Jon McCoy, co-founder of We Are For Good, shares his takeaways from 550 conversations on We Are For Good and how it has changed him. Jon also discusses We Are For Good and the vision behind it. Follow us along for the journey of We Are For Good and the launch of Impact Uprising.
In this episode of the RKD Group: Thinkers podcast, Jon emphasizes the importance of values and community in creating impact and how everyone has something valuable to offer.
He shares about:
- Reaching milestones is significant and can be celebrated with others who have crossed similar milestones.
- Podcasting allows for the power of storytelling and the opportunity to hear people's stories and learn from them.
- The formation of We Are For Good was a result of a desire to make a difference and create a platform for meaningful conversations and connections. Everyone has something deeply valuable to add to the world.
Show chapters
- 00:00 Celebrating Milestones and Crossing Checkpoints
- 02:41 The Power of Storytelling and Podcasting
- 04:37 Lessons Learned and Personal Growth from 550 Conversations
- 07:18 Transformative Experiences: Leaving for Thailand and the Cross-Country Road Trip
- 09:07 We Are For Good: Making a Difference and Creating Connections
- 30:26 The Launch of Impact Uprising
- 41:08 The Power of Values in Creating Impact
- 47:26 Gratitude for the Community
Meet our guest
Transcript
Justin McCord
All right, so this is a milestone for us. And so, Ronnie and I talked about how do we cross this milestone, like, when we go through this checkpoint, what do we want that to look like and feel like? And we both were like, boom: John McCoy, that we want John to be a part of our crossing through this milestone of 100 episodes of the Thinkers podcast. And so―and here's one of the reasons, John, is because you've crossed a similar milestone, and you're the hare, and we're the tortoise in some ways, but it doesn't matter because we both got to the end.
Jon McCoy
Hmm. Okay. I mean, y 'all, I'm having imposter syndrome, but thank you. That's so kind that y 'all opened up this door. I feel a kinship to what you're doing that I think we both just love, getting to know people's stories and getting to, like, pull up the slow-down time for a second, pull up the coffee, pull up the chairs. And I'm just, I'm proud of y 'all. Like, I was, I was joking before we started that this stat, like, came into my world that most, most podcasters don't make it past episode three.
So y 'all being in episode 100 shows a massive commitment to this. I feel the pain. I feel the sweat, but also the joy that comes in that. So thank you for welcoming me. It's an honor to be here with y 'all. Yeah.
Justin McCord
That's, we love that stat. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. Okay, so y 'all have crossed, we forget, y 'all have crossed 550 recently. And so, where I wanna start our conversation about, like, your path, your journey is, like, reflect on 550 conversations, and what has that taught you that you weren't expecting, and what has that, like, revealed for and/or in you, like, just kind of process for us 550 conversations through We Are For Good.
Jon McCoy
I'm gonna go.
I mean, thank you for that question. Wow, it's changed me. Like, on every level, and every fiber of my person, like, has been changed because I don't think you can sit across from people and earnestly, like, wanna hear their story and not be changed over time to realize everybody has something deeply significant to offer, and everybody has immense value in the world.
And I think that we spend so much more of our time talking and moving through, through our to-do list and a lot less time sitting and actually hearing what the person across from us―whether that's your partner, or your kids or, like, the person that you're interviewing―like, they're actually saying between their words, and it is a gift. You know? It's a massive gift that it's been 500-plus conversations. And I look back, and I'm in a very reflective space right now. So y 'all are getting this from me, not only ‘cause I'm kind of coming out of some sickness.
I know you've had Jeff and Jen. I have Plenty on the podcast. And so, we just did the Lantern retreat as a team, which is kind of a unique experience, but a lot of it's introspection, a lot of it's understanding our purpose, and our light and our, you know, what really wakes us up and gets us engaged in life. And it comes down to, like, a lot of things that the podcast allows us to do to get to see the light, and other people's story is, like, one of my core things. Like, I love making that connection.
And so that's just, that's become very … I'm clear through the conversations of, like, how do we help each other find that? What's that unique thing that each of us bring to the table so we can just, like, pour the heck into it, you know? And then realize we don't have everything. So we need each other also. So I think both of those things are very true of, like, how little I know, how little I understand and how much I need a lot of people around me in life to fill in those gaps. So that's something that I've definitely taken away.
And then, like, I mean, bias is like such a thing, like, we all have them, you know, and I'm also on a family road trip across the U.S., right? And I've realized like, we've had a lot of bias of, like, there's nothing to see there. And then we get taken away, you know, by a place that like, catches your heart and you're like, my gosh, every place has something unique. And I think it's the same thing as, like, we sometimes make up our mind of, like, what somebody maybe is about or what they may have to say. And then really sitting down and spending an hour with somebody, everybody has something to offer, you know? And so, I just think breaking that down has been really healthy for me as a person to open my mind to what's out there, you know?
