Strategic podcasting for nonprofits with Andrea Kunder
3/23/2026
“They had already started the project. They had actually already restarted recording interviews with some of the people who were involved with the project. They just didn’t really know how to put it together into a useful storytelling format.
The reason they had the idea of a podcast in the first place was because part of the grant fulfillment part of the project was to have a form of process evaluation, and they wanted to do process evaluation in a creative way.”
How can nonprofits use podcasting strategically to strengthen community engagement, support learning and evaluation, and build long-term relationships? In episode 146 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, host Carol Hamilton and Andrea Klunder, founder of Creative Imposter Studios discuss:
how nonprofits can use podcasting intentionally—not as a shiny communications add-on that fizzles after the original project champion leaves the organization, but as a tool that solves real organizational problems.
How podcasting is a flexible medium that can support learning, evaluation, community engagement, and long-term relationship building.
Why it’s so important to integrate the podcast across communications functions,
Together they explore why clarity of purpose, sustainability planning, and human-centered storytelling are essential if a nonprofit podcast is going to be worth the investment.
Episode highlights:
[00:07:25] – From Arts and Culture to Meaningful Impact
Andrea shares her roots in the arts and nonprofit culture, and what motivates her work: seeing a direct line between creative effort and meaningful human impact—often marked by deep emotional connection.
[00:09:38] – Why Podcasting Can Work for Nonprofits
Podcasting offers nonprofits a long-form, relational medium that goes beyond marketing—creating space for reflection, storytelling, and engagement that many traditional channels don’t allow.
[00:10:25] – Case Study: Podcasting as Process Evaluation
A Santa Fe Opera podcast began as a creative way to fulfill a grant requirement for process evaluation, offering behind-the-scenes insight into developing new operas while inviting community voices into the conversation.
[00:14:04] – Inviting Stakeholders Into the Story
By featuring artists, community members, and audiences, the podcast became a feedback loop—supporting learning, iteration, and deeper connection between the organization and its stakeholders.
[00:16:13] – Common Misconceptions About Nonprofit Podcasts
Key misunderstandings: podcasts as long advertisements, unclear purpose (“we should have one because others do”), and assuming an audience will magically appear without integration into broader communications.
[00:18:55] – The Myth of ‘Build It and They Will Come’
Even strong brands must actively promote their podcasts. Without intentional integration across newsletters, events, social media, and internal teams, podcasts remain invisible.
[00:20:25] – Integration Across Departments Is Essential
Successful podcasting requires alignment among marketing, development, community engagement, and leadership—so the podcast becomes part of a shared storytelling ecosystem, not a side project.
[00:22:25] – Measuring Success Beyond Downloads
Download numbers alone are a weak indicator. Nonprofits need to ask: Is the podcast advancing learning, relationships, engagement, or mission alignment?
[00:23:25] – The Sustainability Challenge
Many nonprofit podcasts falter when their internal champion leaves. Without succession planning and shared ownership, even successful podcasts can quietly disappear.
[00:25:49] – Podcasting as a Problem-Solving Tool
Podcasts should solve a real organizational challenge—not create more work. If it doesn’t address a need, it’s probably not worth doing.
[00:26:24] – Case Study: Museums, Oral History, and Limited-Run Podcasts
A New Mexico history museum used podcasting to solve a lack-of-artifacts problem by centering oral histories—creating both a physical exhibition and a lasting digital resource without requiring an ongoing show.
[00:30:03] – Building Lifetime Engagement
Podcasting supported long-term relationship building—especially with youth—by giving participants voice, visibility, and meaningful roles in telling the organization’s story.
[00:36:25] – Mapping the Content Ecosystem
Andrea describes evolving her process to include full content-ecosystem mapping—clarifying touchpoints, workflows, responsibilities, and how podcast content feeds and is fed by other channels.
[00:39:08] – What Makes a Nonprofit Podcast Successful
Clarity of purpose, strong strategy, and character-driven storytelling matter more than polish. Authentic voices create connection.
[00:39:52] – Letting Hosts Be Human
Great nonprofit podcasts showcase real personalities—not “NPR voices.” Trust, thoughtful editing, and clear brand guardrails allow authenticity without going off-mission.
[00:45:31] – A Strategic Question for Leaders
Andrea invites leaders to focus on one audience and ask: What does this group need that we could uniquely provide through a podcast?
