In this episode of RKD Group: Thinkers, Stacy Huston—Executive Director of SixDegrees.org—shares her story. Her path to becoming a social impact leader is a tapestry woven with diverse experiences and a deep commitment to community. From her early days exploring faith and creative writing to her current role, Stacy's journey is a testament to the power of connection and purpose.
From faith to fundraising, storytelling to sustainability, Stacy shares how her eclectic career has been guided by purpose, curiosity and service. Whether she’s mentoring TEDx speakers, pitching EV infrastructure or partnering with local nonprofits through Purpose, Produced, Stacy continues to say “yes” to the next right thing.
She shares:
Justin McCord (00:03)
Welcome to the RKD Group Thinkers podcast. I'm your host, Justin McCord. With me is Ronnie, I have no bottles, Richard. No. Listen, this, we're, I don't know what 110, 115, something like that, episodes.
I think you can see.
Ronnie Richard (00:26)
Where are maybe 116 117? Yeah, I haven't been counting but somewhere in that range.
First time, first time in all said episodes that we have had something happen off camera that made for a good giggle. And so just to get to our guest, have to set the stage for what people are going to hear and or see. You know, I think that in the remote work world, you get accustomed to multitasking.
Right now, sometimes it's obvious. so, you know, if I'm looking over here at my other monitor and, just, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Then that clearly, you know, that I'm not as engaged in this conversation. So, so there's an art to, I think, trying to multitask and or reach for things while maintaining engagement. Right.
You're checked out.
Justin McCord (01:30)
This could happen if we were sitting in a conference room together, but it didn't today. happened while we were recording with our guests. And that's that I tried to reach off screen for a pen and I didn't want to break eye contact.
And to the side, I have two empty bottles of the HEB version of Topo Chico. And sure enough, I one into the other and it sounded like the clinks that people will hear.
And was one of those sounds that we couldn't even avoid it. We couldn't even just continue through. Like it had to be addressed. Yeah. You can't just keep going through that.
So we're going to mark this episode as the clink gate something like that. That said, did not ruin what is a fascinating conversation with a brilliant leader from the sector. Ronnie, tell us about our guest.
So Stacy Huston, she's the executive director of six degrees.org, a nonprofit organization. She's the CEO of entertain change. She's a social impact leader, a keynote speaker. She's fresh off of speaking at bridge. And yeah, I was just a really good conversation with Stacy, just hearing about her path. And it kind of makes me think about six degrees for those who aren't familiar. There was this.
Ronnie Richard (03:04)
I guess a joke it started as the six degrees of Kevin Bacon based off of a movie called the six degrees of separation. And it was how many, how far you can go from Kevin Bacon to another actor connecting him through people he's acted with. Cause he's been in so many movies. And so it's all about connections. And when we talk to Stacy, you see all these connections in her career path between creative writing and religious studies and philanthropy and
Just speaking and all the different things she's done and how it all connects together so that's that's really stood out to me.
Yeah, the combination of leaning in where you are and then making a jump to a next place, that pops off the page for me about Stacy and her career. And then the other part that I think was very interesting in this conversation is how she unpacks the impact of Ted.
the, know, the speaking series, Ted X events, Ted events on her career and the way that she shows up. so fascinating conversation with a brilliant leader that we are also honored to partner with. and so without any further ado or clinking here is Stacy Houston, six degrees.org on the RKD group thinkers podcast.
Stacy, I want to start our conversation around creative writing and religious studies.
Stacy Huston (04:41)
That's the first time someone has even brought that up. I've done a lot of podcasts. That's hilarious.
Just like what got you to that combo?
man, that's so good. The fact that I wasn't gonna be a minister and I needed a teachable minor. No, I mean, let's go further back. So that was, you are referencing what my undergrad degree is in. And I was a curious kid and growing up, I kind of bounced around different faith groups.
