On this episode of the RKD Group: Thinkers podcast, we’re thrilled to welcome T. Clay Buck, a seasoned expert in nonprofit fundraising and communications. With over 30 years of experience spanning roles from Grant Writer to Chief Development Officer, Clay has honed his expertise in individual giving, strategic planning, storytelling and building ethical fundraising systems that empower organizations to succeed.
In this fun conversation, T. Clay Buck highlights concerns about the current state of fundraising, emphasizing that while innovation is vital, it’s often pursued without understanding the historical principles that underpin effective practices. He fears that valuable lessons from the past may be lost in the rush to revolutionize, stressing the importance of grounding new methods in proven fundamentals.
Show chapters
- 00:00 Introduction to Fundraising Insights
- 10:21 The Evolution of Fundraising Practices
- 16:33 Balancing Relationships and Revenue in Fundraising
- 27:57 The Journey from Theater to Fundraising
- 33:10 Launching Next River Fundraising Strategies
- 41:11 Finding Inspiration in People and Family
Meet our guest
Transcript
Justin McCord
Now you've got my self-conscious about the countdown.
Clay Buck
I told you. I told you.
Justin McCord
Okay, so have you ever used Asana, the project management tool? So, my favorite thing about Asana was the unicorn whenever you complete a task; the little unicorn that would fly across. I feel like Riverside and/or other recording platforms could incorporate a little more joy and fun if they had something similar. So then, instead of the countdown just being like, the number on the screen, you know, if it were the ...
Clay Buck
Yes, yes, yes. Yep.
Justin McCord
… a gif of the character from “Wayne's World” that did the, that couldn't get the countdown right?
Clay Buck
See, I don't know, I'm feeling a little old-school lately. Do remember the visualizations, the music visualizations on the early windows screens, right? Something like that, right? Like sort of kaleidoscopy, kind of. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin McCord
Okay? Yeah, just...
Ronnie Richard
Crazy, yeah.
Justin McCord
Sure, I'm here for any of it. Put some to make it sound like an E-chord. That's fine.
Clay Buck
When did we decide “professional” had to be boring?
Ronnie Richard
That's a great question.
Justin McCord
I don't think we made that decision. That decision was made for us.
Clay Buck
Okay, okay, Billy Joel. We didn't start the fire
Justin McCord
Listen―this is for anyone who's survived up until this point in the conversation―this is what you can expect for the next, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes is, yeah, yeah, Clay and I share a tremendous amount of joy, Ronnie, anytime we're in a setting together. And it's because it is a …
Clay Buck
However long you let us.
Justin McCord
… it's not like a lack of focus in a bad way. It is maybe the best exercise in improv, period, just amongst, like, conversation.
Clay Buck
You are one of the easiest first-meetings people I've ever met. Like, I have, I have a distinct visual of the first time we met in person, and what you were wearing, and what you were doing and where we were. And it was just like, this immediate … like that conversation started then and continues now. Right? Like we have just kind of been in this mode ever since. So I'm here for it.
Justin McCord
Go on.
Okay, so let's get down to brass tacks and, specifically, let's get down to conference buttons because you referencing what we're wearing, I would love for you to share with Ronnie and/or the audience―because I think it frames much of your depth of expertise―the conference jean jacket. Can you just unpack that for starters?
Clay Buck
Okay. I can, I can. I'm going to ask you to, to, to vamp a little bit while I do because we, we may as well just have the visual, right? Shall we? Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. You vamp, continue the energy. Yes. There you go.
Justin McCord
Okay, awesome.
Ronnie Richard
We getting the jacket?
Justin McCord
Yes. This is like Ric Flair going to get a robe. Okay. So Ronnie, Ronnie, I've shared with you, Clay has been in the sector for a minute. I think that I consider him to be someone that's been a high-level thought leader for well over a decade, tremendously respected, and that also comes with a tremendous amount of being well-traveled across the nonprofit sphere, right? And Clay shared with me about a year ago that he has an artifact that also includes multiple artifacts from all of the conferences that he has attended over time.
Ronnie Richard
Perfect time.
Justin McCord
Yeah, and so ...
Clay Buck
So, that did take longer than I anticipated. My apologies. It is, I have not taken it off its hook in a while. So, it is heavier than I remembered. So did you, you already did the setup of what this is?
Justin McCord
Yeah, I did the setup. You have no idea what the setup is, which actually makes me even more happy.