Guest Bio:
Andrea Klunder is an award-winning podcast producer, story editor, and content director. She is the founder of The Creative Impostor Studios, a boutique agency that helps cultural changemakers create powerful podcasting experiences. Under her leadership, The Creative Impostor Studios and clients have earned national recognition for their inspired impact and distinctive editorial style. Andrea is a sought-after speaker and educator, having led trainings and workshops for institutions such as Community Change, After School Matters, University of Florida Media Institute, and Podcast Movement. Since 2017, Andrea has facilitated a program she designed for neurodiverse high school students in Chicago, called Power Your Story, which was a finalist for the Google Podcasts Creator Program. Andrea’s mission is to help your voice shine!
Important Links and Resources:
Offer for Nonprofit Mission: Impact listeners
Related Episodes:
E 30: Content strategy for your organization
E 45: Authentic marketing for your nonprofit
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Carol Hamilton: Often in nonprofit organizations, projects, programs and initiatives, they happen because someone had a good idea and was able to get funding to support it. While this organic growth builds on the skills and enthusiasm of staff and volunteers too often, the why behind the initiative is not super clear to everyone else in the organization.
Now, this can mean that things get started and piloted, but then fizzle out after the initial enthusiasm. Most podcasts don't make it past seven episodes. This has a name, it's called pod-fading. So should your nonprofit decide to add a podcast to its marketing and communications mix, being clear about why you're doing the show and what problem it will solve for your organization is fundamental.
My guest today on nonprofit Mission Impact is Andrea Klunder. We explore how podcasting is a flexible medium that can support learning, evaluation, community engagement, as well as long-term relationship building for your organization. Why it's so important to integrate the podcast across your multiple communications functions, but then I have to give you a little bit of a behind the scenes look.
True confessions. I can't honestly say that I had all this figured out when I started nonprofit Mission Impact more than five years ago. The reason behind my show has evolved as has its purpose. In my consulting practice, when I started, I knew I enjoyed having conversations with colleagues more than honestly.
I can say I enjoyed writing my blog. I looked at my own behavior and knew that I had taken action and worked with coaches and consultants based on what I'd learned about them by listening to their podcast. So this was because I felt, and this was because I felt I knew them by listening to them over weeks and months, they were literally in my ears.
I couldn't say the same for the blogs I read. They just didn't have the same impact on me. So I decided to give podcasts a try. More than five years later, I'm really glad that I did. Having this show has provided me with so many different opportunities, an opportunity to talk to some super smart people and learn so much, and instead of those just being a coffee date or an informational interview where I am the only person who benefits from their wisdom through the show, I get to share their insights with you.
I've been able to explore my thinking . I have gotten much more clear on my approach and learned how to explain it better to others by producing my solo episodes.
I've also seen many benefits from engaging in this media. Now, without a doubt, it's a lot of work, actually much more work in fact, than writing the blog that I've mostly given up, yet it continues to be meaningful and beneficial, which is why I'm still at it, almost 150 episodes in.
Andrea and I explore why that clarity of purpose is important and how to plan for sustainability of the show and other ways to ensure that a podcast is going to be worth the investment for your organization. So if you're pod-curious or if you have a show in development or you already have one, I'm confident that you'll walk away with a few nuggets to make your show work harder for your organization. With that, let's get into my conversation with Andrea.
Welcome Andrea. Welcome to Nonprofit Mission Impact.
Andrea Klunder: Yay. I'm so excited to be here. Having had you on my show, it's fun to be on the other side of the conversation.
Carol: Absolutely. I always enjoy it when I get to be one. Being asked the questions instead of and answering instead of asking the questions. But yeah, we also are looking on both sides looking for a conversation. But I do always like to start my episodes with a question around what motivates you, what's your why, what drew you to the work that you do?
Andrea: Yeah, so I grew up in the arts as a performer first, later as a technician, later as a director, later as an administrator. And so being in the arts I'm very aligned with nonprofit work, very aligned with culture. And creating culture that inspires people to have. More incredible lives, and I think that I've just always been aligned with what work can be done that is deeply meaningful for people in all forms of creative endeavors and all forms of impact work and social justice work and what. Within that, what really sparks me and motivates me is when I see something that I have had something to do with making a meaningful impact.
I can see that direct relationship of I did this thing with these people and then this about as a result, and usually it means someone cried.
Carol: I don't think the topic we're talking about is gonna bring anyone to tears today, but I, I hear you on that. It's that kind of storytelling where you really connect with people and help them feel the emotion that went into whatever. Whatever was behind that. That's amazing.
