Stop Treating Channels Like Islands: Building an Omnichannel Ecosystem

A lot of nonprofits still plan fundraising like every channel lives on its own island, then wonder why “more posting” doesn’t turn into more giving. In this episode, Ben Smithee, Chief Growth Officer at NextAfter, unpacks what happens when you build an omnichannel fundraising ecosystem where each touchpoint increases familiarity, trust, and momentum toward a gift.

If you want more practical nonprofit marketing and fundraising strategy, subscribe, share this with a teammate, and leave a review. What’s one channel you’re ready to connect into a real donor journey this week?

Transcript

Sponsor Message From Firespring

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This episode is sponsored by Firespring. Firespring is a brand experience company that specializes in nonprofits, delivering integrated marketing and websites that do more than look good. From appeals and annual reports to seamless giving experiences, Firespring helps nonprofits turn clicks into real impact. Learn more today at firespring.com/slash nonprofit hub. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, joined today by my friend Ben Smithy, who's the chief growth officer at Next After. If you've been to Coscamp before, you have likely seen Ben on stage. You may have caught a previous episode of the podcast with him. Glad to have him back. A fan favorite as always. Ben, welcome in.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

What's up? You may have seen me or even me and Nicole.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And Nicole, yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

There you go. My wife Nicole.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

So yes. So good. Welcome in. Glad to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Always a pleasure and uh super stoked to chat. It's kind of like just hey, do you want to come on the internet and hang out with my friend for 30 minutes? Cool. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Let's do it. I was just telling somebody this the other day. The podcast really just means that I get to hang out with really interesting people and listen to them talk about what they're super smart at.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

So like it's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

It's the best job ever.

unknown 1:16

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Okay, so for those who might not be familiar with you, give us a little bit of background about who you are and what brought us to the conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, for sure. Well, primary ministry, I guess, is home life. I didn't my wife Nicole and I uh live in outside of Dallas. So we're here. My background is we have an awesome, crazy little almost four-year-old now, actually, uh, and Quinn. She's awesome. And yeah, she's amazing. But work life, my background is in digital marketing, advertising, previously in the for-profit space a lot, building companies around from a research standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, understanding, helping businesses understand how to use digital to reach more people, grow the business, and sell more stuff. Uh, and last year I had the pleasure of joining Next After. I'd been around Next After for five years, I guess, through various means that speaking at Neo, uh, attending Nick with people like you, and all the cool stuff. Uh, they reached out to me and I came on board to lead our growth team, which is our sales, marketing, events, partnerships team, and help find ways that we can help our clients grow and grow their impact, grow their reach, and help more people experience their mission and you know, increase generosity that way. And then helping our businesses next after grow with the right partners and the right clients. So that's why I'm today in a nutshell, and I get to do cool stuff like this and travel around and check out cool stuff that nonprofits are doing.

Social Ads Boost Direct Mail

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, that's great. So that is what the digital marketing side is certainly what brings us into the conversation today. Um, because I saw a video from your team, I think already put it out or had shared it, and that's how I saw it. Talking about the connection between digital and traditional and multi-channel, right? So talk to us a little bit about that. I think the study was something with social and direct mail.