Clay Buck
Right, exactly. This is the conference jacket.
Ronnie Richard
That is incredible.
Clay Buck
Well, okay, so there's a couple of things. First, my first job―I'm knocking off things on the floor―my first job in high school―second job; my first job was at Domino's Pizza―My second job was working in a bookstore. And whenever there were book releases, we had all these buttons that we had to wear for the book releases. So I just started sticking them on this jacket when the book release was done.
And so they just grew over time. My brother-in-law, when he first started dating my sister, said one of the greatest things, I just remember him saying this, one of the greatest: “Everybody needs a me wall,” right? Some place in your house, whatever, that you look at and you go, that's me. Right? So whether it's degrees or pictures or whatever, that place that you can look at and say, that's who I am. It reminds me of who I am, whatever.
That's what that jacket is for me because it's every conference I've ever spoken at. It's every job name tag I've ever had. It's pins and stuff that people have given me or that I picked up along the way. And it's just become, kind of become, become kind of a thing. So there you go. No, no, there's hundreds. It's well over, probably well over 200.
Ronnie Richard
Have you ever counted them? Do you have an estimate of how many?
Clay Buck
Hundreds.
Justin McCord
Okay, so I will tease for you a little bit of the setup that I gave while vamping for you. Clay, I consider you―I've shared with you before―you were someone whose thought leadership and presence grabbed my attention the second that I got into the industry. And I put you on a pedestal, you don't like it, but I put you on a pedestal as having been a high-level thought leader for as long as I've been in this space.
Clay Buck
Huh.
Justin McCord
And so, I'm curious because you're also like, one of the most well read about the history of philanthropy and fundraising, certainly in Western philanthropy and fundraising. Like, that is a perfect picture of you as a you wall, but it's also something that tracks some of the ebbs and flows of seasons of this space that we live in. And so, how do you think about the space that we're in now? Like, knowing that you have all of these artifacts and knowing that you have walked in your shoes in this space, how do you feel about fundraising right now? Like, what comes to mind?
Clay Buck
Thank you for the good words. I do appreciate that. I intentionally became a student, if you will, of this work of philanthropy. I'll say I intentionally became a student of fundraising at a real critical point, at kind of an inflection point of my career, and up until then had kind of been doing it.
So the study has been very intentional and sort of scratches that frustrated academic itch. I was, I was supposed to be an academic, and it didn't happen, but anyway, life.
How do I think about fundraising now? Not the lighthearted, fun answer you wanted, probably. What I am concerned about with fundraising now is that I feel like we're at a balance of innovation and revolution that is not factoring in history. And at times, I think we're starting to revolutionize and question things that we aren't grounded enough in understanding their history to revolutionize them. I don't wanna say throwing the baby out with the bath water. We don't remember why the bath was drawn to begin with.
So I fear, what keeps me up at night is I fear that we are potentially throwing away a lot of principles that have been proven while we're trying to evolve best practice. And those are two different things, right?
Justin McCord
Do you think that's an intentional, is it an intentional letting out of that bathwater or that as fundraisers and/or nonprofit marketers, are we in the midst of overwhelm? Have we just, like, things are seeping out of our grasp?
Clay Buck
I think this is a little bit of age. I mean, I'm in my mid-50s, right? And I'm looking at, there is a measurable, finite number for retirement. So for me, at least, this is part of where I am in my career. Just at the brink of, kids, get off my lawn, right?
I'm like, five steps away from Statler and Waldorf in the balcony of the theater, you know, right? Watching “The Muppet Show,” right? And I had this conversation with, I'm not going to single him out, but it is someone you would know, author, thought leader, et cetera. And his response to me was clear: We did this to ourselves, and we did this to ourselves starting in the late nineties, but really in the early two thousands. And the point that I'm getting at is ...
Justin McCord
Bring on the tweet, man. Let’s do it.
Clay Buck
… as we started into the tech revolution, the online revolution I mean, I was one of the first 20 beta testers of what is now one of our industry’s, like, leading platforms. And I was one of the first 20 beta testers of their new online giving thing, right? And we were all like, what is this? What did you write? And so, as that evolved, I think that people came into the sector different.