Andrea: Yeah,
Carol: So you help nonprofits produce podcasts? So we are gonna have a podcast about podcasts. And I, being a podcast host, I'm also someone who listens to a lot of podcasts and goes on loud podcasts. So I am a fan. But they're not as common in the nonprofit space as maybe other communications channels that most organizations use.
How can podcasts be helpful to nonprofit organizations?
Andrea: For sure. There's so many ways, and I'll give you a little backstory, which you already know, I believe, but your audience doesn't know,
Carol: That's right. Thank you.
Andrea: I didn't. Although I have a background in nonprofit work, when I got into podcasting and I started my podcasting business, which is the Creative Imposter Studios, I was initially working with solopreneurs, small business owners and creatives who were trying to build a personal brand. And I stumbled into podcasting for nonprofits when a friend of mine who we had worked together in our twenties when we had first moved to Chicago, and we were both artsy people coming fresh outta college, and we were both working in the ticket office at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. It was. Selling, selling opera tickets by phone for eight bucks an hour. And had become friends and he went on to have a high level position in the PR department for the Santa Fe Opera. And we were connected through social media and we would hang out every once in a while. And I had been through several career changes and we met up and he was like, what are you working on these days?
And I said I'm producing podcasts. And he was like, wait, what? And I'm like, yeah. He's somebody who can hire you to help them make their podcast. And I'm like, yeah, exactly. And he's oh the opera is trying to create a podcast and we don't know what we're doing. You can help us. And I thought to myself like, oh, that's a pretty big nonprofit organization. I have no idea how you make a podcast for an organization. And then I met with the department who wanted to create the podcast, which is their community engagement and education department. And I met with the two people from that department who would be the co-hosts, they had. Big visions.
They were like, we want this to be the NPR car talk of the opera world, and we want it to be narrative with music and voiceover and storytelling. And I was like, oh my God, I don't know how to do this at all. But of course, I am a scrappy entrepreneur. When they said, is this something you can create for us?
I was like, yeah, of course. This is exactly what I do. Say yes. Figure it out on the backend. And I. What we really started to do together is figure out exactly what this podcast is and why it exists, and for them in that case, they had received some grant funding to create this initiative that was commissioning and producing. Brand new American operas working with contemporary composers, and they had already received funding. They had already started the project. They had actually already restarted recording interviews with some of the people who were involved with the project. They just didn't really know how to put it together into a useful storytelling format. The reason they had the idea of a podcast in the first place was because part of the grant fulfillment part of the project was to have a form of process evaluation, and they wanted to do process evaluation in a creative way, and the name of their initiative was called Opera for All Voices. And they were like if this is opera for all voices. What's a voice led medium that will allow us to do process evaluation? And that's how they came up with the idea of the podcast. And so a lot of what that initial vision was for them was not about marketing these new operas necessarily but more about as we are creating. This initiative as we're figuring things out and solving problems and working with composers and writers and designers and singers and all these people, have a forum where we can invite people into the studio to have conversations about. we're working on, what's challenging, what are the steps of the process? It's like a behind the scenes for people to follow along. So it's not just oh, here's this new opera, but it's here is all of the blood, sweat, and tears that goes creating something like this and giving people a real insider backseat to that process.
And in doing so, through having these conversations, they started learning we should invite people from the community that these operas 'cause some of them were about historical events or things like that. So let's bring in stakeholders in the community who are part of this story and let's have conversations with them.
And let's talk about how once they've seen the premiere of the opera or the dress rehearsal of the opera, how is that impacting them? What's their feedback? How does it make them feel? And then that becomes. more of an evaluation for the creators of oh, maybe we're gonna tweak this part, or maybe we're gonna lean into this.
'cause once something has a premiere, sometimes it, it's still gonna go through iterations. And so that was one case study that really opened my eyes to, oh, podcasting doesn't just have to fit in this box of, I have a thing that I sell. I need to reach more people to sell the thing, right? It can have many different uses, which sometimes are not directly about marketing or sales, and aren't necessarily always even a hundred percent about the audience who's hearing it.
On the back end though, it is about, giving them that backseat. Into the process. It was also about the relationships they were building with the people that they were bringing onto the show to have conversations with in a long format, deeply meaningful, reflective kind of way.
Carol: That's such a nonprofit story to have that podcast come out of a need for process evaluation. If that's not the nerdiest
Andrea: the phrase process evaluation before they said it to me. It's one of those things where I just nodded and pretended I knew what they were talking
Carol: Smile and nod and Google it later. Yeah. But that, that, I just love that story. You were, the organization was new to this, you were not new to this particular format and sector. What, as you've have, you've broadened and worked with other organizations. What do you see are some misconceptions that people have about what podcasts are?