Justin McCord
To your point about, like, a gift, what a gift for us to all get to experience these things and then share them out with folks. Just, you know, the conversations, learning people's stories, getting to amplify people's stories. You know, we have some folks on our team that will talk to Ronnie or I about like, hey, I was listening, and I heard this, that or the other, or, you know, go back and start from the beginning. Like, it's a training manual on understanding the industry. Like, it's those sorts of things to wear in the moment. A lot of times when you're on the journey, you don't realize the import of the journey. And so, to your point about, like, the introspection side and the opportunity to get to stoke those things. Like, how cool is it that we get to do these things? Because not everyone does, and not everyone has the resources or the availability or, or, or, … and so, yeah, something we did not take for granted.
Yeah. No. And so that's truly why I'm like, thank y 'all for doing this because y 'all hold space for people. And, you know, I believe with podcasting, too, that with everything, like, there's never an audience that's too small or a people group. Like, I think wherever you can create a table, like, you're going to have a space for somebody that's been missed before that can pull up a chair. And so, like, it's a commitment to y 'all to turn out 100 meaningful episodes and conversations.
And I know it's not light, but I know you've built community around that, and people feel more seen as a result. So, truly, thank you for doing that and for bringing me in at this point. Like, I'm totally your hype squad over here too. Like, y 'all are doing it.
Ronnie Richard
Alright, John, are you ready for our listeners to pull up a chair to your table? Are you ready?
Jon McCoy
I'm, I'm ready. Come on. Yes.
Ronnie Richard
Okay, okay. So, let's walk back, let's go back through some of your career, and you grew up in Oklahoma, correct? Went to Oklahoma State. Yeah, so I was looking through some of your background, and one of the ones that stood out to me was you started working for Oklahoma State University's foundation. And then you left to take a leave of absence to go to Thailand. Like, that's a, that's a big jump. So, what can you, walk us through how that came about and how, you know, you, you, you went from all in Oklahoma to go to Thailand. How did, how'd you do that?
Jon McCoy
Yep. Truth. Yeah, thank you. And I feel like you're like these investigators digging through. I love that you found this part of our story. Like, it's definitely shaped who I am, I know. And you're like, where's his sports references? He can play no sports. Okay. Still, this is, you're digging further and further. So let me give a little, like, context before we left for Thailand. So, I had met my wife in college at Oklahoma State University. And we both during that time had had short-term experience going to Thailand. And for kind of random reasons, we both fell in love with this country and unrelated to each other, which was just, kind of, this weird thing that we both had in common, but it bound us together. And so I had graduated with a graphic design degree at OSU. I'm literally walking through the art building, right? And I see this flyer. All my friends are going to agencies in New York and Austin, all these cool places to go work for big brands.
And I was just like, I want to do something connected more to, like, mission, and purpose and whatnot. Not that I didn't love the brand stuff, but this, this flyer said, “Oklahoma State University Foundation looking for a design intern.” And I was like, that could be me. And at a minimum, I could go help whoever made this make a better flyer because they're never going to get an artist to come and work for them with this flyer. God, it was so ugly.
So anyway, I ended up going to this interview and there's Becky Endicott. So, like, connecting our two sides of the story, that's where I first met my business partner and friend for the last 20 years, Becky, who, we've co -founded We Are For Good together. But that's an important part because at the time that I got that job―which I guess, spoiler alert, I got the job, turned into, you know, their graphic artist―and then some people had kind of, like, left. And so, it put me in a leadership role, and the school was going through this transformation, and they were on the precipice of launching a billion-dollar fundraising campaign. You might remember this.
Well, the agency had been fired, and they're like, we're going to build this internally, which is kind of, like, a through line of my story. And I'm like, I'm not qualified for this. I've never done really any kind of big project like this. Becky's writing, I'm the designer, and we're, like, pouring into this campaign. And personally, at the same time, my wife graduated college, and so she was going to be an English teacher, you know, all the things.
But these short-term experiences we had been to Thailand kind of came back to us, and they were connected through a campus ministry that we were involved in. And they came to us, and they're like, hey, we'd love for you all to consider doing a short-term trip. And I'm like, I've got a job that I love, we have this campaign that's coming, and Candice is getting her student teaching and all this stuff going. But it definitely made sense at the same time. It's something we both felt really called and passionate to do.
And so it's kind of freaked me out because I was like, there's, how are we gonna raise the money, we're like, broke, you know? Right out of school, all of these, kind of, factors. I had a job that I loved, and it came down to this decision of like, if we go, it'd be for a year, but we had to raise our own support, you know? And so I was like, I think we should do this.
So what I did―and I had to like, psych myself up, which is another through line in my journey, I have to psych myself up―and I'm like, I gotta go talk to Becky because she's going to be like, dude, I just hired you. Like, what are you doing? But I remember walking into my, her office, and I said, Hey, Becky, listen, I love this place. It's been an incredible opportunity. I realize I'm just getting started here, but we've really felt called to go do this year-long ministry overseas. I don't know if I'll come back, but right now, it's a year commitment. I just need to be really honest, but I have to raise support. I just want to be really open with you because I don't know if it's going to come in, but I just didn't want to do that without telling you.