Building An Omnichannel Ecosystem

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, so there's the study was social and direct mail, and the TLDR version is essentially like our hypothesis is if you know next after, you know it's it's test mentality, like scientific method, let's test, experiment, and grow. And so the hypothesis was that essentially we believe that showing Facebook ads to direct mail for direct mail acquisition prospects will increase the conversion rate because increasing familiarity with the brand and awareness during that ask period will increase conversion, right? Now, it's I think that was a good hypothesis. I've seen the data, I've seen the end of the movie, right? Um but I think what's interesting about that is that in and of itself doesn't seem like when you break it down that way, it doesn't seem novel. It's like, okay, increase proximity to the brand in a favorable way, increase experiences with the brand through consuming content. That's our model, right? When we think about next after, we're a whole just like accelerating growth through creating experiences with the brand, the organization's mission, like having people experience that. We do that through content, right? We create revenue engines through experience with content. So in this study, we just did that. We ran that play. And we showed half the audience, you know, one of them, the signers for the direct mail piece was um NFL player Benjamin Watson. And so what we did is we sent there and we we sent ads out and primed the audience with ads, Facebook ads with Benjamin Watson, and then sent them to the direct mail piece. And we had almost 36% uh higher conversion rate when it came to the direct mail recipients that had been primed with the ads and on Meta than the ones that hadn't. And so when we look at that, that in and of itself is yes, it's a very specific use case, but it harkens back to the whole concept of what we're talking about today, which is it's funny we still talk about traditional versus digital or whatever. Like at this point, digital has been there as a concept, right? Maybe not specific use case for direct ask, direct response fundraising, but digital has been around since we were kids, you know what I mean, at this point. So I think it's how does, dare I say, let's throw out all the things omnichannel, multi-channel, like uh you know, hybrid, like all these things, how does that really work today? And it just shows that I think this should change our default button. If you're doing anything other than defaulting to an ecosystem, you shouldn't have to be like proving some of these things out at this point, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah. No, it's good. And I do think, unfortunately, we tend to still think in terms of one channel versus another. Right? We don't tend to look at the bigger picture of the whole. So I want to talk about because I know within our audience here, right, we have a lot of organizations who are pretty new. There, we got a lot of startups, we got a lot of smaller orgs that are just starting to get their program going. So I want to tap your experience for them specifically right now. Because I think sometimes in organizations that have been around a while or maybe bigger, it's hard to change course, right? It's hard to move the ship. But if somebody's just starting out and wants to make sure that they're you know setting up those all of those channels to work together, talk to them about what are some of those best practices that you see from organizations that are doing this really well that they can just start from the jump and not have to try to course correct later.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Sure. If your goal is to build a predictable revenue engine, right? Broad-based donors, predictable revenue to your organization and accelerate the growth of this small organization to grow faster, the best thing you have to do is look at everything through how do I get people to experience my brand? How do I get people to experience the value proposition that I'm putting out there? How do I get people to experience that? And the largest way you can do that, the best way you can do that is through your content, whether it's through content offers, whether it's through content premiums, whether it's like premium content offers, whether it's through downloads and ebooks or um videos or advertising in that space. Like, how do you get people to experience the mission of your organization, the mission through the brand, through the lens of all of that? And so, whatever that's not that's channel agnostic, right? Yeah, so now it's looking through how can I stack these wins? How can I stack these things up from channel to channel to channel? Or how do I prime one channel with the other? On any individual silo, we know all of those channels work. We no longer have to prove that, right? Meta advertising works, Google Ads works, SEO and paid search works, direct mail works, calling works, right? Email works. We're not fighting that. So now how do we make sure? Because we need to do all of those things, how do we make sure that they're all additive and spinning up that growth engine? How do we make sure that one is leading to another, right? It's the whole thing we have a lot of studies too around using rather than just sending an ad to instant conversion donation page, what does it look like to put a content offer ahead of that? And we see an increase up and to the right of uh donors and donations, right? Names and dollars coming through by interrupting that. And most of the time you think, oh, wait, add, we don't want to add friction. Let's go straight to a landing page, a donation page, convert. We don't want to introduce more friction in there, but it's not friction, it's brand experience. It's how do we get them to experience the mission, right? The value of the organization. That's by giving them more information to experience it with, right? So we have a ton of tests. If you go to our website and our resources, you can download all of those things for free, right? You can get it, you can get access to we have 8,000 experiments that you can see and run. So if I'm a startup, if I'm a smaller nonprofit, if I'm part of your group of nonprofit leaders and practitioners, go cons go take all of it. Go steal all of it and say, what do I want to do first? But the information is out there, and our whole goal is to put it out there, right? It's not, it's gated with an email. Put it out there. By the time you're listening to this, too. Actually, our courses, like our online learning courses and stuff, you can get those, and I believe it by the time this line is you'll get them for free now. So you can go take any of our stuff along with the stuff that you guys offer. Like just go consume, right? And the more you can consume this stuff, the more you can sit there and think through as an organization, how do I get them to experience my brand? Not just be aware of it, right? There's a lot of marketing and advertising that can build awareness. But if that awareness is not leading to experience, experience with the brand, experience with the value prop, experience with that, then we're just building this soft. That's why I think there's been that divide between marketing and fundraising historically, is because fundraising, there's this metric, there's this KPI of like dollars, names, dollars, donors, is next after always talks about, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