Not necessarily what they are, but why an organization would do it or what it might bring for the organization.
Andrea: Yeah, so there are some challenges, and I think one is that. It seems hard to believe in the line of work that I am in and in the space that you are in being a podcaster and a podcast listener yourself. It seems hard to believe, but there are still some people who do not listen to podcasts and do not really know what they are or how to use them.
There's still. Even though I've been working with them for about a decade and they've been around longer than that, their popularity spiked more recently and they're still newer and more flexible. Communication channel and medium than some of the other things that we think of, like blogs or newsletters or anything like that.
Even print and advertising and that sort of thing. And I think because podcasts can be so flexible in the way that they're used also on the platforms that they're distributed, sometimes people don't really know what to do with them. And so a lot of times. The opera knew why they were starting a podcast and they just needed more clarification of how to do this in a really smart and effective way. And sometimes I'll have a client or an organization come to me and they want us to start a podcast because someone in the organization loves podcasts,
Carol: Right.
Andrea: Which is fine. Great, awesome. But they don't really know. What it is that they're trying to do with their podcast. It's just that maybe there are other organizations in their field that have one and they're like, oh, they have one.
Maybe we should have one. Or somebody just thinks it would be really fun to do this. And so really thinking about what purpose that podcast is going to serve for them. And it's not a long form. Advertisement for your nonprofit like this is the thing, whether I'm talking to a corporate client, a for-profit or a nonprofit, is something that comes up a lot if this is not an advertisement.
No. No one wants to listen to 30 to 45 to one hour. Advertisement for the work that you want to do. There has to be some value proposition, not just for the organization, but also for the audience that you're hoping to build with the project that you're doing. So getting really clear on what is the. for the nonprofit organization, but also what is the value that we're adding to the audience? What are they gaining from this that would make them want to listen to this show as something that they enjoy and something that they value. So that's one big challenge that I see. Another thing is related to that is the build it and they will come mentality.
Carol: Yes.
Andrea: You have. An opera company that has a 3000 seat house or something like that, and they have however many thousands of subscribers and they have however many people on their email list, and not all of those people are going to listen to your podcast. Not all of them are even ever gonna realize you have one. This is just, even though I work in podcasting, I always tell this story. So a for-profit brand that has a very successful podcast is Trader Joe's, and I am someone who loves listening to podcasts. As an audience member, I'm a podcast producer professionally and. I am squarely in the Trader Joe's cult.
I love Trader Joe's as a grocery store, as a brand. I love their marketing strategy. I love their products. They have the best cheese and wine sections, and they launched their podcast and it was like months before I even knew they had a podcast.
Carol: I also did not know.
Andrea: Yeah, and like I found out because I was walking into, there was a location attached to a parking garage, and I walked in to where the elevators were and they just had a little sign that said, listen to our podcast by the elevators.
And I was like, what? And when you're thinking about having this podcast, you have to think about how it integrates into your full communication strategy. It's not just this weird little project over on the side. And I, this is something that I've seen over and over again with organizations is that sometimes in the bigger the organization, the more I see this where it's like aligning the marketing department with the community engagement department, with the PR department, with the development department, and. sure that all of those comms are integrated and that the podcast is part of that integration. One client was like, wait, so if the podcast is marketing for us. Organization. You're telling me we have to do marketing for the marketing? I'm like, yes and no. You do
Carol: Yes and yes.
Andrea: that it exists. Show them how to consume it and build a case for why people's time and attention is limited. So what do you know? can't listen to it if they don't know where it is or if they don't know that it exists. They're not going to if they don't know how it benefits them. And so really looking at, if you're going to do this thing, you're gonna put this time and effort and budget towards it, making sure that it's integrated into all of your events, your print materials, your signage, your stage bills, your email newsletters, your social media, whoever's, managing your social media, like making sure all of those systems are talking to each other in a smart content way where it's not like. having to do more work for it, but you're really integrating it into that workflow. And ideally, the podcast should actually be generating some content for you that then social media doesn't have to do. You're like assisting that. So figuring out where it fits and then measuring success and sustainability are the two biggest misconceptions that I see measuring success. Carol, you know this. How do most podcasters, what do we rely on to see if our podcast is doing well?
Carol: The metric that's the easiest to access is how many people are downloading it or how many downloads do we have?