And truly, with like, tears in her eyes―y 'all know Becky―well, she said, as your boss, I'm so sad. As your friend, I want to write the first check for you to go. And she literally pulls out her checkbook, and she writes me a check and slides it across the desk and all. It's like the most Becky thing, right?
Justin McCord
The most Becky thing that Becky can do.
Jon McCoy
And so, that began what was probably six weeks where $80,000 came in the door from just people we knew, people we didn't know, confirming, okay, we're going to go. So we went, and it was a transformational experience, you know? I mean, we got to live among Thai people on, in a part of a Thai campus ministry. So we're teaching English, and we're getting to know people in Thailand and traveling all throughout Southeast Asia for a year and being part of that.
And so it doesn't not change you as a person, living overseas and realizing the world's a huge place. And there's so many things I don't understand and so many storylines that I want to be part of. So it, it really did shape us. We loved our experience, but it was, like, something we knew we didn't want to do for the rest of our life at that point. And so a year later, I mean, I'd stayed in touch with the team, and I was like, hey, you know a few months back? I'm like, hey, I think we're going to come back. I don't know if there's a job for me, and Becky's like, there's definitely a job for you, you know, because this campaign's the force.
So it was like, kind of this, like, moment in time that we stepped out of normal day-to-day life of trying to start to build our careers at that point to go chase this other piece. And it was, like, a deeply moving spiritual and, like, challenging personal experience, you know, to go do, but came back and kind of the rest is history from there.
Justin McCord
OK, so there's some seeds that I want to see if they sprouted from this. One, did Becky create the ugly flyer?
Jon McCoy
Hahaha! That is such a good question that I don't know the answer to. It was in Times New Roman. It was clearly created in Word. It was not designed. Probably. Let's ask. Can we do, phone a friend? No, let's call her. Okay, we're gonna verify. This will be in your show notes.
Justin McCord
Okay. All right. All right. All right. It's, yeah, I mean, like, we'll verify it. We'll verify it. We're gonna ... Okay, second and more important seed: You mentioned earlier that you and your wife are on this cross-country road trip with the fam, you've got all of the little McCoy kiddos, and, and y 'all are traversing, like, are hitting all the nooks and crannies across the country.
Justin McCord
How did that experience of answering that call and y 'all doing that together, how did that factor into when you had this other opportunity or idea about, let's leave the normalcy of our home surroundings, and let's do this kind of once-in-a-lifetime thing and taking our kids and exploring the U.S.?
Jon McCoy
Yeah. Thanks, man. This is why I love you guys. Like, it is all, like, connected, you know? And again, like, having Jeff and Jen in my head, like, we have one life, you know? We don't have a personal life, and we have a work life; we have one life, and it is all really connected. Candice and I, my wife, we were born both in, or not born in Oklahoma but lived here for most of our life. And so, a couple of things: Since we didn't go overseas until college,
I knew that I wanted a different experience for our kids, you know? And so, from early on, and just even when we were talking about before we're having kids, we knew we wanted it to just, like, have a different worldview and have a broader worldview than what we necessarily grew up with. Not that there was anything wrong with how we grew up, but it's just, it was a different way. And so, we wanted that to be a bedrock of our family. Along the way, that took a lot of different shapes, you know?
So it's like, when we, when we wanted to, like, do that, when I was still working full-time, I would just save up my vacation and be like, how can we go for, like, a couple of weeks on a more, you know, bigger trip? Then the pandemic happened though, and like, everything changed, right? And We Are For Good came into the picture, and a lot of decisions had been made along the way of like, we want to get to a place where we could have more freedom for travel, and for exploration and just for, kind of, openness of what life could bring.
And so, some of those big decisions were, you know, deciding to keep homeschooling post-pandemic life, which was a big change. And shout out to my wife, the educator that loves education, that loves pouring into different ways of teaching and ways that kids are learning because it wouldn't work, you know, without her passion and her love of doing that. But then also to the kids that were really open, you know, and I think because we did travel, or we would go into the Asian supermarket on a random Saturday when we're in Oklahoma city to just, like, disrupt and interrupt just the normal flow of life, and so everybody felt really ready when we, kind of, threw out this crazy idea because as we had kind of unlocked along the way, okay, the kids are homeschooled, and now I work remotely. I could work from anywhere, and man, I'm so bad at home maintenance―let's be completely honest, it's, like, so hard for me to, like, fix things and keep them unbroken around the house―and I was like, this is kind of our escape hatch to go see more of the world, to do it together, to have, like, a goal together as a family was really alluring to me too.
So we actually sat down and pinned out some family values and like, we're like, what are some of the things that we want to be true of our family? And like, of course, I put them into a deck because I'm, like, kind of a dork. And we talked about it as a family, and we're like, how do we, like, how does this land with everybody? How do you feel about this? And it means some of them are like exploration, and friendships, and adventure, and things that all the kids could like identify with and things that we love. But it's like, what could, what does it look like to go experience that on a bigger scale?
And so, you know, wrapped a brand around it, wrapped an idea around it. And it's like, let's do 50 states, 50 national parks in 500 days. And that's what we're on, you know, we're letting go of the 500 days though, because moving too fast is not in vogue. Moving slow is the way to go. So I'm like, how long it takes us is, I'm okay with that. It doesn't have to be a set time. So, lots of things to unpack, probably, but that's kind of a loose framework of where we're headed.