I remember when I was really young going to like a Presbyterian church and loving it, right? was like Sunday school logos in the summertime. Justin, you ready?
just knocked over a topo. Don't just reach it for a pin.
Stacy Huston (05:41)
This is tough, what you go-
What's up guys?
I mentioned church you got nervous. Where is she gonna go here?
Listen to spirit works, spirit mood.
Right. Anyways, I liked it until I wanted to get baptized. I think it was like eight. And the minister was like, you're too young to make that decision. And I was like, hmm, I don't like that. Like, why are you going to tell me that I'm too young? So I told my mom I didn't want to go anymore. And she was like, OK. And then a little while later, and someone knocked on our door. was Jehovah's Witness. My mom's like, we're good. But then she kind of looked at me and was like.
Stacy Huston (06:23)
Do you want to meet with them? And I was like, sure. You know, so she left this young woman come in and meet with me every Wednesday for months. Honestly, I really just liked people. And there was something else that like, I learned that I was like, oh man, like only 144,000 go to heaven. Like that's already decided. Like I like a young age, I was already like, that doesn't work for me. So then in high school, I kind of found my way into like a
non-denominational church and that like was a good fit for me. But when I got to college, my first year seminar course, which was like a course, went to University of Redlands in the town I grew up in, and they tell you, hey, pick a course. It doesn't have to be something that you're gonna major in or study, but it really just gets your bearings in college, right? It just kind of...
get your footing, get you used to working with your first year advisor, learn college. And so there was a course in the catalog called New Religious Movements, What is a Cult? And I was like, ooh, that's so fascinating, right? And so I took this class and was like obsessed with it. And then I took another religion course, another religion course, and it was like world religions, small religious movements, understanding.
religion at the intersection of lots of different types of things was a liberal liberal arts school and before I knew it I was like my advisor was like you're majoring in this like you're do a double major do something else I always loved writing and so you know I thought that it was going to be a criminal psychologist I watched Silence of the Lambs and I wanted to be Jodie Foster and and my heart could have never taken it like I'm
much too much of an empath. So yeah, I found my way into this degree. And then naturally, I went into sales after I graduated. As one does with religious basic creative writing. I started selling payroll.
Justin McCord (08:30)
All religion is a, there's an element of sales in there. Persuasion. Yeah. You and I've had a couple of conversations about your faith orientation and how that informs your, not just your worldview, but your view on leadership. And it informs how you show up for your team. I'm curious how you think about the intersection of
persuasion for sure.
Justin McCord (08:59)
faith and philanthropy and even more so like current day faith and philanthropy in a philanthropy space to where oftentimes we can fixate on declines and trends and we can correlate to declining participation in some houses of faith. So just kind of curious where your heads up on that.
That's a big question. It's a hard question. Philanthropy, big part of my role. I'm an executive director of a nonprofit. I have to do a lot of fundraising. It's always been the most uncomfortable thing for me to think. When I think of philanthropy, I think of wealth, right? Your high net worth donors. I tend to lean towards corporate partners and individual gifts. Never been very comfortable with major gifts, major donors.
And it's something that we're grateful for, the ones that we have, and that really dig into the work. But it can get complicated. Because I think oftentimes, certain donors around philanthropy want to then dictate how you move, and how you show up, and how you do your work, and your program. And nowadays, it's so much more complicated with language that we're able to use. And when you receive funding from somewhere,
It often can become something that you want to invite the person along with you, but you almost want the donor to select your organization because they already understand your mission. They're already connected to your ethos, how you see the world. And so, yeah, as a person who identifies as a Christian, and it does color the way I see the world, I think that service is something that everyone
should do and is capable of doing. Everyone has something to give. But I also think it's really important to note that every gift is a good gift. No matter how small, seemingly small, or large, right? And I think that what's most important is that your heart's in the right place and you're doing it for the right reasons. And so, yeah, we're in a time where,
Stacy Huston (11:23)
It's almost hard to talk about faith and philanthropy in the same.
because a lot of people have strong feelings on both, right? But the reality is, that it's gonna take a collective movement to bring about the societal changes that we need to improve our outcomes in this world. And that means it's gonna take everybody. So it's gonna take people that think like you and don't think like you, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
belief systems, and we're going to need to find a way back to together. And these different perspectives really enrich us. a lot of the work that we're doing, me personally and through Six Degrees, is trying to make space for that so that people can have dialogue and be focused on the outcome that we all want. We want better outcomes for
for each other and for our communities. And so trying to get people to refocus on that and less about who we voted for or where we live or what language we speak.
