 15 years ago.

00;13;06;11 – 00;13;30;06
Unknown

We had about 875,000 not for profits in the United States. Now we have 1.8 million. Wow. So I’m going to say this most respect. We have a lot of not for profits doing great work who are telling you and I, we’re doing great work. We need your help. There’s a lot there’s a lot to take in. There’s a lot of almost even, I would argue, desensitizing of the Sarah McLachlan videos of the crying, you know.

00;13;30;06 – 00;14;03;21
Unknown

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So that there’s a bit there that we we go at in our book of that you know profits should maybe not try to be so clever. I mean talk about it authentically because people don’t understand Chris to get to your point, they donor said if they don’t give what happens and that at all levels in all the examples you gave and the implications of that, I mean I like just to highlight because we do a lot of education work, but when you think about the amount of scholarships that are present and given every year or for people wouldn’t be able to get their degree and having that the pleasure of partner

00;14;03;21 – 00;14;24;24
Unknown

with so many schools and seeing alumni who who say to us, I wouldn’t have been able to become who I am if someone didn’t give me an opportunity to give me a scholarship. That’s why I’m giving back. Powerful sort of link in circular. There. That’s what’s at stake. And that the biggest part, I think that we’ve lost our way just a bit how, how much the philanthropic dollar does for our communities.

00;14;24;24 – 00;14;40;15
Unknown

Yeah, I think it’s getting lost and it’s been lost. I think we really need to work hard to get it back. So let’s get back to White. Brian. Why did you write the book of so many other things that you could be doing right as a leader and and writing a book? Is it easy and takes a lot of time?

00;14;40;15 – 00;15;06;23
Unknown

Why did you feel like this book had to be written? You know, Nathan, my Chappelle, my coauthor, who he he was a client a few years back. He worked at an amazing organization, positive Hope. And he and I got to partner together years ago to really begin to help them rethink how they went about what we call the donor journey, how they were bringing people along, engaging them in a very authentic way to to hopefully secure their financial support.

00;15;06;23 – 00;15;26;24
Unknown

And it was through those meetings working together. You know, you you’ve probably got some great clients like this where you’d be with them all day long and you still go out, grab a drink afterwards. And we kept and we would just talk about our industry and we were both seeing it the same way, meaning the challenge, the drop in giving something wasn’t happening anymore with not for profits engaging folks.

00;15;26;26 – 00;15;46;18
Unknown

But he came at it from a data standpoint. He developed and was at the time creating what is now a phenomenal product of how to use a site to determine people’s generosity, their gratefulness, which is a much more healthy, organic way of then approaching people versus the way that we historically consulted, which is who has worth a lot of money.

00;15;46;20 – 00;16;04;04
Unknown

Let’s talk to them. Regardless of whether or not there were shared values, there were share overlap. What I’m that what he taught me really and this is the genesis of the book was that he started seeing early on that there was a better way to do this. And so he was looking at it from data. I started saying to him, All of that data is true.

00;16;04;07 – 00;16;24;11
Unknown

Here’s what needs to happen. I started coming out of from the strategy standpoint, the engagement standpoint, and what nonprofits could be doing differently. And so we both said one day we’ve just got to start putting our thoughts down and documenting it. One, because we were concerned about our sector. And two, we thought we had a point of view both from the data and from the strategies that were that could be very helpful for people.

00;16;24;13 – 00;16;57;19
Unknown

He said. Something that is sticking with me and I can’t let go of it. Did you say measuring people’s gratefulness? Yes. Yeah, that’s that’s a big wow term. Like, tell me what that means. Yeah, it’s a great thing. You know, so my coauthor, Nathan Noser, has a TED talk from a few years ago about this very topic about for the first time ever, there was and this is not my world, so my terminologies may not be right, but he said we we have the computing power to understand people as people.

00;16;57;19 – 00;17;15;12
Unknown

So Chris, they could understand by all the data points that are out there about you that you made, that the organization that you support your alma mater or the theater that your wife’s involved in, they have data about you. You know, how many shows you go to, how often you show up, and when do you respond to the emails and how much money do you give and when do you give?

00;17;15;12 – 00;17;37;17
Unknown

And that used to be the only thing of our profits had, meaning The data they had on you, Chris, that you how you interacted with that. But many of them wouldn’t even utilize that information to go far. Turns out Chris is here every Tuesday. Like there’s they wouldn’t look at it that step, but it looks like Amazon or big business would be doing I mean they would hit us with an ad every Tuesday because they knew that’s exactly when you were spending money.