Ronnie Richard
Which font did you use on your deck?
Jon McCoy
My gosh, put me on the spot. it's called gopher. Gopher. G -O -P -H -E -R. Is that the only way to spell gopher? Gopher.
Justin McCord
Yeah, yeah. What’s your family's exposure to your work? Like, tie those things together. I mean, look, Ronnie and I both work remote. We spend time together in office sometimes, but like, generally speaking, there is even a veneer in the doors that are on the other side of where I'm looking right now. And there is this, like sometimes the kids come in, but sometimes they come out. You're in an Airstream, and the fam is there. What is their exposure? What does that mean or foster in terms of your family conversations to how they process what they see dad do?
Jon McCoy
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, that's an awesome question. They are, they, one, think dad is a freak about Starlink. They're like, if dad’s Starlink is not working, dad is very stressed. Because I feel, as an Enneagram nine―if anybody listening will relate, Enneagram nine is the peacemaker. You don't want to create disruption for people around you, right? You want things to coexist well―so like, I don't want to be a drain on the team that we created because that was one of my first things, like, we want to do this, but I don't want to interrupt other people just because we decided to live in a really, you know, traditional way.
So that's one thing, but I mean, the kids love “We Are For Good.” They feel like they're definitely, like, part of it. They love wearing the shirt and love feeling like, you know, they're part of, kind of, that thing that's been created. So it's always just been part of our story, especially since they were still really young when it started.
I think, just like an example of something that's just kind of interesting is, you know, we're working with you guys collectively in GivingTuesday, which is, like, such a dream partnership. Can I just go ahead and say, because GivingTuesday to us is just like, I don't know, starry eyes. Like, this is like such a global generosity movement, you know? And I remember the day that I told my daughter, Viv, I was like, Hey, guess what? We're working with GivingTuesday. And she's like, you're working with my favorite holiday?
Justin McCord
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Jon McCoy
I was like, A, you think it's a holiday, and B, it's truly, like, her favorite holiday. Like, she's such, like, a generous old-soul-type person that it's like, it's the day she looks forward to every year to just, like, figure out what organization she wants to support. And then she gets all the mail to follow and stuff like that addressed to them, which is really fun. But that's just, like, an example. I think it's, it's somewhat, like, normal because it's such a flow, you know, it's like, it's just part of our life that we moved from having these deep conversations, and then maybe I share some of it at dinner, but I don't know. It's just, I guess, normal for them now.
Ronnie Richard
John, I'm curious, backing up a little bit to the starting of “We Are For Good,” how did you, you've been at a health foundation for nine or ten years, how did the formation of “We Are For Good” and connecting with Becky on that, how did that get started? What were those conversations like, and what was the vision at that time compared to where you are now? Yeah.
Justin McCord
Yeah, who took the first step, and then how did that …? And we've heard Becky's side of it. So like, now we have a different witness.
Jon McCoy
I need to go listen to what Becky said. Hopefully these stories corroborate, you know, if you lay them side by side. So, the years that we went to the healthcare foundation, just to give a little bit of context, like Oklahoma State was so successful, right? They're in the billion-dollar campaign. Boone Pickens was in his, like, massive legacy-giving part of his life, right?
Jon McCoy
So, there was hundreds of millions of dollars being raised. And we had a friend that went to Oklahoma city that, he said, you know, this foundation needs a lot of rebuilding and a lot of effort. And it seemed alluring to say, “Hey, go be part of something that's just trying to start and figure it out.”
So not a month into working at this new foundation in the city, Garth Brooks was publicly suing the hospital of her naming rights of something that he made a gift, and the hospital hadn't honored it and all this stuff. So within, like, a matter of, like, weeks, we went from, like, the celebrated foundation to the one being drug through the national media cycle, you know? And there's some definitive points in there. I remember going to Becky's office, like, what do we do? Like, how do you fundraise when the world's largest country music star is suing your hospital? Like, why do you look at people in the eye and say, you really should invest here and trust us. And at the same time, we were being invited to start an employee campaign, which again is like, is this the best time to ask our employees? I don't know. But Becky and I, the reason we connected, obviously we, you know, saw the world a lot of the same ways. We love marketing, and we call ourselves marketers disguised as fundraisers because that's what it felt like we were like, we're pretending to be fundraisers, but we just know how to do all the marketing stuff.
But all of that points to, like, movement building. Like, we never wanted to just create, like, a fund, a thing. We wanted to get people excited about the thing, and feel like they're part of the thing and all that. So when we had this opportunity with the employee campaign, this was really central ‘cause this was 10 years ago, but this was planning the first seeds for We Are For Good. We're sitting there, and we're like, if you're starting from scratch, how do you start something? And we called a lot of the hospitals, and a lot of them were doing Casino Royales, and they're doing, like, movie nights to raise money. And it was very boring and, like, disconnected.