So I was … and I was also, I also learned the craft in Chicago. So I'm like, second generation of … I mean, my, one of my first bosses worked for Jimmy Alford, the Jimmy, the, the Alford Group, right? I kind of come from that history. So I was steeped in, I mean, I was steeped in Jerry Panas and Si Seymour and, right, all of the early writings and knowledge of the profession, and, and I think a lot of people now are in leadership roles that didn't come in the same way. So I work really hard to balance that, you know, kids get off my lawn, right, the old, the old guy in fundraising, with a lot of innovation, and I fear that, I fear that somewhere in, in … somewhere in this evolution we missed some of those same groundings, right?
Like, I think everything that Si Seymour said, “Designs for Fund-Raising,” 1967, Harold J. Si Seymour, everything in that book is relevant today. You just changed the methodology, and I fear that we, we've missed that. So I think a lot of people are coming in going, well, I was told that, you know, fundraising is about wealth. No, no, no, nobody knows that. No, it's not what we meant. Right? But somehow, it got interpreted that way, and trained that way and taught that way. And so now we're trying to, to get out of that perspective ...
Justin McCord
Right, right.
Clay Buck
… but not, but, but hear me here, let me put it this way. Sorry, I'm stumbling over this. I was in a session at a conference where the question was, “Let's examine best practice.” They had people in the audience just call out best practices, and you know, let's look at it, and write and like, five things … People went, well, you know, direct mail is all about, you know, giving away, the best direct mail best practices, giving away address labels and tote bags. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Where did you get that? Because, no. Right? Right?
So some of our perceptions of best practice have just gotten into this sort of misinterpretation. We're, we’ve got to revolutionize this. No, that was bad. That was always bad. That was always not the right thing. Not necessarily that particular thing. You see what I mean? I'm tripping over words in an unusual way. Sorry.
Justin McCord
Hiss. Hiss. Sure. Right, right. Yeah, it is. It's for a podcast host, that's okay. So.
Ronnie Richard
So how do we bring it back? How do we ... how do we change course?
Clay Buck
That's, to me, that's, that's getting back, talking more, right? Talking more about what the principles of fundraising were. I mean, that, that question―fundraising is about relationships. OK, great. But what does that mean? Right? What does that mean? I think it's getting back to relationships, values, identity and using now what we know from psychology and neuromarketing and neuroscience and bringing that in to inform, right?
All fundraising and engagement is about values and action. That's what we meant when we were saying 40 years ago, it's about relationships, right?
Justin McCord
It's, yeah, yeah, because it's, right now, it's a season of everything everywhere all at once. Like, that is, that is fundraising right now. And that creates the overwhelm that exists or spools it up if it doesn't seed it. And even to your point about relationship fundraising, I ...
Clay Buck
Yeah, yeah. Right. Sure.
Justin McCord
… have exceptionally high trust in the gentleman that changes the oil on my Volkswagen. My long-term net value to his shop is very high. I have never texted him, or gone to dinner with him or played golf with him. I've never been invited over for a barbecue. We are in an everything, everywhere, all at once mentality. We are running with things at a USA Today level as opposed to a Wall Street Journal level of depth. And I think it is creating vacuums that are hard to escape.
Clay Buck
I completely agree. I totally agree. I think we ... it's really such a great question. I think that fundraisers―and when I say fundraisers, now this is a whole other podcast, and you and I will go around on this for months, right?―The difference between fundraising and marketing. I'm not going to go there today, but when I'm saying fundraising, I'm including underneath that umbrella anybody that is doing marketing on behalf of fundraising, communications, all of it, anything that, you know, affects raising dollars.
Justin McCord
Yes. Amen. Correct.
Clay Buck
I think that fundraisers, that blanket, have to live in a ... what's the word? What's the word I'm looking for? Not dichotomy, well dichotomy is the word. It's a weird balance to be in because we have to be money focused. We are, we are evaluated by how we do money. That is what we are here to do. We are here to bring in money. At the end of the day, it is revenue. You can go out and build all the relationships if you want. If you're not bringing home a dime, you're not fundraising and vice versa. You can go out and raise all the money that you want. And if you're not building relationships, you're not fundraising. It’s living in that balance.
And that is a very tough balance to live in. And it's a very tough balance to manage because I think a lot of our leadership in the nonprofit space thinks fundraising is revenue, and they just want us to go raise money. They don't want to deal with all this stuff that we want to deal with. Just go raise the money and don't bother me with it, which is not what we do when we're doing it.