And we're held to that standard where marketing can feel like, oh, we've built brand awareness, or we've just impressions and stuff. That's great. But if impressions don't lead to traffic and traffic don't lead to prospects and prospects don't lead to donors, what are we doing, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

So I think the difference in all of that is experiencing the brand, like experiencing the mission, experiencing what the organization is doing because you're giving them. I think if brand and vision is this whole like passing train, right? Experience are the handles that allow people to actually grab onto that vision and latch onto the vision, right? You have to have some sort of experience, and by doing that, that involves some sort of friction. Like we have to induce a little bit of friction in there to get them to experience the brand.

Content Offers For Cause-Based Work

SPEAKER_01 11:11

So good. I can see where you know, if somebody is a really content-heavy organization, right? So some of your maybe your broadcast ministries, somebody who's doing some education work, it's pretty easy for those folks to think about what that offer could look like, right? For folks who might be a little more on the cause-based side, right? I run a homeless shelter, I run a animal rescue organization, um, you know, there's all of those kind of boots on the ground in our community, right? I think sometimes it's harder for them to think through what that experience could be, what the offer could be, because they're not they don't naturally have that content outlet. So have you within these experiments you guys have done, have you seen some examples on that side that you've seen work really well? Or do you have even just in your experience, like do you have some thoughts on where they could go to like as a starting point for that?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

These are the things where you're gonna get like the next after answer if test it. You gotta test it, right? Because we see so much variance. But it's like, okay, data, what are the data points? Let people experience the output and the effect of what their dollars are doing, right? Impact. That's why impact reports are important, but we only think about them oftentimes at the end of the year or the annual report.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

The annual report, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, but throughout how do we drip that throughout the year? Like, how do we show impact of those things? That's showing impact and results is letting them get close to the mission, right? Showing behind the curtains of the work that's being done, those type of things, the people, having people in your organization explain what's happening, explain what's going on, those type of things matter, right? It's the blocking and tackling stuff. I don't think it's a huge secret. It's just being intentional with it. Are there checklists? Are there tools that you can give? Are there ways if you're a homeless shelter, are you are there tools that you can give the average family that's a checklist of ways to support, you know, relieving homelessness through X, Y, and Z other things? Like 10 ways you didn't know that you can impact this, right? All of those different things, like those tools, it's the same thing for next after, right? We're not, we're giving the things that we give away, right? If you just model, do what we do, right? We're modeling tips and tricks for practitioners, tests to use, like indicators to manage, like it's the same thing, but for your organization, what are those tools? What are the things that what are the results that you're showing, right? We show results like that case study, like you're talking about. We show playbooks and ebooks teaching them how to do this differently. Same thing with your organization. What's the playbook? What's the ebook? How can I teach my children about XYZ serving this this community? How can I teach um my teens this community? How can I teach myself this community? Like those type of things, those like playbooks, ebooks, uh, one, two, three, people love that stuff, right?

How Small Teams Should Prioritise

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah. We yeah, in general, we love a five ways to do whatever, ten ways to do whatever. We really love a good, a good numbered list as a people. Okay, so I'm curious, you know, for somebody who maybe is a smaller team where marketing and fundraising are falling to one person and they're going, yeah, that sounds really great, man. That's a lot of channels that you I mean, if I go back to something that you said earlier, right, where we're talking about social and email and text and calling and website and like all of the pieces. And I do feel like, especially when it comes to social, where there's new platforms every month where something new is coming out. If somebody's in that kind of smaller shop, where would you tell them to to like start their focus and build out? I guess maybe what's what's the first thing that's work worth doing and what can maybe then come later as we get that built out? What where would you prioritize things?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Well, we believe that your owned audience is the greatest predictor of future success when it comes to fundraising. So how do you build your owned audience? The key is how am I building my names, right? And how am I building my list? Yeah. So whatever channel best allows you to do that, meaning where does your target audience live? Like where are they, where are they spending their time? Where are they dreaming? Where are they consuming information, right? Where are they going to consume information? And how can I translate that channel back to driving a list, driving my list, building my name acquisitions, all of those, right? Because your owned audience there is the greatest predictor. So everything needs to be pointed back to your own audience, and everything needs to be pointed back to building that list, and it then it allows you to deploy email, which is super valuable, deploy direct mail, which is super valuable, those things. So, yes to all the channels, but they need to point back directionally to how does this build my own audience? Right? It's not just meta ads for meta ads sake, it's meta ads to get them to give me an email so I can then add that to my list and segment my list appropriately and then use my email. That's the strategy there. So the strategy is pretty unified. The top of funnel is what you're talking about, where people get distracted and overworked and all of those type of things. But Meta is still king when it comes to a lot of that stuff. Most of the donors, like we we sit there and we talk about Gen Z and all that type of stuff. And yes, if you're movement based and all this type of stuff, yes, Gen Z. But are they the ones with the dollars if you're talking about fundraising that are building your programs? Likely not still. Yes, there is some, but when it comes, you and I both know when it comes to broad-based donors, where are most of them in the age bracket? You know, it's Gen X and up. Yes.