And it's like, we knew, like, the stories we're part of were so good and so deep. It's like people are getting fertility treatment and having babies. That's part of my story. You're having people that are like, their life was saved from a stroke. It's like they have years with their uncle as a result of that. And it's like, and we're using a casino night as, like, our way to connect with people. And so it just, like, felt like a disconnect. So we're like, what if we really centered on storytelling? What if we centered on, like, building a community? What if we centered on belief and not giving but, like, you're part of this thing?
And so, some of those, like, core tenants to this employee campaign became the bedrock now for We Are For Good, like, many years later. But what we saw when we, kind of, implemented this campaign around that passion, and storytelling and the stuff that y 'all are so good at at RKD, let me just be very abundantly clear about getting people around a movement: That's what stuck. And so, like, we took this employee campaign from 300 people to 3,000 people over just a couple of years.
And that became, like, recurring revenue, and growing revenue, and people that believed in it didn't just transactionally give. So it was like raising almost a million dollars a year as a campaign. So by year seven or eight of doing this, maybe six or seven, we're, you know, have the opportunity to present. So we're going to AFP, we're going to HP, we're going to all the associations and sharing our story. And from that, as you start to talk about, Hey, I think, like, your playbook is all wrong. Like, Hey, start with these kind of values. Don't start with these cheesy tactics. Maybe you end up with some of the cheesy tactics. I love cheese, you know, whatever, but like, start with the core value of what you're trying to drive, and then you're going to get a different result. So from those conversations, we started to get people seeing us to say, Hey, would you help us do this for our employees? And I'm like, Becky over here―like, this is definitely not Becky because she was not in the entrepreneur path―You know, I was like, Becky, I think we could build a consultancy. I was like, nobody cares about employee giving. Let's be clear, like, I feel like most people, it's like an afterthought. I was like, we love this stuff. We have so much fun with it. We think that we have a point of view. It was like, people want to hire us to do it. So first, We Are For Good. I mean, it was registered in maybe 2016 or something. And it was going to be an employee-giving consultancy, which is hilarious, right? Now in retrospect.
So we had started to get these couple of clients that were lined up. We had built an online masterclass, and we were doing all the things, like, you're going to teach this course. You're going to have a lot of course members. It's going to turn into clients, this kind of model. And we had lunch at City Bites, and it's like the, the defining lunch of our We Are For Good relationship. I remember sitting in the exact booth we're at, and Becky's like, John, why are we building this company that's gonna literally take us away from our families all the time? And I was like, my gosh, you're right. I mean, because consulting pre-COVID was, like, always travel it felt like, you know, it was like, you're always gonna be on-site and, healthcare loves that kind of stuff, you know, to be on-site, to be in our khakis, walking around campus and doing all the things. And I was like, you're so right. Like, this is gonna, I think it would work, but I think it's not the life we want. And I said, give me two weeks.
And simultaneously, I had been listening, I would say, binging “Entrepreneurs on Fire,” which is a podcast that I really enjoyed. John Lee Dumas, got to give him a lot of credit. He was in my head. He would always interview, you know, interesting people that were doing entrepreneurial things, but I was interested in his story. And his whole dynamic was that he was a commercial real-estate guy, and he was driving to work one day on his commute, and he was like, there should be, like, a short show talking to, I mean, interviewing entrepreneurs every day. And he's like, maybe I should be the one to create that, you know? And it's like, he started a daily show. That was ridiculous that, that you could do that daily, but he just started creating content, and it turned into, like, one of the biggest entrepreneur podcasts, and it's turned into―he's real open with his income statements and, like, how he makes money and all these things.
And so, I came back to Becky, and I was like, look, we love nonprofit work. We love this. Like, we can talk to people. We love storytelling. I was like, there's so many people's stories that we want to tell. We could do this. It could be, it could be the daily, you know, nonprofit show. And Becky's like, you're crazy that it's going to be daily. It can't be daily, you know, which I'm glad they talked me out of that. But we, you know, had landed on like, let's do three a week. Let's turn these opportunities that were clients into, you know, these, this way that we could support ourselves revenue-wise.
But instead of, like, teaching one organization, hey, here's the values to embed, what if we embedded the values into, like, everything we talk about in this ecosystem and bring it back to “everyone matters?” Community is everything, belief over donors, you know, all these sorts of things. And it gave us, like, a new platform to build off, and it just, like, clicked.
And I don't think, you never know how things are going to go, but you have a gut that you're like, I think we can do this. Like, I know nothing about podcasting. I know nothing about people outside of Oklahoma, honestly, barely at this point in my life. But I'm like, I think, I think this will work. And it's like, we're at least going to try. And so that was kind of the beginning, and we knew we couldn't do it, just the two of us. So since we had some consulting work lined up, we're like, we got to bring somebody into this. And Julie Confer was on my team at the foundation doing stewardship. And I had seen how she took this really bad video that we'd created. And she was like, Hey, I think if we reworked these things, it would be stronger. And I said, Becky, a few weeks ago, Julie did this thing, and I was like, I think she could produce. Like, I just have seen, like, she's got the innate talent to, like, take clips and make it more compelling. And so I called Julian to the office one day, and she's like, Hey, it's like, Hey, so Becky and I are going to leave, okay, but we want you to come with us. And Julie's like, should I shut the door? And I was like, maybe.