Well, I am, I, I've sort of evolved into this from, you know, more reading and so forth. If we look at fundraising not as an ask, but as an offer or an invitation―and what we are doing when we are fundraising, when we are marketing, when we are communicating is we are engaging a community in our mission; we are inviting them to be a part of it; we are offering them the opportunity to be a part of this vision and mission, right?―then fundraising isn't revenue generating. It is mission. That is part of our mission. Our mission is to rescue ravaging wombats, and we're going to invite you to be a part of it with your donation. You are now a part of the mission. We can't do it without you, and we can't do it without the Wombat Wranglers, and we can't do it without the copy machine that doesn't work. It takes all of this working together. So if I'm out here inviting and offering you a chance to be a part of it, that is part of my mission. It's not ... I was told early on in my career, right, we're not the mission. I actually disagree with that now. I think all communications for a nonprofit is mission, right? Or, or just go ahead and do it on your own. Right? Go ahead and get the money and do the thing, but don't involve the community with it. That's the balance we have to live in.
Justin McCord
Yeah, because even as someone that works on behalf of nonprofits, like you do, like we do, we're an extension of the mission. We have to be an embodiment of the mission in the work that we do, whether that is writing a letter or crafting a text message or knocking on a door, whatever those things are, we have to sit in that purpose and that is something that, in the midst of the everything, everywhere, all at once space, I do think that we, not only do we lose it, we also we become enamored with commercialized marketing, and there is a massive difference in the passion, purpose and fulfillment that comes from the nobility of the work that we do in fundraising …
Clay Buck
Right?
Justin McCord
… that doesn't exist the same way when I order a pair of shoes.
Clay Buck
Why do you get your car fixed?
Justin McCord
Because it needs it. Because it needs it. Because it's me stewarding the asset that I have.
Clay Buck
Why don't you take your car to the repair shop? Well, sure, but I mean, really, like an oil change, a tire change, it's, you know, pretty much fine, right? I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to argue that the reason you get your car repaired is that you move from point A to point B more efficiently, and you keep your family safe - two things that are very important to you. So I'm going to argue that your repair shop isn't a part of your core values or identity as a person except for the fact that it feeds those two key motivators for you.
Justin McCord
Sure, absolutely. Yes, absolutely.
Clay Buck
I want a safe, reliable ride for me and my family to get where we're going. And to do that, I'm going to go to this shop that I trust that enables that thing to happen. And on some random day, on some random podcast, I'm going to mention my repair shop that I probably haven't thought about in three or four months, but as soon as something goes wrong, the first person I'm going to call, right?
Justin McCord
Yeah, yeah. How do you teach this when you're in front of either conference rooms or when you're in front of classrooms from your time at teaching at UNLV? Like, this is a part of the core of who Clay is that I appreciate so much. How does this play out in terms of arming an audience?
Clay Buck
The first step is systems. So, I have a reputation for being a data guy, and I'm fine with that reputation. I am not a data guy. I'm a twice-over theater major that couldn't make it. Well, I could have. I didn't want to once I learned I hated auditioning anyway. Different story, right? I failed college algebra twice. I am not a math guy. I am not a data guy. You know, okay, you've got such great Excel skills. No, I don't. I know how to sort and filter and how to Google formulas, like. And now AI can, I can chat whatever the formulas that I need, right? But I learned very early on as an annual fund guy, nobody was going to clean my data for me. When I pulled the mailing to get it accurate and land in homes, I had to clean that data myself. So I learned how to do it.
So the first step to me is teaching, explaining, investing in the values of functioning systems. Because once you get your systems working, everything else can be easier. Honestly, truly, stop fighting data and the copy machine that doesn't work and the CRM with the bad data. Get that fixed because that's a finite thing that you can touch and fix and do right. Get that done. Then let's focus on what we're using that system to communicate.
Because to me, it comes down to once you, once you really absorb the mission, the mandates, the vision of the organization, once that's clear, right? Once we start to value that ourselves as part of culture―I mean, the old saying, right? Right? Culture eats strategy for breakfast―well, systems inform culture. So if everybody's mad at the copier, I keep picking on the poor copying machine, but you know, right? The printer that doesn't work. Everybody.
Justin McCord
What copy machine really hurt your feelings today?
Clay Buck
Dude, we had not today. That's, that's a holdover thing that I probably need to see a professional about. But I mean, I read literally one, one job, I was a chief development officer. We literally had a lot, like, you would go to the copy machine to print the thing that you're about to put in front of a donor and find that there's 20 jobs in front of you. All of that got hung up, right? So like …
Justin McCord
It's a great visual and actual metaphor of where a bottleneck can exist.