00;17;37;17 – 00;18;05;25
Unknown

Yeah, not for profits. We’re looking at their own data that way, never mind bringing external data. But so what? What Nathan and his team started developing was when you combine that in that data, you could actually start to figure out what were the drivers of people being grateful and how was it manifesting itself. And therefore, if this is all true, not only are these subset of people more likely to support us, there starts to be clues on how to engage them, how to bring them in differently.

00;18;05;27 – 00;18;31;02
Unknown

And I do. And it manifests itself differently. And I know I’m getting all like weird about I know you’re not, but but in the health care arena, what starts to show up is which is going to be no surprise. Okay? The people that have who are treated by these ten doctors have a gratefulness of giving pattern that is significantly far higher than the 70 other doctor that we have on what happens is.

00;18;31;04 – 00;19;04;21
Unknown

Right. So take a universe, take a university. Those who were taught by these three professors enjoy the experience, are thankful they came here. So. Okay. Wow, that’s interesting. What are they doing that and what the answer is? They’re having great customer relationships they’re having. Right. And so we’re able to not only then programmatically help our clients. Right, too, by saying you should have these three doctors sort of teaching classes about bedside manners, about whatever, because it’s actually creating a better program and a better experience with the translating into people donating.

00;19;04;23 – 00;19;31;26
Unknown

So that’s a long winded answer to say Nathan has begun to show not for profits, because also the price of this to do this has come down tremendously. Yeah, but he has showed them the big data that the Amazons and everyone else has been using for he now something that not for profits can tap in and utilize well so ends up not being a how do we juice more money out of people are squeezed more money out of people it’s how do we create an experience that people feel compelled and connected to?

00;19;31;26 – 00;19;49;03
Unknown

Is that right? They feel compelled and connected to us for the long term. I should have answered it that way. That is. No, come on. But that is it. And it gets away from treating us as transactions and getting back. It enables we’re not for once to get back to being authentic and having relationships. Yes, that totally makes sense.

00;19;49;03 – 00;20;16;19
Unknown

And connecting it to a food and beverage company that I work with. And the CEO is adamant with his people of it’s not getting them to buy one more thing. It’s a it’s about a lifetime connection with them where we know what they want, but we’re anticipating their needs instead of just focusing on customers, It’s pulling through that entire experience and what the longevity is in terms of giving and gratefulness.

00;20;16;21 – 00;20;39;24
Unknown

It makes me wonder sometimes what my gratitude measure would be like. I don’t think I want to see. I don’t I don’t know that I want to see I and we’re just doing our taxes right now. I mean, I’m fine. I’m fine, but I’m not incredible, Right? Well, but how amazing would it be, Chris, if we all had a gratitude score that we all were given?

00;20;39;24 – 00;21;09;26
Unknown

You imagine, he said, you talk in the book about competition for connection. Do you see do you see a connection to what we’ve been talking about? So, yeah, I mean, I love the example you just gave about the company, the CEO saying it’s about, you know, but you know, now that buying more product just because that we just said that they tried to a group of non-for-profit leaders up in Boston about how more is not more like getting one more dollar out of another dollar is not the game but it’s been the game that they’ve been playing.

00;21;09;26 – 00;21;28;20
Unknown

But that leads me to your question with the competition for connection, When you think about this, we as individuals, it was a study was done, said we have an we had an attention span four years ago of 12 seconds. It’s now down to eight. Yeah, for sure. We’re now we have less of an attention span now today than than goldfish.

00;21;28;23 – 00;21;48;21
Unknown

Okay. So let that sink in. Yeah. And we can we get 330 emails and we get God knows how many ads every day. So not for profits. Used to think that, oh, I’m only competing with other nonprofits for this money. You’re not anymore. You’re competing with everyone who’s talking to you because and I love this. So this is not a criticism at all.

00;21;48;23 – 00;22;05;13
Unknown

But when you have the likes of Patagonia doing amazing work that they’re doing and they come out with advertising and buy our product, what have you, and we’re going to take all of our profits and put them towards the environment. Well, guess what? If I were an environment head of an environmental not for profit, my competition is now Patagonia.