But that was kind of the beginnings, you know, to say this is going to be the team, but it wasn't an easy jump. And I feel like I want to tell this because I don't know who's listening, because you can have all these ideas, you even have friends around you. You have some confirmation bias that this is going to be the thing. But right before we made the decision to go, the pandemic happened, right? And that changed everything, or it seemingly changed everything. But you know, a year later, you realize, man, people were more confused than ever. They needed a podcast. They needed people. They needed their community more than ever.
So that was one thing. But secondly was I had a couple of job offers open up right after that. And it would have been, like, the easy path of like, just go do this other thing, make more money, have more “security,” in quotation marks, or like, start this thing. And coming back to Candace, who is the dreamer―is such a dreamer in my, in our life too―took me by the shoulders and was like, John, when are you going to quit giving up on your dream? Like, we got to do this. Like, this is the time. And so, we were both all in. And that was the deciding point, that spring of 2020. And we jumped, you know, July 1st of 2020, to start this thing, and kind of the rest just slowly snowballed, you know, over that. Was that more than you wanted or too much?
Justin McCord
I don't. Well, actually, I don't think it was slowly. I don't think it's a slow snowball. I think then there's like, yes, I'm sure as you've lived it, that slow snowball from the outside, it was, holy crap, what is this thing? This thing's on fire. And like, you guys have, have found a way to capture and lift up things that happen all around this incredible sector but otherwise were not being captured and not being lifted up. And I think it's tied to, like you said, some of those very specific, very intentional values that remove some of the bias that, in other cases, they just, they get in the way of that sort of ripple effect that y 'all have created. So not only is this like our 100th episode, but something that's also special for you and for Becky, and you have no idea what I'm about to say. And that gives me great joy to get to tease this out for a second. It’s that this, so this, this episode, as people were listening to this, this will be on July 11th, this will be live. And so, you know, we're recording this a week and a half-ish prior to July 11th, which is an important moment in We Are For Good history. And it's an important moment in terms of our partnership as this goes live and folks are enjoying, and celebrating and reveling in the Impact Uprising. It feels like there's been consternation that has built towards this. And now it's an overflow and a tipping out in a very good way of, of July 11th and what's happening, but tied together for folks, the launch of, of a podcast that has become very successful as one thing, but then to turn that into something different, that's happening, starting with July 11th, is, that's an altogether different feat. So, tie those things together for us.
Jon McCoy
Friends, I'm overcome. Like, I'm big in signs. And so, like, the fact that you are dropping your hundredth episode on that day, like, means the world, man. Thank y 'all. What a gift. Yeah. Like, let me try to unpack that. So, I mean, our vision, I go back to like, I wrote a 30-page geeky business plan that doesn't, I didn't know anything at the time. Like, you know, you think you know how things are going to go, and things don't go how they go, but our vision was an impact uprising.
And I just love the idea that it meant at the time of our start was that, you know, we believe in the transformational power of philanthropy, of what it does to the people that are giving, not even just the impact. The impact's always talked about. It's one of our values. You should steward relentlessly. You should talk about impact. But I think the impact uprising is like, man, the world feels broken. A lot of people feel disconnected. They don't feel like they've got authentic relationships around them in a lot of spaces. There's so many systemic issues. Like, you can get like, in this cycle, especially, like, in a lot of the media cycles of just like, like … but we were really captivated of, like … an impact uprising to us is like, more people that could get connected to philanthropy through their own personal life. That could be bomb for this world. And I was like, that could, that's, that's kind of what drives us.
So you know, our theory of change is like, we could equip nonprofit fundraisers to be better at that, to build better movements, to build stronger movements, to take care of ourselves so it trickles to our families and all those things. And so that was impact uprising. But I think, you know, we were definitely thinking about the nonprofit space. And I'll say, you know, when I started everything, in our documentation it’s like nonprofit leaders is our avatar, and nonprofit young leaders is our small avatar, or whatever.
We were definitely thinking about one sector, and your question about 500 conversations, how does it change you? And what, what's moved me is that I don't know if it's ego or if it was of spending my career in nonprofit. It's like the nonprofit sector can't change the world by itself. Like, it's 10 % of the U.S. population at most. Right? Like, it was never about just the nonprofit sector. It's about how do we get everybody together; that everybody has something to offer.
I wasn't even planning to thread that together, but you know, like, everybody has something to bring, and money is often a lower common denominator of what some people could bring that feel like they have nothing. Sometimes it's a huge factor, you know, that, that helps things rise, but Impact Uprising, you know, as we went along, we realized we were dreaming really small. We were like, thinking revolutionized the nonprofit sector, how you change the world. And I'm like, yeah, I, that's my passion. I love that. I love the space. I love the people of the space. It's like the greatest, but man, like what if, what would it look like to lock arms with businesses that have that same idea? And what does it look like to lock arms with the random, what Becky calls the knitting circles? You know, the people that are just trying to do change.