Clay Buck
I tell this story all the time: I met a friend, I was at a friend's for Thanksgiving one year, and they had a couple we didn't know. And you get to talking, like you do at Thanksgiving, and the woman said, you know, we spent yesterday at a youth homeless shelter helping to make sandwiches and, you know, ready for the Thanksgiving meal. Like, that's great. Yeah, it was really frustrating. Why was it frustrating? What happened? Well, I spilled a bunch of mayonnaise on the counter, and I went to get paper towels to clean it up, and there were no paper towels. And so I asked the volunteer coordinator once I found her where the paper towels were, and she said, we don't have any. We ran out, and we can't afford to buy new until the next budget cycle. So we're out of paper towels. Long story short, the woman said the thing that was standing between these kids and healthy lunch was a paper towel, right? Which … I kind of use that story to talk about the importance of “overhead” but also about systems because it is these things that hang us up. So, we're over here stressing about paper towels. And meanwhile, we have a woman who wants to feed hungry youth. So let's get our systems fixed. Number one, fix the systems and let them ride and build the processes that support them. And then number two, that informs the culture. So if we're not fighting our systems and we've got a much better culture, we can all be focused on mission and that's on leadership.
So that's the hardest part is really driving with leadership with the C-suite and the board on culture is you. You have to drive culture. You have to drive culture, and you have to drive culture making the systems work because your staff is frustrated, and tired and all the other things, right?
Ronnie Richard
Clay, I wanna change course a little bit on the conversation. We talk a lot about, on our show, that it's about the people more so than the craft. And we've been talking a lot about craft, and it's been a lot of awesome, amazing insights really, honestly. But you mentioned this one thing, and I wanna go back to it. You mentioned that you started off in theater. So I wanna know, how did you get from that to fundraising? How did that journey happen? Can you walk us through that?
Clay Buck
So yeah, so, 19, hold on, 1990, I was actually―I did actually look down ‘cause it's now on the floor and, yeah, I'm going to have to text you pictures of the cleanup that this is going to happen anyway, or when I walk in here at midnight and step on a pin―anyway, 1990, I was a sophomore in college, majoring in theater …
Justin McCord
H’'s got to look at the jacket and figure out where the first button came from.
Ronnie Richard
Find the button.
Clay Buck
… and I was hired as an intern at a small summer stock theater in North Carolina. And my job as an intern, too, it was to work in the box office and to be in two of the shows of the four―a four-show rep―and so I spent that summer in the box office and with every sale, right? So, you buy your subscription for the season, and I would say, and do you want to round that up because we're nonprofit, blah, blah, blah.
I didn't know until much, much later― I did that for seven years―I didn't know until much, much later that that was actually a career. So, it was a thing called fundraising that you could actually do. So fast forward, I finished my graduate degree in theater. I moved to Chicago. I’ve got $500 in my pocket. I'm going to be an actor. I learned within the first, like, two weeks that I really hated auditioning. The profession, like, it was soul-draining and awful, and I hated it. And also, that $500 wasn't enough to live on in Chicago in the mid ‘90s. So I signed up for a temp agency, and the very first place they placed me was at an institute of higher education in the fundraising office, and day one they go, do you have, do know anything about fundraising? Can you write, can you write a grant? We need a grant written here. Do this. And I went, it took about a week before I went, this is the same stuff that I was doing there. And they hired me on full time. That was right. And they tell you in theater training, if you find something you love more and can do better, go do it. So I did.
Justin McCord
Is that what you expected, Ronnie? Is that where you were thinking the path was going to be?
Clay Buck
You're …
Ronnie Richard
I didn't know what I expected. It seems like a jump. And we hear so many times from guests that I kind of fell into fundraising. I never intended to go into fundraising. Everyone's got their own path that's a little bit different.
Clay Buck
I mean, yes, yes, yes and, and you know, like … but how many people actually work in their, work in their major? You know, I mean, like, there are many majors like pre-med, et cetera, you know, but a lot of us, a lot of people major in something, and they didn't mean to get into widgets. That wasn't the plan. They wanted to be in business, right? But they became an expert at widgets. So, you know ...
Justin McCord
You're, listen, this is, let's see, I don't know. Yesterday evening at seven o'clock, this is the conversation I'm having with my high school sophomore. We're like, yes, like you, I don't have to, it's okay to go down a path and then, like Alice, fall into a place where you meet all sorts of interesting people. Because that's what Alice did, and that's what I think we get to do.