Yeah, that's such an important thing today. I mean, it's pretty clear how polarized and divided there is so much of our society is right now. And when we can come together and find solutions to some of these problems, finding more ways to do that is definitely key. I want to unpack one thing real quick that you had just talked about. You mentioned being uncomfortable with major donors and
Ronnie Richard (13:14)
Always having that moment when you join six degrees and you're working with Kevin Bacon and you're probably interacting with and interacting with celebrities and stuff like that is that is that an awkward tension for you or is that something you've gotten more comfortable with overtime.
definitely not more comfortable with it. it was, there was a, Kevin has always made it really easy. I think I just made a post about this on LinkedIn, because on my birthday just a couple of weeks ago, it was my ninth anniversary, and I was reflective of the fact that I started this job on my birthday, and how he hopped into my little Toyota Prius, and I was like, oh my God, I have this national treasure in the car with me. Please do not.
get into an accident, do I have enough insurance? Like all the questions. But he immediately asked me about my family. Hey, do you have brothers and sisters? Like tell me about your life, tell me about your, it was my boyfriend at the time, he's not my husband. He made it so comfortable, he's so relational, right? And it was the first celebrity I had worked with in this capacity. Since then, I've worked with a lot, and I don't wanna say anything bad about celebrities, this is not like celebrities are all bad, right?
but they're people like everybody else. And I quickly learned that not everyone is like Kevin Bacon. And working in some different high profile activations and fundraising and in rooms with people that are literally billionaires that, you I wasn't very comfortable around Kevin has been very like, that's not something that he is around often, even as a movie star.
It is, it can be uncomfortable. And what I learned very quickly though, is that it doesn't actually matter. I used to think I'm, you know, I'm a Democrat. have progressive, you know, ideals, I guess, right? lot of friends, a lot of family that are conservatives and vote Republican. I used to think they were very different. And then I got into spaces with people at a certain wealth bracket and found that they actually were not.
Stacy Huston (15:26)
different really at all. And so I had to learn how to listen more and understand in a deeper way. And how can I get the masses of people that are not in these high net worth kind of brackets and living in a world that only a very few do live in to understand that we are actually much more alike. Right?
Those folks know that and not everybody else knows that, right? And sometimes it can be weaponized. And so for me, it's really, really important to ensure that we are using more bridging language and we are creating different campaigns that bring everyone together. And it's more of like an education frame as opposed to we're trying to persuade people
to think like us and move like us throughout the world. Because you're never going to get there, right? So we have to figure out how to be solution focused and also make space for people that are just never going to think like you.
Stacy,
I know.
Ronnie Richard (16:46)
Totally did.
I can knock over a bottle if you need me to Ronnie, signal and I'll just... Stacy, we've gotten to know each other a little bit more over the last year from you attending and speaking at RKD event. In the last week, you were at the Bridge Conference and were speaking there. You're a regular speaker and you are extremely well-spoken, which takes me back to 2015.
need a moment.
Justin McCord (17:19)
when you were a co-founder and executive producer of the TEDxTysons event and ultimately went on to oversee what 50-ish TED Talks. I can mentally connect creative writing and religious studies to a TED-ish space, but just tie that together for us of that
appreciation for public speaking and for thought leadership. Where did that come from? Did you show up at the TEDx with that? Was it something that you had worked on beforehand?