I meet people on the road all the time that are like, I was at Chase Bank the other day, and this banker―I have to just tell this ‘cause it's just so funny to me―I'm like, having to sign a form because we're trying to do this thing, and I'm trying to sign this form. And he's like, what exactly do you do? And I was like, I tried to explain in an, I mean, not like long like this, right? Like the 30 seconds of what I do. And he's like, I just want to do good like that. Like, anything I can do, like, to help you. I just don't really know where even to plug in. I was like, I know so many people that would love to help you, like, figure that out and all this thing. And I was like, so let's stay in touch. And he's like, well, you know, I'm not supposed to build relationships. I was like, this is so counter to my world right now. It's like, let me find you. I'm gonna find you on LinkedIn, and we're gonna get you hooked up, okay? But you don't have to do anything. You can cut this out if that is not appropriate. But I think, I meet people on the road that so many people are inclined, they wanna do good. And like, that's so counter to what I think the media or whatever forces out there make us think, but most people are bent to, like, wanna care for their family, their community, take care of their people at a minimum and then the greater good too. And it's like, Impact Uprising is available for all, you know?
So let me step you back into, like, We Are For Good. How are we transforming along the way? There was a definitive day, you know, We Are For Good started in my house. Like, people would, Julie and Becky would drive over to our house. Like, we'd have lunch at the table with my family, and we would move into the office and record, and then we'd like, talk about this stuff. And I remember one day, we're sitting in the back office talking, and I was like, you know, I realized the shift is happening. That Impact Uprising is beyond nonprofit, but I'm not going to lie. It scares me, y 'all, because I think I know, feel like I know the nonprofit space, but I don't know, like, how big this thing could be.
And Becky's that type of personality that just, like, go for it, which is good to pair with somebody like me that's a little more, can have the dream, but I need, like, I need my co-person to like, kind of, push me over a little bit. But she's like, I totally see it. You know, I totally see that there's a place for this, and the community around us helped us believe in it too. And so, as we started to, like, organize and things started to grow, community is not only, like, a value for us. It's like, our DNA. So, like, we wanted to not just create a podcast, but like, create a way for people to connect.
So we've had the growing We're For Good community that just kind of, like, was around, and they would help us figure out what the content may be. We just get together on Zoom on Fridays to just like, talk about life and like, get to know each other. And it's like, over time, like, the snowball that happened is like, not only do we meet a lot of people through the podcast, but we met a lot of people in the community. And when you really listen to somebody and you make people feel seen and celebrated, then I think there's like a just different level of connection, that people just want to pour in and be part of this thing.
And so as we started to figure out what is our unique thing that we can bring to the world, we didn't want to add just, like, another event to the docket. And I think this one, you know, when we were bringing you guys in and saying, we want to find, you know, our partners in this that believe in the same thing. And y 'all been doing that with Shift, which I love so much. And I'm so sad that I'm not able to be in person for y 'all's Shift. ‘Cause it's like the same idea of, like, we don't want to just keep talking. We want to figure out how do we actually shift things for good. And I think conversation is a great place to start, but it's like, we got to move beyond that.
And I was about to take off on my road trip, and I'm not going to lie, like, it's like the universal connection of all this stuff is that I knew this was going to open me up to go through cities and, like, get to meet people on the road too that I've never gotten to meet with. And so, as that's happening, ImpactUp is coming into focus to say, what if we did, you know, what We Are For Good has really become known for is, like, convening people around content and conversations. But now we've got friends in every corner of the U.S., what would it look like to gather locally? And, you know, I started socializing that with a couple of stops on the way of this road trip, and everybody I shared it with was like, you have to do this. Like, we're totally all in.
So, you know, once we started, you know, sharing that vision, people just kept turning on lights of different cities. And it's like, the dream of doing this in 15 cities got blasted by. And it's now in more than 25 cities in the U.S., and we're in five international locations. And there's going to be more than 80 people in Uganda gathering for ImpactUp on July 11th. And there's maxed out venues in multiple of the cities. And there's people that haven't even met, you know, that are leading cities that just feel like they're part of this thing.
And it's like, so … the ripple has grown, and I think it's because this community is around values, and it's around shared belief of what's possible and honestly, like, hope. And it's not, like, a negative place. It's an uplifting place, that we're all needed. So that's a little bit behind it. And we're just kind of trying to keep … we don't want to keep our arms around it because we don't keep it small, but we want to, like, fan it, you know, and like just really try to be grateful for this moment and grateful for everybody that's pouring in. It's taken, it's taken me back, honestly.
Justin McCord
Y 'all are doing something that's special, and we're honored to get to be a part of it.
Jon McCoy
When y 'all said yes, I mean, it puts so much wind and belief in our sales, you know, because y 'all were the first yes to us. So I want to thank you for that, to say we see it, we're all in. Like it, it changes the game when you have people that believe in you, you know? And so, thank you. Thank you for seeing it and seeing it for such a long time. Like, thank you.
