Tyler Riewer is someone whose work has quietly shaped how a lot of people think about storytelling in the nonprofit world.

He started his career in advertising before making the jump to charity: water, where he became one of the key creative voices behind their content for over a decade. He also hosted The Journey series, following his travels to different countries to show the impact of clean water projects, helping audiences feel like they were actually there, not just being told a story.

Today, Tyler is the co-founder and CEO of Mutiny, a creative agency partnering with nonprofits to rethink how they approach branding, storytelling, and fundraising. Not just making better content, but challenging the status quo and building systems, strategies, and relationships that actually move people.

In this conversation, we talk about what made The Journey series work, what was unique to charity: water versus what’s actually replicable, and how his thinking has evolved from creating content to helping organizations rethink how they connect with their audience.

We also get into what nonprofits tend to get wrong when it comes to media, how to approach storytelling in a way that actually builds trust, how to reach younger generations, and why playing the long game matters more than ever.

https://mutinyforgood.com/

--

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Travelight Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/⁠⁠⁠.

Randy Kennedy is Director of Grantmaking at The Maclellan Foundation. The Maclellan Foundation is a Christian grantmaking organization that partners with ministries and nonprofits around the world to strengthen their capacity and cultivate sustainable, locally supported Gospel work. Randy has been with Maclellan for nearly two decades, serving in global strategy roles before stepping into his current position. With a background in ministry and even software sales, he brings mix of mission conviction and business clarity to the nonprofit world.

In this episode, we talk about Maclellan’s “Bridge Strategy,” a shift from traditional project funding toward building sustainable, locally funded ministries that can thrive long-term without depending primarily on foreign support. Randy also walks us through a practical framework called NISO that he uses to evaluate both ministries and media.

We also unpack what serious funders are actually looking for today, how documentary storytelling fits into donor engagement, and why clarity and execution matter more than ever in a crowded funding landscape.

If you’re curious about generosity, long-term sustainability in ministry, and communicating impact in a way that truly resonates with donors, this conversation is packed with insight from someone who has reviewed thousands of proposals and funded work across continents.

https://maclellan.net/

--

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠Travelight Studios⁠⁠⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠⁠⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/⁠⁠.

Andrew Alkeema, is an Executive Director and Media Missionary for Deidox, a nonprofit film ministry that tells real stories of God’s work around the world.Andrew’s journey into media is nothing short of wild — from a life-changing encounter after seeing the Free Burma Rangers documentary in theaters, to an unexpected meeting with its director, Brent Gudgel, and eventually stepping into full-time ministry with his media company Deidox.Now he helps lead the organization alongside the filmmaker, Brent, producing powerful films, podcasts, and their new Ministry Storytelling Masterclass which trains churches and ministries to tell their own stories with excellence and impact.In this episode we talk about Andrew’s story, the vision behind Deidox’s “media missionary” model, and how storytelling can be one of the most powerful modern tools for the Gospel.Note: This conversation was recorded in early 2025. Since then, Andrew has stepped back from his Executive Director role at Deidox for a season to focus on family, and now serves as Director of Operations and Spiritual Development. While some titles have changed, the heart, story, and insights shared in this conversation remain deeply relevant.https://deidox.org/--This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠Travelight Studios⁠⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/⁠.

Cullen Klassen is a filmmaker and director of photography whose work has taken him across more than a dozen countries capturing stories of faith, courage, and missions. Cullen recently served as the Director of Photography for Missionary, a docuseries from Missionary.com that tells the stories of historic missionaries to inspire a new generation.He’s also the founder of Root Visuals, a media company partnering with nonprofits and businesses to help them tell stories that matter. Cullen’s work blends adventure, creativity, and a deep desire to see media used for Kingdom impact.In this episode, we talk about the making of Missionary, the art of visual storytelling, and interesting ways nonprofits can elevate their media to connect hearts and inspire action.https://www.instagram.com/rootvisuals/ --This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠Travelight Studios⁠⁠⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠⁠⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/⁠⁠.

Lauren Odderstol is the Global Content Manager for Medical Teams International. Medical Teams is a nonprofit that provides life-saving medical care to those in emergencies or crisis’, and has field offices in 7 countries. Lauren has been at Medical Teams almost 6 years, but has been in the media and marketing space a long time, including having experience managing digital assets with businesses such as PBS and other nonprofits such as IJM. Lauren loves traveling and also does her own Photography work on the side.

In this episode we get into the details of how content gets made in the nonprofit structure, the differences of doing media for individuals vs corporate or institutional sponsors, and we talk through a specific campaign Lauren and Medical Team’s conducted. At the end Lauren also shares her opinion about how fostering a healthy work culture can allow nonprofit’s media to thrive. 

https://www.medicalteams.org/

https://www.facebook.com/medicalteams

https://www.laurenodderstol.com/

--

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠Travelight Studios⁠⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/⁠.