Yeah, that's another great question, Justin. When I moved here, I live in Fairfax, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. It's where Six Degrees is headquartered, but I'm a Southern California girl. I grew up in SoCal my whole life, and back in 2013, I moved here and I was a fish out of water. But I quickly was a joiner, and I had joined a local chamber.
and very quickly moved up to join the board. And that's when I started really digging into like networking and community building and service and that kind of sense. And I had met this guy, his name's Ashwood Heffern, and he came to this event that I threw for young professionals. And he brought up, hey, I just went to this TEDx event in DC. And it was like amazing. And I was like, I love TEDx, like Simon Sinek's.
you know, how great, how great leader, how whatever it's know your wife, right? Like, yeah, but not the actual title name, but that's what we all know. Right. first Ted talk I ever saw it like fully shaped me was like, this is really powerful. And so I was obsessed and he said, I think it'd be cool to bring one to Tyson's, which is kind of the city we were in. was on the board of, and I was like, yeah.
Justin McCord (19:06)
Yeah, no, you're right.
Stacy Huston (19:26)
I'll do that. My Instagram handle used to be stacy says yes. Okay, so I just say yes and then I figured out later. So we founded this along with another co founder, our friend Josh Stillman and we were doing fundraising and I said, you know, I fundraised for my nonprofit. I feel like it's like kind of a conflict of interest. I need to be focused on fundraising there. Why don't I take over kind of speaker development?
and building a speaker team of speaker coaches. And I had always been interested in creative writing. I had a professor in college that really made me believe that I was not a strong writer. Said some pretty harsh things that stuck with me and I really stopped writing after that and just didn't do anything with it.
But then as I started working with speakers, I found that I had kind of a knack for making people go deeper. Often I hear from close friends and even people that I'm more acquaintances that when they talk to me, they feel like I really want to know them or they find it easy to kind of share things with me. And I think I applied that in these, in working with speakers because often they come in with an idea of what they want to share and it's.
typically self-indulgent, right? Because they have a book or a product or a company and they want to make it about them. And I quickly say, okay, I get that's what you want to talk about, but I want to know more about you. And then I find out that, you know, they've had a lot of loss in their life or that they almost took their own life or they, you know, had this one experience as a young child that really shaped them. And I'm like, that's it.
Like that's the story, that's the crescendo moment. are like, people don't wanna hear about that. They wanna hear about how I'm strong and how I'm like all put together and everything is shiny. And I'm like, no, they don't. They want to see that you're a relatable human being. And then they're open to learning all the other things that you can share and teach them. And so I love it. It's the thing that is not my core job, but I still continually.
Stacy Huston (21:46)
people on their TEDx talks because I think that this idea that we have these, you know, ideas we're sharing is really powerful. I don't know, have you ever gone to a TED like global then?
I've not been in one live, no. I've consumed my fair share of the video. I've never been in one live.
Yeah. So when you're a TEDx curator, you get like a discounted rate because it's pretty elitist too. I mean, it's like $12,000 or something like that to attend. It's not like accessible. So they give you like a very steep discount and it can go through your organization because they want you to attend so that you can actually build really strong and well aligned, you know, independently organized events under their brand out in community. And so I went to one and this was in 2016.
And it was four days and it changed my life. And it was like, I was learning about things that I would have never learned about or had an interest in. But when you're in a captive audience and you're learning about trees talking to each other under the ground or about autoimmune diseases and what it's like to have these invisible diseases in the world or during that week, Brexit happened and they flew someone in from London that like,
real time gave a talk that like wasn't even prepared about Brexit and what it meant for the world. It was fascinating. And then you're sitting with these thought leaders and they're just there in community with you and you take all these ideas and you're like, I wanna go back out into the world and I wanna ask bigger questions and I wanna encourage other people to ask questions and be more curious. so TEDx in a lot of ways has been one of the shaping and defining
Stacy Huston (23:34)
parts of my life and just being open to ideas. Yeah, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. yeah, I'm somewhere near like 75 speakers that I've worked with at this point. Yeah, it's a of fun.