00;22;05;13 – 00;22;35;23
Unknown

If you think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. There are people who legitimately say, I bought a sweater from Patagonia today. I did my part and guess what? They wouldn’t be wrong. But as a woman, as a CEO of a not for profit said to me last week, she said, I think that Patagonia, with the recent news of becoming a not for profit themselves, putting 100 million of their profit every year is actually to do more for the environmental space than the NAF than any of the nonprofits who are in that place.

00;22;35;25 – 00;22;54;06
Unknown

And so if the question becomes if we as citizens start to actually think who is actually better to solve this problem, I’m just talking about the environment. I’m talking about Patagonia right now. Yeah. If a corporate in a brand enters that conversation, oh boy, for the nonprofits because they could out market you, outspend you out, connect with you.

00;22;54;12 – 00;23;16;16
Unknown

So the competition for connection the original question whether it’s a lot and it’s real and too few nonprofits even understand that they think, well, these are my donors. Yeah, I know, but your donors are being bombarded by all sorts of organizations all day long. Yeah. And your donors are consumers, right? They’re consumers elsewhere. And what you’re talking about, I think, is a shifting of dollars.

00;23;16;22 – 00;23;37;16
Unknown

It’s those dollars are still in play. But where am I shifting it toward? Is it as connected to something that I’m consuming or purchasing, or is it something that I’m going to give through that philanthropic mindset? Right. Yeah, exactly. And they get to check the box. Either way, it’s about where they feel most connected to and where they can see the impact happening.

00;23;37;16 – 00;23;54;18
Unknown

Is that right? That is correct. And I’ll give you an example. There was a woman, the same woman I was talking about said to me when I bought these two products from Patagonia, I got that same high. Yeah. I used to only get when I gave to a nonprofit and there was a third person standing with us having this conversation.

00;23;54;18 – 00;24;18;19
Unknown

And he said, Holy cow, I never thought of that. And I said, Correct, because there used to be that feeling of I’d feeling really good about yourself as you gave to a nonprofit. If and this is fine, in my opinion, I’m not arguing once, but if you can get that same high from supporting a brand like Patagonia, wow, the world has completely changed that The not for profits are competing in and they have to wake up well, and you get a frickin fleece with it, too, right?

00;24;18;19 – 00;24;41;02
Unknown

If you go with Patagonia. So. Yeah. Got it. Got it. No, it’s real one. Is it better than the other? It’s just you’re talking about the real competition now for that experience and that connection and that that you need to understand that the not the game. That’s not what I mean. The environment has changed in which are up there.

00;24;41;05 – 00;25;03;13
Unknown

There was a book written a few years ago from a Harvard Business School professor and a bunch of McKinsey consultants that I think it’s called Connected. They did a bunch of studies and actually realized I read it after we put our book out, but they called it the same thing radical connection. They said that companies and brands that established radical connection with their consumers, it was worth 2% more of their annual stock price, 20% over ten years.

00;25;03;17 – 00;25;23;12
Unknown

Wow. So my and I knew this in a good way. And brands and companies realized that they had to really use data to connect with us in powerful ways so they could establish shared values to create a business proposition that actually health care for them. You had your example earlier, and in doing so, I gave a great example, the talk last week, wrapping up three statements.

00;25;23;15 – 00;25;38;16
Unknown

One is the mission statement was a value statement and one was a purpose statement and the null and it was like to save the world to do this powerful stuff. And I said to everybody, I bet you think these are nonprofits. And I really yeah, I clicked it. It was the Body shop, it was Patagonia, and it was somebody else for sure.

00;25;38;16 – 00;26;00;28
Unknown

And I went off there like, Oh, it was all nonprofit leaders. I was talking to. And they, as they said back to me what we wrote the book, which is, wow, they took our playbook and moral high ground that nonprofits used to only have. Yeah, the others have created. Yeah. In working with with some companies, it’s not a crass grab, right?

00;26;00;28 – 00;26;24;23
Unknown

It’s not a repositioning without action. It is actually their employees going, We actually have to do this because we live in that community too. Or I want something better for myself and my kids, etc.. Right? So they see the opportunity and it can be authentically connected to their brand. And why wouldn’t you talk about higher purpose, right. Other than just just profit?