Justin McCord
Yeah, I mean, yes, it's yes, but it's an important yes, right? I'm sitting here, and I'm thinking and just … I had a little tiny micro interruption here, around here, because as I'm sitting here, and I'm thinking, and I get this little micro interruption of 13-year-olds.
Jon McCoy
Who knew? What's up? How's it going?
Justin McCord
And so, and I handed her a headphone so that she could hear what you were talking about, John. And so, like, Ziggy is like, standing here like, what am I going to get to? Like, I'm probably terrified that she's going to ultimately be on YouTube. And so here's the, here's the … no, you can't leave yet. You can't leave yet, because here's, here's the thing that I want to ask you kind of in closing, John, because I do see this other through line that I think is super important, and I want you to wrestle with it.
As you talked about the formative parts of your career at Oklahoma State and the choice to leave and to go for a year to Thailand, and as you talk about the work that you and Becky did around an employee giving program, and then as you talk about the launch of We Are For Good, and then as you talk about the Impact Uprising, there is this through line that I see and that Ronnie and I see of how values create impact. And so, just, you say it, and you fly past it a lot of times because you're so used to saying it. But I just want you to wrestle with, for a second, with us out loud how you think about what you put value in and why that matters in the work that you do.
Jon McCoy
And so, just you say it, and you fly past it a lot of times because you're so used to saying it―I mean, what a beautiful question. And again, you're getting me fresh off of the Lantern retreat, which is all about ...
Justin McCord
Yeah, which by the way, we're going to just make sure that everyone's gone to Lantern prior to having a conversation with us from now on.
Jon McCoy
Yeah, do it. Because a couple of things that I guess come to mind as I'm like, kind of, wrestling through this―and tell me if I don't answer your question in the process of talking about this. But I think what I talked about that everybody has something deeply of value to add to this world. And after spending a week focused on ourselves, which was really antithetical to all of us, kind of, on our team to like, step away and like, let's focus on ourselves, that one of the moments that moved me to tears, and I'm not usually a crier, and we see here so many, like, really, things that are cry-worthy, but something that really moved me at the retreat was that, you know, we get really clear on what, what's your purpose. And it's not something you want to aspire to do, but you do want to aspire to be it. But there's this realization that the purpose that's written within you―what they call your light, some of them may call it your soul or something like that―but the light within you, you already are that.
It may just be being dimmed right now, but it's already there. And for me, like, as I like, get really clear of what I love and want to do in this world it’s like, I want to encourage people to, like, understand their value and to understand their, like, superpowers and, like, use that to impact the world. And I was standing there realizing, I keep thinking, like, you want to, like, be something in the future, and you realize, wait, no, what if I, I'm already that, like, this is what I already do.
And there is so much to be unlocked if we just realize each of us have something really unique to bring to the world. It's like, how do we get in touch with that and try to spend as much of our, like, time and energy and effort, because we have one life, not just our work, not just our play, and family and all this. It's like, how do we center all of that in that? And so for me, it's like, man, I need to use that gift to be, like, encouraging my family and to be calling out when I see the beauty in what, you know, my, I talked about Viv, like, her love of people, and love of generosity and her ability to just like, give so freely. But I see it in y 'all in the way that you have vision, and you like, care for people and create space for these conversations. Like, how do we, how do we help people find that and feel connected to that? Because it's so needed in, like, creating the impact of the world.
So, as I think about, like, the building blocks of, like, using value, coming together around that, it's like, it's about community. It's about, like, surrounding ourselves with people that want to help us live in our most vibrant state. And I think that's so important. But like, don't dim your light. Don't think that you don't have something really vital to offer because you just really, really, really do.
Justin McCord
Okay, so from now on, anytime I need my 13-year-old to hear something, I'm calling Jon.
Jon McCoy
It's in you, man. I feel like you do this to me. And hey, can I say this in front of your daughter? Justin's one of the most intentional humans that I know. I received one book for Christmas this past year, and it was from your dad. And that book, in the time that I received it, was so what I needed in life. And it was met with like … Justin knows a gazillion people. And he's in community with a gazillion people, but he took the time to write me a personal note, and to make me feel seen, and to be still and to lean into the stillness. And it's like, that's just what I needed for that season of my life. So your dad's incredibly intentional and is impacting so many people beyond this mic. So, sorry he brought you on YouTube to tell you that, but he's awesome. I love it. You're letting me step into my gift. I want to encourage you.
Justin McCord
Jon, we can't, we can't wait to see what happens on July 11th, man. We can't wait to see what happens on July 12th, and the 13th and like, just the, the, the way that values play out in the work that you're doing. Like, that light is awesome. And we love it. We love every bit of it. And so, thank you for helping us celebrate this milestone for us and for the work that you, and Becky, and Julie, and Abby and the team continues to do. It's awesome. It's so cool.
Jon McCoy
So much gratitude, Ronnie. I think the world of both you guys. Thank you for having me on this special episode, too. Y 'all gotta have me back so I can interview y 'all about your 100 episodes. I wanna do that. So let's turn the tables. Happy to come back anytime. Okay, let's do it. Grateful, y 'all, thank you.
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