That's incredible.
So Justin alluded to this earlier, like this thread line, and I'm seeing the connection, the creative writing, the faith, the fundraising, the public speaking. It's called kind of lining up and stitching together. Electric vehicles fit in there.
That's the line. It's actually a chord.
It's an electricity.
Stacy Huston (24:14)
Nailed it. So yeah, up until 2015, I had sold a lot of different stuff, lot of payroll, a lot of human resources, legal e-discovery systems, luxury uniforms for hotels, women's health drugs. I did a lot in different capacities because the one thing about being a salesperson is that if you're good at it, you're good at it and you kind of lock in.
And there's a lot of people that hate sales, but I didn't hate it. I really liked it. But I always felt like it was just such a chore hunting people and getting them to open their door. I wanted to sell something of meaning. around 2013, I decided that I wanted to be more in kind of like commercial development, construction, those sort of things.
this opportunity came across my desk for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And this was like really early on, like Tesla hadn't even come out yet. It was really only the Nissan Leaf. You're talking about like really, really, really early adopters. And I was fascinated by it. I was also fascinated about being able to sell something that I felt like could make a positive impact on the world, right? Like another option for alternative fuel and energy and what that could really do.
And I took this role and ended up kind of expanding electric vehicle infrastructure, high speed infrastructure across first the state of Virginia, but then helping to create the first national portfolio count of any electric vehicle infrastructure company nationwide with this company that I was with at the time for. And I worked with them over eight years. So even after I left them full time, I kind of consulted, then I went back and like helped them some more. then
consulted some more, but it was a really electrifying time, I could use, if I could drop the pun. It was the first time I sold anything that people would, I would call them and they'd go, I'll take that meeting, because they were curious. I was reaching out to a lot of commercial real estate companies and saying, hey, this is the new thing. We want to build this on your property. And this is actually really,
Stacy Huston (26:40)
hard for people to wrap their heads around. We offered no money in the beginning. So I had to convince a commercial real estate company to give me land, part of their land, to build EV infrastructure for cars that were not in the market in this promise that they would then be on the cutting edge and have this infrastructure so that when the cars did come, it would attract these people that were like, you know.
great consumers to have at your shopping center to shop at. And I was so good at it. And it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. Now they just throw money at it and pay all the commercial real estate companies. And I'm like, we don't have to pay them. You don't need to do that. But the industry has changed. And no, but it's been exciting. I went from not seeing any of them on the street to, you you see electric cars and so many different electric cars all the time.
And this infrastructure is really, really critical to get in the ground ahead of that so that people could feel excited about adopting the technology. And we do do some work in sustainable living environments with six degrees. And so it's been great to be able to carry some of that on. Not all in alternative fuels and those sorts of things, but thinking about how do we keep this planet as good as possible for future generations to enjoy.
You stole my segue. I was going to use infrastructure as the segue, right? But to your point, and there is an element of the work that you do with Six Degrees that is around infrastructure. so just share a little bit with our listeners specifically about the purpose produced campaign and which RKD is contributing. We're honored to be a part of it and just-
to have you guys.
Justin McCord (28:33)
Yeah, tell our listeners a little bit about it.
So earlier this year, I had this wild idea because we at Six Degrees believe that small grassroots nonprofits are really the lifeblood of our communities. You hear a lot about small businesses being the lifeline of the United States and small nonprofits are not often talked about in that same thread. But in reality, they're filling a lot of the gaps for a lot of social needs that are at the local community level.
and they need to thrive. But often they have their head down, they're in the work, it's almost like a badge of honor. We don't have time to fundraise or advertise or not fundraise, but do marketing, which is inevitably fundraising, right? Because they're in the work. And Six Degrees is really trying to shift their understanding of the importance of well-crafted and thoughtful intentional storytelling and all things marketing communications. So purpose produced.
came of this idea to what if, I should say, what if we found some of the top tier creative advertising agencies that work with these companies that can afford them? And we paired them with these grassroots nonprofits that never even get an audience with some of these creative strategists, really is what they are. What could happen?