Owned Versus Rented Audiences

SPEAKER_01 17:03

This episode is sponsored by Firespring, a brand experience company trusted by thousands of nonprofits to amplify their message, strengthen supporter connections, and grow their mission. Firespring delivers nonprofit websites and marketing that do more than look good. From appeals and direct mail to annual reports and seamless online giving, everything is built to tell your story, engage supporters, and make giving easy. The result? Real, measurable impact for your organization. Learn more today at firespring.com/slash nonprofit hub. In this discussion, we want to talk about the boomers. We want to talk about the boomers, and then we jump to the millennials. But those Gen X folks right now are really your sweet spot that I do feel like tend to get ignored in the process.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, and where are they? Probably not necessarily all up on TikTok or X, Y, and Z. They can be, and that's good brand building. But when it comes, if you're a fundraiser, right, you gotta put your fundraising hat on. Where do those dollars live? What channels do those dollars reside in? So you gotta hedge your, especially if you're a smaller startup, you know, one woman organization, then you need to really focus that time and effort. And so go where the masses are and then start working on the fringe case.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

So good. We just had someone on the podcast yesterday actually did an interview that'll be coming out here soon, and we had a pretty good discussion around this similar topic about owned versus rented and how we can it's very easy to get stuck in the vanity metrics of how many people like your page or follow you or are engaging with the company. You still don't own that audience, and you can't pay the electric company in impressions, right? So we have to be real we have to be reality-based and practical about what where that owned audience lives and their value because meta can change it anytime. We've seen it countless the rules, can change it anytime platforms come and go. I love the call out to like as reinforcement of that. We have to get back to where we own the land and building on owned land instead of rented.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, and now look, people will say that are listening to this if they're really like following the thread. Ben, you just talked about a case study that was about building awareness and priming the brand. Yes, but that was followed up by the direct mail piece. It wasn't just, hey, if we build enough awareness, people will find their way to giving.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

That's not true. Like impression has to lead to traffic, and so in there, and traffic has to lead to prospecting, right? So in that space, we shortcutted that from the channel, we primed it in meta, but we continued it on through the direct mail piece. So it's not just a, and this was an owned audience because we obviously sent them direct mail, so we we we had that information, right? So in that space, it's important to understand the thread needs to continue, even if you're hopping from a different channel, you're stacking those channels on top of each other. It's not like we took them all the way down through meta in this, but we did take them through the funnel, we took them up the mountain, or we the donor mountain, as we call it.

Texting Without Becoming Spammy

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, it's so good. Um, I'm curious your thoughts on where text does fit into that. Um, I think it it in terms of channel, I feel like it's one we haven't fully jumped on board to embrace. Yeah, it's maybe still on a lag a little bit, but have you guys seen value in that as a piece of the puzzle, or are we just not there yet?

