In this episode, Eric talks with Allen Thornburgh, a longtime marketing and fundraising leader who works with purpose-driven organizations to help them create experiences people actually care about.

Allen shares why so many organizations plateau despite doing everything “right,” and how over-reliance on data can quietly suffocate imagination. Drawing on his work across Fortune 500 companies, faith-based nonprofits, and global humanitarian organizations, he explains why growth stalls when leaders treat people as data points instead of human beings with inner lives, stories, and desires.

At the center of the conversation is imagination. Not as a buzzword, but as a practical leadership capacity. Allen describes how transformational work happens when organizations stop optimizing yesterday’s tactics and start designing meaningful experiences that reconnect people emotionally to a cause, mission, or brand.

They explore why direct response and digital marketing are necessary but insufficient, how organizations can fall back in love with their audiences by actually listening to them, and why creating moments of connection matters more than incremental optimization. Allen also walks through his human-centered process for sourcing insight, co-creating with audiences, and building initiatives that evolve over time rather than burn out after a single launch.

This is a grounded, experience-driven conversation for nonprofit leaders, marketers, founders, and executives who sense that growth problems are rarely technical and almost always human.

Topics Covered

• Why imagination matters more than optimization
• How data-driven thinking can unintentionally limit growth
• The difference between treating people as audiences versus participants
• Why most organizations underestimate the power of experience
• Falling in love with your donors, customers, or supporters again
• How to design initiatives that grow over time instead of stalling
• The role of storytelling, fiction, and imagination in leadership
• Why meaningful connection outlasts clever tactics

Episode Links

• Connect with Allen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-thornburgh/
• Allen’s Illumination Community: https://makehistoric.com/community/

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com

Questions or guest ideas: [email protected]