Andrea: How many downloads, which is problematic because downloads in podcasting doesn't mean downloads in media files. It means maybe someone listened, maybe a search query turned up the result. Maybe somebody downloaded the file, but maybe they never listened. Maybe they listened for 30 seconds. Maybe they will listen to the full episode. Maybe they. Listened to half of it today and another half of it next week. Like the download measurement is an easy metric to see how many people accessed your file or how many, not even how many people. That's not correct. How
Your file was accessed. That's more correct, it's not really a clear representation as to whether your podcast is doing what you want it to. To do, so we got tripped up there. And then the last one is sustainability. So like I said, a lot of times a podcast will begin in an on in a nonprofit organization because someone in the organization loves podcasts, is an advocate of the medium, sees the potential, understands what podcasts do and how they work, and advocates for it. Creates the pitch, puts it in the budget, figures out the team, produces the thing, and then what happens when that person retires and leaves is let go. Who takes over the podcast? And so a lot of times that part of it is where I see a lot of shows falter, where they start out one or two good seasons, momentum, and then the key person in the organization who was behind it. and then there's no ongoing. Succession planning, that's what I'm looking for. There's no succession planning for the podcast. And then I, as the contracted producer, like I'm not within the organization, so I can't push that forward without having the advocate inside the organization. And then sometimes the podcast, though it was successful though, it was doing well, though it was well done and well received, it just fizzled out. So those are some of the big ones.
Carol: Yeah, and that whole issue of what they call pods. Eating that's not just with nonprofits. Yeah. What is the statistic that most podcasts don't get past the seven episodes or something like that?
Andrea: Yeah,
Carol: it probably changes over the years,
Andrea: statistic, but
Carol: But it's in that range, right? People start with a lot of enthusiasm.
For me, I think when I'm talking to people about it, one of the things that I always emphasize is that it is an investment of time and energy. It takes work. And for me, more work than say writing a blog post or other things that I've done in the past. Yeah, just recognizing that from the get go and knowing what commitment you have to it
Andrea: And
Carol: Really important.
Andrea: I will say it is an investment of time and energy, sometimes there are. Creative ways if you wanna dip your toe into it, or if it's something that sounds exciting to you but you're not really sure about that ongoing investment, there are sometimes ways to integrate podcasting in a limited form into your organization.
I have a great example of that. One of the podcasts that I work on is called Encounter Culture. It is a production of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, which is a government agency, not necessarily like a nonprofit organization, but within that agency they work with individual museums. And so if you think of a museum structure though that podcast is ongoing, what we did for one season of the podcast is we worked exclusively with the History Museum, the New Mexico History Museum, They had a problem. So this is how I try to position my podcasts, is the podcast is a solution to a problem for a nonprofit. It's not a problem to create, right? Like we're not
Carol: We don't need more work and more problems.
Andrea: more work out of the clear blue sky, like only have a podcast if it is solving a problem for your nonprofit. The History Museum had a problem, which was that they had received funding to produce an exhibition. On a specific topic, as they got into the work, they realized that they just really didn't have very many objects for this exhibition. So in museum curation, a lot of times your exhibitions are designed around objects, physical things that people can see they just didn't have access to the objects that they thought they were going to have access to for this exhibition.
So now. We wanna do this exhibition. We've started the work, we have the funding for it. We don't have the things, what can we do? And the solution to the problem became what we do have access to is we do have access to a lot of people that are connected to this history. So it was about a specific person who was no longer living, but a lot of his family members and people that had worked with him and descendants were still. Alive and willing to talk with us. And so the exhibition became based around oral histories, and we did video. There was a team that did video. There was, and then our team did audio, and we put together a podcast season with a narrative arc talking to all these people and then. That part of it lived online in the podcast feed.
But then we were also able to work with the museum design team to create a physical exhibition that was like it was about voting rights in the state of New Mexico, the history of voting rights for Native Americans specifically. So they were able to fabricate what felt like a voting booth from that time period. And then when you would go into the little voting booth and pull the curtain if you wanted to, there were iPads in there that had clips, audio clips from these oral histories that people could listen to in that voting booth. And then what they did have access to was archival photographs.
So there was a display of archival photographs within those voting booths. And so we were able to create a physical exhibition using. The oral histories and the audio content as that centerpiece that could then live on. And then if people, people aren't gonna listen to four, four hours of audio narration in a museum exhibition, but they could easily take a flyer or scan the QR code and get access to the full episodes in the podcast app and take that exhibition with them.
And that was just like a very limited piece of how we can use the medium of podcasting in a really creative and. Fun way to solve a problem that does not require an ongoing investment of time and resources.