00;26;24;23 – 00;26;42;14
Unknown

Why wouldn’t you? Well, and those that are doing it halfway, I’ll use that term. Yes. Are getting are getting fleshed out and called out and as they should be. So though they’re doing it, you describe it just for PR sake or that because let’s be honest, there’s some of that too. But they’re getting fleshed out, They’re getting called out, they’re getting moved on from.

00;26;42;21 – 00;27;14;08
Unknown

Yeah, especially in the greenwashing space. We’re seeing a lot of though it’s everybody’s bringing receipts now going you have it or it’s not connected. So now when you think about corporations and how that impacts the generosity crisis, we got that covered. But one of the things you touch on in the book is the level of trust or perception of trust With the public swinging more toward corporations now versus nonprofits, is that complicating things in terms of the generosity crisis?

00;27;14;11 – 00;27;43;28
Unknown

Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, the most recent Edelman Trust Barometer had companies as more seen as the most ethical and competent of the government and NGOs and offer profit space. And so it goes for me, it goes back to a question of who’s going to help solve these problems that we have in society and increasingly, whether they want to or not, that the questions being asked of them cook companies and they have not all of them, but many of them have resources, assets.

00;27;43;28 – 00;28;04;19
Unknown

And I’m not just talking about money, they’re about products, people to to experience, to to help solve a lot of our problems. Brian, I know there are a lot of not for profit groups out there doing the hard work. You’re working with them, right? So you see it certainly more than I do. What’s your advice or what are some of the main takeaways you’d have from the book?

00;28;04;19 – 00;28;27;04
Unknown

Because your book does more than just identify the problems and opportunities. It also starts moving towards solutions. What would you have people take away before they read the book? Yeah, and I think we’ve been talking a lot about sort of what’s involved, right, and how things have changed. But I honestly think so many of the biggest challenges we have, it’s not for any one group to solve.

00;28;27;05 – 00;28;45;13
Unknown

They can’t. So just as much as we’ve talked about what a positive role companies have been playing and can play, well, guess what? What I’ve seen it when we’re at our best is when not for profits and and companies and brands. Government are all working together. They all have something you talked about not for profits doing great work.

00;28;45;13 – 00;29;07;15
Unknown

Right. And they are well, guess what? They often know more than anybody about a particular disease or a particular challenge or issue. They’re living it every day. And so when a company comes save, for instance, or create a partnership, they’re hopefully bringing other assets like money and knowledge and data and what have you. But when they work together, really, really powerful things can happen.

00;29;07;17 – 00;29;32;04
Unknown

Then what? They are just finishing off the conversation about the book and you said it well as that, you know, the generosity crisis, just the name was a bit, you know, a bit jarring, I guess, and a bit provocative. And I we always need that. And I like to say it’s one third about defining the problem, but it the remaining two thirds the book turns to about hope and ideas and inspiration and and challenging, though challenging not for profit community to think differently.

00;29;32;04 – 00;29;49;14
Unknown

I think continuing to challenge the companies and brands or doing that work to do you know even more for those are looking to figure out how they can do that. So just that you know it’s a book of hope versus a book that just by the title alone. So I hope people are scared off by the title. I’m really hoping to get a chance to dig in and really learn from it.

00;29;49;17 – 00;30;12;02
Unknown

Yeah, I can assure listeners it’s there’s no reason to be scared of this book, like grab on to it, because there are both great examples that you haven’t thought of in the implications that you haven’t thought of, but also a way forward in how to move your organization and team forward. Brian Crimmins, CEO of Change in our World global managing partner of 100 and author of The Generosity Crisis.

00;30;12;05 – 00;30;29;26
Unknown

Thank you for joining us. And folks, you can buy the generosity crisis at your favorite book retailer online or in person. Brian, thanks so much. Chris, Thanks for having me. Pleasure.

More in the Series

Chris Thornton is a Senior Principal and member of the global leadership team at Daggerwing Group. In his role, Chris serves as a source of strategic counsel for Senior Executives with client firms, advising them on how to help clients achieve Executive alignment, transform their cultures and equip and enable people managers to lead and embed change. An expert in the people side of change with both client-side and consulting experience, Chris has worked with leading companies including Nestlé, Pfizer, and GE Aviation to do change right and make it stick. He is also an active speaker on business transformation, a driver of innovation in Daggerwing’s breadth of change consulting services, and the host of Daggerwing Group’s podcast, Change@Work. Chris and his wife were featured in the New York Times for their love of pie.