The Good Journey Pod

Rich Johnson is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Ignite Journeys — a startup social business that provides experiences that benefit humanity & the planet — and also the Co-Founder of Spark Ventures — a nonprofit that builds partnerships that lift communities out of poverty.

In part 2 of our chat, Rich discusses the decision to start Ignite, what it's all about, and how they work with and for both companies and nonprofits to effect change. And in addition to being a neat guy, Rich was also my first boss, a fantastic mentor, and a great friend so I hope you enjoy the discussion.

Learn more about Ignite Journeys: www.experienceignite.com/

Learn more about Spark Ventures: sparkventures.org/

Rich Johnson is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Ignite Journeys — a startup social business that provides experiences that benefit humanity & the planet — and also the Co-Founder of Spark Ventures — a nonprofit that builds partnerships that lift communities out of poverty.

In part 1 of our chat, Rich talks about starting Spark, working with a board, attracting staff, fundraising, and celebrating their 10 year anniversary. And in addition to being a neat guy, Rich was also my first boss, a fantastic mentor, and a great friend so I hope you enjoy the discussion.

Learn more about Ignite Journeys: https://www.experienceignite.com/

Learn more about Spark Ventures: https://sparkventures.org/

Sarah Durham, author of the book Brandraising and founder of Big Duck total communications nerd — her words — is on the pod. In this episode, Sarah talks a bit about her starting Big Duck and being a certified Woman Owned Business, what brand means and its value to nonprofit organizations, as well as how to measure brand and Big Duck's Brandraising Benchmarks.

More on Big Duck: https://bigducknyc.com/

In this episode, I’m joined by Ann Rosenfield to discuss fundraising for startup and young nonprofits, monthly giving, and old school and new school fundraising among other things. Ann has been in the sector for 20 years, is an editor of Hillborn Charity eNews, and works as a major gift fundraiser. She also does a lot of volunteer work, like chairing the Association of Fundraising Professionals Congress, working with Imagine Canada, and serving on the board of Rainbow Railroad — a neat organization that she shares more about in this episode — so I hope you like it.

In this episode I’m joined by Kathleen Janus, author of Social Startup Success and lecturer at Standford University. Kathleen shares 5 key insights from her book and over 100 interviews with nonprofit leaders, discusses what it means to scale and why some nonprofits shouldn’t try to scale, and gives one great tip to people starting or scaling a nonprofit… I won’t tell you what it is so now you have to listen. Enjoy!

Get the book at http://www.kathleenjanus.com/

Katherine Davies from iguacu is on the podcast this week. Katherine started iguacu to help solve the problem of how to find and support trusted organizations doing effective work in the middle of humanitarian crises like Syria, Afghanistan, and the Central African Republic. In this episode she talks about her 55 day walk across Europe, iguacu’s methodology behind finding effective organizations, and the value of effortless and joyful giving. Hope you like it.

More on iguacu: https://weareiguacu.org/

Vivien Hoexter and Linda Hartley, authors of Big Impact: Insights & Stories from America’s Non-Profit Leaders and principles at H2 Growth Strategies are on the pod. They discuss some key findings from their book on nonprofit leaders (Big Impact: Insights & Stories from America’s Non-Profit Leaders), changes in giving in the past 20 years, why charitable giving is stuck at 2% and even a quick tangent on pay inequality within the fundraising profession (which is ridiculous). I hope you enjoy and as always thanks for listening.

More about them and their book: http://h2growthstrategies.com/book/

Jeff Gordy CEO & Co-Founder of Z2 Systems, the makers of NeonCRM. shares more about his circuitous and entrepreneurial journey to the nonprofit sector. He also discusses what makes a good entrepreneur, some key lessons he’s learned along the way, and even some data, tech, and fundraising nerdery as well. Thanks for listening!

In this episode, Gary Wohlfeill, VP of Brand and Vision at CrowdRise, joins to chat about social fundraising, the mindset shift needed for organizations to fundraise today, and how to best market and sell to nonprofits

At CrowdRise, Gary works with partners to develop fundraising campaigns and leads the marketing team in developing the CrowdRise brand. CrowdRise is the world’s largest and fastest​-​growing fundraising platform dedicated exclusively to charitable giving.

More on CrowdRise: https://www.crowdrise.com/

Chris Huertz has a background in humanitarian work fighting human trafficking in the slums of Cambodia and spent a lot of time with Mother Theresa. In his travels and work he’s become an Enneagram professional and been trained by people like Father Richard Rohr, Russ Hudson, Marion Gilbert and Helen Palmer among others. He has spent time on many nonprofit boards over the past 15 years, currently runs his own nonprofit in Omaha called Gravity and recently wrote a book called The Sacred Enneagram. In this episode Chris shares more about the Enneagram, what contemplative activism is and why it’s needed in our world today, and what he’s learned working with nonprofits and nonprofit professionals. Hope you like it!

More about The Sacred Enneagram: http://amzn.to/2Bopr5r