Carol: Yeah, and I think that's a good point. Not every podcast has to be ongoing forever. You can do seasons, you can do series, you can do lots of. Lots of different things. They don't all have to be long format. They could be shorter. So there are lots of different options. I'm curious you started out with the case head of the Santa Fe Opera and they started with process evaluation, but what would you say, and you're posing it as the podcast should be solving a problem, beyond if there was something beyond the process evaluation, what would you say the problem that podcast solved?
Andrea: Yeah. So what's interesting with how that podcast evolved over time is initiative. Came to an end, like it had a kind of finite period again. But what they had found was that the podcast itself was valuable beyond just that initiative. And we had branched out into looking at the community engagement department for an opera company. They are tasked with building engagement in the community, so these are the communities that they serve. So these are local communities within the state of New Mexico. These are youth and young folks who are somewhere in the educational system. They do programming all the way from kindergarten age. the way up through graduating high school. And then they also started a partnership with the University of New Mexico with their voice and opera department. And so now they could work with the university students at the college level. And what they're looking at is what is this entire lifetime? with opera
That we hope to build. From a kindergarten student who becomes enamored with opera, maybe they're gonna go on to be a singer one day. Maybe they're gonna go on to become technicians working behind the scenes. They're gonna become a fan of opera and they're gonna become a patron or an audience member in the future. You don't really know what that child's trajectory is, but if you can build that relationship with them from kindergarten all the way through their high school experience, through college, and then into some of the more pre-professional and professional programs that the opera offers, you are creating lifeline lifetime investment in your organization, in your. And your craft in your niche. Through the podcast, we started having conversations with some of the youth who were participating in those programs. We actually pulled in their high school program that they have for young singers. We had the opportunity to pull in one of those. Singers to be a guest co-host and to interview his colleagues and walk around with a microphone at their orientation and ask them what brought them to the program and what they were hoping for and anything they were nervous about and things like that.
And I'm like that. That teenager is going to remember the experience of being a podcast host with the Santa Fe Opera for his entire life. He is connected to them forever, it also gave the students, I love high school students. That's just an aside, like high schoolers are one of my favorite age groups to work with. but. It gives them a feeling of importance, right? I'm not just like a student here on the opera campus participating in this program like. The opera cares what I have to say, and people are going to listen to this. This is being published publicly. And people care what I have to say and they care about my opinion.
And it allows them to have that experience of speaking publicly and professionally about their craft and about what they're learning. Which I think just reinforces that idea of engagement. They are now a part of this production of the opera. And that'll be archived forever.
Carol: Yeah, if they think back to my high school years, and that was quite a while ago, what I definitely remember are the much more hands-on things that I did.
Andrea: Yeah.
Carol: Like being involved in band or being involved in Model UN going and doing, we did this simulation where we basically, it was like, I don't wanna say war games, although there was the possibility of that, but like a diplomacy game.
And those are the things I remember from the term papers. I wrote not so much.
Andrea: For sure.
Carol: So what are some other any other mis so I actually, I want to go back to one thing that you said about the integration, because that also when and that's, for any kind of communications, there's always that challenge of, various people doing different parts of marketing communications, how the organization's story is told.
But if you are successful in doing that and everyone understands how the podcast fits into that bigger plan, I think it also addresses the other issue we're talking about of there just being that one champion who happens to love podcasting, who gets the project started, who does all the.
The legwork. And then once they're gone, everyone's well we don't know what to do, we don't know why we are doing it, so it then disappears. So I think those two definitely go together.
Andrea: Yeah, and I would say those are some of our biggest challenges and it's something that really should start from the beginning and. Over time, I started the Creative Imposter with primarily experience in production. I had experience in technology, I had experience in storytelling. I had my undergraduate degree in broadcast communication and media production.
And, we were learning how to make a television show in a studio with a three camera set up and all that sort of thing. And, I didn't so much have a background in marketing or strategy necessarily, so a lot of what I have learned has been time through exp trial by fire. Through experience.
Carol: Most nonprofit marketers learn their craft.
Andrea: Yeah.
Carol: don't go into the nonprofit sector to be a marketing person, and yet, like that's where I ended up at the very beginning, that's where I started doing marketing and communications. 'cause I could write, so okay, you're the one doing the newsletter.
And, but it wasn't the reason that I chose to do it in a nonprofit setting. So I do feel like a lot of people are doing that. Learn it on the job.
Andrea: Yeah. And I, we've shifted our process a little bit because I think in. The past, how I would start working with a new organization who comes to me and says, Hey, we wanna do a podcast, if we would start with immediately okay, who is it for? Why are you doing a podcast? What do you want people to do?