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, we're definitely exploring more and increasing our utilization of it. I probably don't speak for all of our like account leads or things like that because they all have different variations and and various levels of experience with it, but I'd say in there, it's I kinda relate it back to the early days of email. And I think if you think about our friends like Kindle and Aaron over on the texting side, they'd say the same thing. It's kind of like the Wild West, there of building recognition and building a brand around your short code and building that. It's almost like seasoning your pixels and seasoning your cookies back in the day on the digital side, but on email, it's domain authority. So it's the same thing here with, I think, with texting is building that audience, and that is an owned audience. So it is, I think, a hub versus a connector, right? Email is a hub, I think. Your direct mail list is a hub. I think texting will become a hub too, not just connector. However, we see it and we kind of have treated it as a connector, as a as a traffic operator, but it is uh it's an owned audience, right? And the problem we're gonna start facing. Is most people haven't necessarily had clean data when it comes to phone because we haven't used it as much unless you're in the call center space, right? So we have to go back and clean up data, or we have to now start asking for that data, um, unless you're renting lists and stuff like that, but that's a different story, right? But primary, like if you're using it from your own audience, that's where you need to really prime this and treat it like more like an email behavior versus like a an ad audience behavior, like a meta behavior. Does that make sense? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah. Yeah, no, I I agree. I think, you know, I tend to be more of a skeptic of all things, right? I'm I'm more of a try it out, test it and see if it works. I tend to follow that next after philosophy. But I do think, I mean, you can't argue with the the open rates on text right now. So do you think it's a super viable channel when done well? And Aaron and Kendall can go ahead and and come on and debate me if they want. I do tend to wonder, I think, at least for me, right? Because I think sometimes the tendency of marketers is to presume that people are not going to behave like humans. Right? We want them to behave like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

And we break stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

We break good things and break them, overuse them and just for me personally, if I think about my human behavior with text messages, I am way more quick on the unsubscribe, stop texting me response than I am to unsubscribe on an email.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

But why?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

For some reason it annoys me more in my text message inbox than it does in my email.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Because it feels more personal, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

And so if you tie that back to the value of experience, yes, that's the opportunity. So it's not that texting is bad, it's spammy texting.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Spammy texting, yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

And where have we largely seen a higher, closer adoption rate of texting?

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Political.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

And they don't care.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

And they don't care.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Because there's not a longitudinal, they're not like it's campaign-based.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So we have to make sure that doesn't ruin it for everybody. Like we can't treat it campaign. That's why, like, like advertising paid that's campaign-based, right? Email, you don't view email as campaign-based as a fundraiser, right? Sure. You treat it with the same level of authority and love and care and respect. That's what we have to do. But people like, and right now it is a land grab, so there is an opportunity. Like, I used to talk all the time, 10 years ago, five years ago, even on meta-ads, and how it's never gonna be as cheap to build on meta and run meta ads effectively as it is now. And people didn't believe me, and now it's like way more expensive to run effective meta ads. It's the same thing with texting, it's the Wild West. But don't just go out guns blazing, like political campaign style, because you do care. Like, you're not just about this election cycle, you're about long-term value, long-term growth, relationship. So take it with that same care in mind and understand the channel strategy that you're in. It's probably more similar to like your email house file. Like, you wouldn't do that, you wouldn't be completely carefree about how you'd treat your house file. Treat that with a lot of care. It's probably the most thing that your board looks at, how you're doing that, your executives look at it. So it's the same thing with texting, I think.

Free NextAfter Tools And Neo Summit

SPEAKER_01 25:25

So good. Okay, so tell us a little bit for those who might not be from super familiar with Next After. I think we've gotten a good glimpse for the way in which you guys approach. Um, but if somebody wanted to find those resources that you were talking about or learn more about that, or connect with you, what's the best way to do that?