Ryan Farran is a missionary pilot in Papua New Guinea with Ethnos360, servicing very remote jungle airstrips with a small single engine plane. Missionaries often function and fundraise like their own mini non-profit, and Ryan has been using videos and media to create a side business to help support his ministry.

Ryan started documenting his flights with GoPro action cameras, and intentionally set out to start a YouTube channel that could hopefully bring in some supplemental income. After finding his niche audience, Ryan’s Youtube channel currently has 344K followers, and he has expanded his content to flight simulators and other products. He releases new flight vlogs every week, and you can find him on social media as @missionarybushpilot. In this episode he had some great advice about the power of videos, how to use different styles of videos for different audiences, and creative ways to think outside the box. 

@missionarybushpilot

https://www.youtube.com/@MissionaryBushPilot

https://www.patreon.com/MissionaryBushPilot

https://www.instagram.com/missionarybushpilot

https://ethnos360.org/ 

--

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠⁠Travelight Studios⁠⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/⁠.

Jason Galicinski has over 20 years of experience working with nonprofits. Jason helped develop FundEasy, a software for streamlining fundraising events, as well as establishing and helping run a nonprofit educating street children in Zambia. Jason is also currently running a mentorship program for nonprofit leaders called Fundraising Masterminds, to help nonprofits get fully funded in 5 months with the Perfect Vision Dinner strategy. Jason and his business partner Jim Dempsey also have a Fundraising Masterminds podcast where they talk about practical solutions for nonprofit challenges. 

In this episode we talk about Jason’s motivation and experience behind helping nonprofit’s thrive, the quality of media that’s involved in his Perfect Vision Dinner strategy, podcasts, SEO, emotional storytelling, and the trend he’s seeing with the younger generation.

@fundraisingmasterminds

Fundraising Masterminds: https://www.fundraisingmasterminds.net/?ref=travelight

Fundraising Masterminds Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlP4ydjFLg3t2HuYUBLVE7lSNC30eZ6Ve 

FundEasy: https://www.fundeasy.com/

Reaching The Heart of Zambia: https://www.reachingtheheartofzambia.org/

--

This podcast is brought to you by ⁠Travelight Studios⁠. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit ⁠https://www.travelightstudios.com/.

Jessica and James Brewer are a husband and wife team that work for Iris Global, a multi-faceted organization that serves the poor in the hardest places. Originally from Australia, they joined Iris as media missionaries, and a few years later joined staff on the Iris Media team. They spent a few years in Mozambique, the poorest country in the world, where they filmed and produced a feature documentary called Nifento about the organization’s response and impact during a time of terrorism, chaos, and torture of the innocent. 

Following their time in Mozambique, the Brewers now live State-side where they help oversee some of Iris’ other media projects such as a podcast with the org’s CEO, and a documentary series on each of their international bases.

In this episode we got to ask them questions about their start in media, the Nifento film, the podcast and doc-series initiatives (and whether they recommend them for other nonprofits), and their experience and advice about learning as you go. We also touched on appealing to broad audiences, and building trust with both your donors and the people being featured in the content by avoiding clickbait and exploitation. 

irisglobal.org

nifento.com

--

This podcast is brought to you by Travelight Studios. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit travelightstudios.com.

Aaron Brown is the Chief Marketing Officer for Destiny Rescue International, a nonprofit that helps rescue children from human trafficking and sexual exploitation and helps them stay free. Aaron also worked in Sales and Marketing at a few different companies, before joining Destiny Rescue in 2016. Aaron and his team have produced multiple documentary films about the rescue work their organization does - a few of which have won awards at various film festivals.

Aaron stresses the importance of ethical storytelling, avoiding manipulation, and staying committed to transparent and impactful narratives. He finishes by offering advice for those in media and nonprofits, emphasizing perseverance in the face of criticism and maintaining realistic expectations.

destinyrescue.org

--

This podcast is brought to you by Travelight Studios. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit travelightstudios.com.

Welcome to the Nonprofits & Media podcast where we talk to leaders involved with media inside a variety of nonprofit organizations about the different ways they approach marketing and communications. I’m Nathan Pfaff, and my job is to tease out what benefits or results they’ve seen in their content strategy, so that you can apply those to your own life or organization.

--

This podcast is brought to you by Travelight Studios. Travelight is a full-service film production company that specializes in documentary and promotional videos for your nonprofit. We are a multicultural team of award-winning creatives with a passion to help organizations grow their reach. We can be your media team, or work alongside your media team, to deliver captivating content that energizes your audience. Travelight takes the time to truly get to know you and your needs, and includes extra tools to help make your videos be the most powerful they can be. To plan a project and have your story and solutions presented to viewers in a beautifully compelling way, visit travelightstudios.com.