And so we partnered with our friends at Advertising Week and said, will you find six agencies that will say yes to this? We reached out to RKD, as you know, to say, we want to tell this overarching story about the power of what happens when corporate partners can leverage their creative talent and their skill set to support these local grassroots nonprofits. And then pairing them with these nonprofits that have incredibly impactful stories, but they're just not heard of.
Stacy Huston (30:32)
Right? So we, over the course of six months, gonna create that whole framework. We launched a submission process. We had about 300 nonprofits apply. And then we selected six really, really special nonprofits that fit in one of our four pillars to have their stories told into these dynamic 360 campaigns, which means like radio, television, digital, know, billboards.
basically setting them up for an evergreen campaign that they can pull and plug for the next X amount of years while they're working in this space. And they'll have a little bit of a teaser at advertising week, but we didn't want to rush the production even. We really want it to be well-crafted. Some of the agencies will be done in time for advertising week and others will be done later in Q4, but.
we'll be able to roll them out over Q4 and Q1 of 2026 and share their really powerful kind of PSA campaigns, hero ads, if you will, with the masses and hopefully draw the attention that they need to continue to reach the impact that their communities deserve.
It's such a cool example and testament to something that you said when we were talking about your your your majors, your dual major in college, right? Like, ultimately, there is, I think, in all of us, there is this desire to serve. There's this like, want to give and so marrying together.
those that do this heads down in the work with those that have a desire to do that so that you can see a greater outcome and to see purpose exploded as a result of it is such a cool thing. And so like I said, we're honored to be a part of it.
Stacy Huston (32:31)
Yeah, thank you. And that is really what we're seeing. When we paired these organizations and we had these kickoff calls, so many of the agencies were like, how did you know? This is the perfect fit for us. And many of them were like, we're having to tell people on our team, like, sorry, we already have this staffed up because everyone wants to contribute. But that's the power of doing something strategically and in line with
people's purpose, right? Oftentimes we look at these give backs or charitable asks as something that is detracting from our work, right? As a company, it's like, if this organization's asking us to do something pro bono or free, then we're losing something and they're gaining something else. So we can't take a loss, we have to be focused on driving our revenue. What they don't understand is that
all the science points and all the data points, the fact that these are actually the types of activities that encourage employees, build employee morale, build retention, are attraction tools, engagement tools. It helps someone to say, I want to stay here. Like I feel a part of something greater than myself. And the more we lean in and as a nonprofit, position ourselves as a strategy partner, someone that can actually
help meet a need for our corporate partners, the better we will be as opposed to asking for a handout. Because you're not asking for a handout. You're giving something in return, a gift, really a gift to their teams and to their company culture.
And I'll just add one small thing for our listeners that if you want to maybe get a dusty tear in your eye for the day, go look up the video of when Stacy and Kevin and Six Degrees were sharing with these nonprofits that they got picked to be the finalists. if that doesn't move you, then, you know. Yeah, that's a way to put it. Yeah.
Stacy Huston (34:37)
You're dead inside.
Ronnie Richard (34:42)
Stacy, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us. So inspiring, the work you're doing and just continue to try and make a difference and an impact on society. It's inspirational.
Thank you, Ronnie. And thank you, Justin. I think that to have partners like you all, but also have a space that's highlighting kind of this social good work and how we can connect in deeper, more meaningful ways from kind of the workforce level, but also it's just as humans is really, really powerful. So I'm just honored to be here and be able to chat with you guys today. So thanks for having me. Group Thinkers is a production of RKD Group.
For more information, including how you can partner with RKD to accelerate growth for your fundraising and nonprofit marketing needs, visit rkdgroup.com.