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah, so on our website, if you go to next after.com and go to our resources, there's a ton of stuff there. And it's free. So no, no hidden things, like it's free. We're not in the business of trying to just make money that way. We we our business model is helping nonprofits grow, right? Like I said, it's we're growth accelerator for nonprofits, and the whole way we do that is building these predictable revenue engines for them. Uh, we tend to work with your larger nonprofits in that space just because of size and our we're testing methodology. So you need traffic, you need an audience, you need that type of stuff. And so we are a growth accelerator versus, if you think about it, like an incubator, right? So in that place, we are an accelerant for that. We are not necessarily like a startup incubator. That said, we care about startup incubations because you don't get big nonprofits without having small ones, right? So in that space, that's why we try to give everything away for free. The other way you can do that is Neo Summit, NIO, our nonprofit innovation and optimization summit. We put on an event for nonprofit fundraisers and marketers every year. It's super approachable. We even changed our rates this year to where we have a nonprofit rate and a for-profit rate. So check it out. So niosummit.com, our NEOSummit, every year we you can come there and I promise you money back guarantee, literally, that you'll walk away with a ton of great information, a lot of new friends, a lot of new connections that can help you with this, a lot of new partners and tech and suppliers that can help you with this. Um, so if you're a partner out there, if you're a partner with nonprofits from a supplier standpoint, talk to us. There's great opportunities for you there. And if you're a nonprofit, I promise you you will meet some of the most impactful people in your career there. And if you're a smaller nonprofit that's getting started, it is a force multiplier because in one setting, you are gonna meet a ton of places, people. And I will say that been in the event space. I go to a million events, right? On the four project space, put on by people that their whole business is non-vents and conferences. And I promise you this will be one of the best events that you ever go to. So Neo Summit is a great one. Any of our resources and tools are a great one, or quite frankly, just reach out to me, just B-E-N at next after.com, reach out to me, and I'll put you in touch with someone from our team that can help you. Like we are really trying to create the most generous generation in the history of the world. That's our that's our vision. So we believe in our values of you know, airing on the side of generosity. So if you have questions, I'll put you in touch with someone from our team, or one of our competitors, or one of our friends, or partners, or someone that can help you too. So we refer a ton of business to other agencies and and people that can that are better suited to help you. So we will find a way to get you the help that you need.

Book Recommendations For 2026

SPEAKER_01 28:32

That's so good. As something that I've always really appreciated about our partnership with Next After is you guys have that same mentality, right? We just want to make the world better. We want to help support organizations that are boots on the ground making the world better. And so why would we get keep the why would we get keep that learning? Um and I would vouch, I have been I was at the original first Neo summit, and I think I've only missed two in the history of Neo's existence. So I would vouch, it is a fantastic conference. I mean, I I'm gonna tell you go to Coscamp. That's my own personal bias, but yeah. And you should, but also go to Neo. Very good. Okay, so as we wrap up our time together, Ben, the question I've been asking everybody, we've dubbed 2026 here on the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast as the year of learning. So not only are we learning from the podcast and from all of our resources, helping folks build out that to be read list uh for their favorite books. Tell me what you would say is a book someone should absolutely put on that list. We want to make sure that this is something that you have been impacted by or a book that really resonated with you. What would you recommend?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Well, the Bible's the greatest leadership book in the history of the universe. Uh so that's a good one. Related to that, I would say practicing the way, John Mark Homer was is a favorite of mine. It took me a while to get to it, but then it was like sat on my shelf and then I finally read it and it was awesome. I'd say that the other one to there is Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, is another John Mark Homer book that changed my perspective on a lot of things as someone that's a hustle three, two performer, achiever, maverick, all the different tests all aligned toward up and to the right, like run and gun. So ruthless elimination of hurry. It's tough because I only really read the I I liked from a business perspective one of the things that was interesting. Obviously, Start with Why that can be applied back to the whole mission experience piece. Yeah. Um, but the other Simon Sinek book that I really liked was The Infinite Game. That's more of a business focused type thing. I know you asked for one and I just gave you four. That's fine.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

But listen, I'm I'm building up my list. It's great. I do love Start With Why, that's one of my favorite business books.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

But yeah, in the book, don't just read don't just watch his TED talk. Like read the book.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yeah, actually read the book.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

My here's my favorite team's one is uh, you know, all the tests and all that stuff. My favorite one and most applicable of all the things is uh Working Genius, Lindcioni Working Genius. Yes, I think it is as a leader, it's the most usable for the team in terms of not just identifying what everybody's type is on certain things, but how they work together in sequence and when to bring people in and when to focus on these tools. And so to me, it's just the most applicable, it's simple. You don't need a book to understand the concept, like it describes it in the I mean, you don't need a separate book and another manual and all these things, like sure. It's different, you know. It's like we use PI, we use predictive index a lot at Next After for team and stuff like that, and I love it. But you need another book to explain it, like it's super deep, right? Working genius, like just read the book and you got it. It's super awesome. I love it, dude.

Final Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Great, I love it. Well, Ben, thank you so much. Uh always appreciate your wisdom and certainly appreciate the partnership with Next After and the like-mindedness with which we serve the space. So thanks for being here today. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Likewise, grateful for the opportunity and always, always, always honored. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer, and we'll see you next time.