What value are they gonna get out of it? Okay, now let's figure out how to. Do it. And now I've broken it into a couple of pieces and I've added from the very beginning. So we do that, high level ideation. I call that show development, figuring out the who, what, when, where and why is the big one?
Why are we
Carol: I, yeah.
Andrea: A little bit less of the how, and then we move into what I call content mapping or content ecosystem mapping. If you want the full name, and this is a stage that I never fully. Dedicated a lot of time to we would say, okay, does this live on your website? Where does it live on your website?
Who's in charge of the website? Are we gonna post on social media? How often are we gonna post on social media? But I like websites and social media. Where was where I stopped? In terms of my process, and then I just trusted the organization to take it on from there. And I've realized that what you really need is somebody mapping out what are all of the touchpoints with our audience.
Give me a map. Let's, if we don't have a map, let's make a map together. What are all the touch points? Who is in charge of these touch touchpoints? When do they happen? How can we support those departments with content from the podcast? How can those departments or those touch points lead back to the podcast?
How can we make this? It's not just the newsletter that promotes the podcast, it's like they feed each other. The podcast feeds, the newsletter signups and the newsletter. Like it, it needs to all be reciprocal and we need to have a clear plan of. How is that content coming out? What's the calendar?
What's the schedule? Who's responsible? Who's in this workflow? And have that really mapped out from the beginning before we record anything.
Carol: And honestly, if the organization never recorded anything and walked away with that map, it would still have been a valuable process.
Andrea: Okay.
Carol: Because very few organizations, I would say have that level of where they've pulled all those pieces together and really see how they are, all the different pieces that they're producing and all the different departments that are, do have a piece in telling the organization's story.
We're just before we go to closing out,
Andrea: Yeah.
Carol: What are one or two things that you would say really help a podcast for a nonprofit be successful?
Andrea: Yeah, I think just having that clear vision and strategy from the beginning of what you want to do. But then aside from that there was a period of time when I was saying that what we create are character driven podcasts and that
Languaging didn't really help me sell podcast services. It's something that comes more from my film studies background, when you have a character driven film, means that the film is not really relying on bells and whistles like action sequences or crazy CGI or something like that. The film is really centered on. Compelling characters in that film, relationships, conversation, dialogue, emotional dynamics and things like that.
And people don't always necessarily, unless you are a public radio listener and you've listened to a lot of those long formats like the American Life format that was pioneered that a lot. NPR folks, public radio, people think of Ira Glass and this American Life or serial and that sort of like the true crime genre. Sometimes people just think of podcasts as interviews, for example. And when I say character driven, when I am working with a team, sometimes the host or co-hosts have already been selected by the organization before they ever even hire me. If that is the case, my job. It is to figure out who those hosts or co-hosts are, what their personalities are, how they shine and showcase them, their personalities, their ideas in a way that is unique and isn't like them pretending to be Ira Glass on the microphone.
Carol: Let me put on my NPR voice. Yes.
Andrea: because microphones are weird. Cameras are weird. Even in this day and age, people still sometimes get a professional microphone in front of them and suddenly their voice drops and they're speaking in a way that they would. I'm like, that's not you. Why are you talking like that? What's happening? or they get very stiff and if they're a hand talker, they suddenly are like, move. I'm in the studio. So I really wanna get to know their personality and I want their personality to come through. I don't want them to be a generic podcast host if the host hasn't already been chosen. They're like, we wanna do this podcast, but we don't know who should host it. Then part of my job is to figure out who is the right voice for this? Who can we pull in and what from their personality can we dive into? Like going back to key changes from the Santa Fe Opera. The first two co-hosts it.
We've gone through a few hosting changes since then, but those two co-hosts had a very interesting dynamic and personality. The first time I was in the recording studio with them, we actually, I think the, our first studio experience was actually not even in Santa Fe, it was in New York. We were on a remote recording thing.
We were in this recording studio in New York. I had just met them face to face for the first time. 'cause I'm not even based in New Mexico. I'm based in Chicago. I'd met them in person once. That's not true. They did interview me when they were visiting Chicago, but I, this was my first time working with them in this studio in New York City, and I was like, so ready to be like a professional podcast producer and very serious.
And they were so goofy and I was not anticipating the level of goofiness and humor and. I had scripts for them to read and I was like, scripts are gone. We're gonna improvise this. I want you two to talk to, you already have this relationship. You already have this fun dynamic. I want you guys just to, we hadn't named our podcast yet, and so I was like, I want you just to like. Throw out the most ridiculous podcast titles you can think of, and let's just start there and let's start improvising some things and talk to each other about this. Ask each other this, do this, and then I can go and edit something from that. But I was like, yeah, these scripts are not that personality.
We're not using these. And that was something that I picked up on right away. And so we built the podcast around that dynamic, around that relationship. But then, when we had to make a hosting change because some, one of the co-hosts left the company for another opportunity. It was like, oh, now what do we do?
Because we built in around this dynamic, we built
But what we could rely on was we also had a clear vision for what the podcast was
Be doing.
Though it was built around that, we were able to move forward and shift, and the tone shifted for sure when the hosting change happened, but we were able to carry that through because we had a clear vision of who the listener was.
What the story we were telling was, and that didn't change, even though the dynamic of the hosts changed. I think it's really fun to lean into, and organizations are sometimes nervous because they're like, oh, if we let them be too much of themselves, what if they go off brand? Or what if they go, go rogue and say something that's but that's part of what having a producer and editor is for, because I'm also holding. The brand vision for them. And if, sometimes they would say something, especially if we're improvising, and I'd be like, I don't think we could put that in the podcast. And they'd be like, yeah, no, you're right. We can't put that in the podcast.
Carol: Exactly.
So just.
Andrea: that's something that I think is really important in terms of having fun, trusting the people who are making your show trust, like having that producer who's like holding the vision, holding the brand holding the messaging while also really bringing the best out of the talent, whether that's the hosts or the guests that you have on the mic.
Carol: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, certainly one thing that I've learned is that you get better at it and it evolves over time, right? It doesn't have, you're not gonna start out and have the most polished NPR level podcast, your very first episode. And you may not even be striving for that kind of format or structure. But yeah, you definitely, it's got started and you'll get better. So to close out what's one question that you would have nonprofit leaders ask themselves? When thinking strategically about, about podcasting, about communications?
Andrea: Yeah, I would think about one group of people that you serve. 'cause I know a lot of nonprofits, especially the bigger that you get, sometimes you have your different audiences, right? You have your pockets of demographics that you serve. I would have them think about one demographic that might align with the podcasting format, like whether that's, for the opera company, maybe that's trying to reach a younger audience. For, there was a credit union that I worked with once that wanted to provide education to people who were spread out. Less densely populated areas who may not have access to like in-person personal finance workshops that they could go to or something like that. Think about that one demographic that you might be able to reach or serve uniquely with a podcast and ask yourself. What is it that they need or want that we could provide to them through this format that we may not be able to provide in any other way. And design a fun show around that. Design a show that is meant to create value for that one demographic. And be open to where that process takes you.
Carol: Alright, then thank you so much, Andrea. Thanks for coming to the nonprofit Mission Impact.
Andrea: Can I offer your listeners a little something? Is that
Carol: Absolutely go right ahead.
Andrea: All right. So as I mentioned, we've been shifting how we do things at the Creative Imposter Studios. We've been shifting our strategy process, and I definitely think podcasting has evolved over the last few years and really expanded into what is possible.
And people are asking like, is a podcast audio? Is it a video? Is it
Carol: Right.
Andrea: TikTok? Is it on YouTube? What is happening with this podcasting thing? and I am learning. What challenges people are having, what questions people are having. And I'm particularly interested in nonprofits and what kinds of things are coming up for nonprofits who either already are podcasting and maybe are questioning like, are we on the right track?
Is this working? Should we keep allocating a budget to it? Is there something more that we could be doing with it? Or nonprofits who've been thinking about it and are wondering whether it fits and how it fits into their strategic plan. And so I am offering totally complimentary 30 minute strategy sessions. All you have to do is go to the link that I'm sure you'll provide in the show notes, which is lemme make sure I have the right link. Bit Lee slash nonprofit pod, so bit ly slash nonprofit pod, and that takes you to a place where you can book a 30 minute consultation with me as a thank you for being part of Carol's audience here. And there's no sales. I am not going to pitch you my services. I am not going to try to get you to sign up for a thing. It is literally just answering some questions about where you are on the podcasting journey. Let me see, it's like market research for me. Let me see what challenges and questions are coming up for people and then we'll meet for 30 minutes and just talk through what some of the things you could do on a high level might be, and hopefully it'll be like a very mutually beneficial experience for us.
Carol: It sounds awesome, and maybe when you have some results, we can have you back to talk some more about what you've learned.
Andrea: to do that. I am so curious what our organizations are doing right now.
Carol: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Andrea: Thank you, Carol.
Carol: Absolutely.
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