Clay Buck
Yeah.
Ronnie Richard
You're not picking a major that's gonna, you know, it doesn't mean this is the next 50 years of your life.
Clay Buck
I do think that's one of the strengths of the, one of the things that we can learn from, you know, younger generations is, you know, I don't know, I think the rules are different. You know, I certainly grew up with the, what do you want to be when you grow up? And you were sort of defined by, you know, that career choice. And the days of working at a company and retiring from that company are probably long over.
Justin McCord
Says the guy who created a brand just before coming on our podcast. And we've never had someone do that, like, launch a company because they're appearing on the RKD Group: Thinker show. So thank you for bestowing us.
Clay Buck
That was the whole reasoning. Yep, totally, two years of work just for this 20-minute conversation. 100%, 100% worth every minute.
Justin McCord
I didn't …
Ronnie Richard
To this moment ...
Justin McCord
Worth every minute. Okay, and so last week, you pressed send and refreshed LinkedIn. And since then, you know, Take Me to the River has been like, just on my playlist in a … yeah. So peel apart the path to get to Next River, your new company ...
Clay Buck
Mmm. You, that's fantastic. I love that.
Justin McCord
… and the ebbs and flows of that path and what it means for you right now. Ronnie, I see that you appreciated that.
Ronnie Richard
Yes.
Clay Buck
So, okay, now I'm just going to reverse my whole statement of, of, you know, we fall into things. I never meant to be, that was never really the big dream is, I want to run my own company.
It had a long story. I had spent almost a decade in nonprofits. Step back even further than that; I spent 15 years at larger consulting firms and then went back into nonprofit. Can I kind of prove myself that I could still do it and right? Opportunities came up here in town, et cetera. I left a job and went, I'm just going to kind of, I need to bounce for a little while. And we were in a, for a very fortunate, privileged position, that we could. I just needed a breather. I had started the LLC just, you know, to have it, had picked up a client, you know, doing some work, and then lockdown happened, and we went, okay, so we better do this. I started a firm. The firm that I started was called Tactical Fundraising Solutions because what I wanted to do was the thing that I could never do, right? I could never afford or find high-level consulting and vendors that, as a smaller, mid-sized nonprofit, I couldn't afford it; I couldn't access it, all of that. And I wanted to be that consultant.
I learned very quickly, if you name your company Tactical, you get on some really interesting lists. Like, I can tell you now where to buy Kevlar and a whole bunch of things that I didn't even know that people sold that are military and tactical related. So we switched that really quickly, and I just went with my initials, TCB, for a while, and that was never intended to be, like, that was a placeholder. But also, now I've been doing this for five years, and this process really allowed me to refine and define the service that I do and commit.
I'm an individual giving guy. I love the individual donor. I also see that that's the biggest crisis that we're facing, especially low- and mid-range donors are giving elsewhere. And we're sitting around going, retention rates are low, right? You know, fewer donor households are giving. Okay, well let's, let's like, change that. So that was kind of the going through the process of really defining that service.
I was also at a really critical point in my life. I was gifted a poem by Alberto Rios, who is the poet laureate of the state of Arizona. And the poem's called “When Giving is All We Have.” And it begins with, “One river gives its journey to the next.” And it goes on into the states of giving and what states, what giving means, right? And in the middle of it, it says, You gave me yellow, and I gave you blue, together we are simple green … together we made something greater from the difference.” That, to me just, that poem encapsulates what generosity is about, right? And what that human ... If all of the world, if all the problems in the world went away, and we lived where everybody had a house, and everybody had food, and any, every animal was taken care of, and all diseases were cured, like, if all the problems went away, there would still be somebody who needs something, and there would still be somebody who wants to help that somebody. So, generosity is baked into who we are as humans. And I, this work of fundraising, to me, is about being that facilitator of generosity. That poem specifically just really, to me, lit up what the human experience of generosity is. So that's where the name came from.
Justin McCord
Are you sure it wasn't Talking Heads? Are you sure?
Clay Buck
You're getting a reference that I'm not. You're thinking of a reference. Yeah.
Justin McCord
“Take me to the river. Take me to the river”― Talking Heads.
Clay Buck
See, I went to The Commitments soundtrack.
Justin McCord
I see, that's the thing is that there's like, the Al Green version; there's one by Lorde. There's, yeah.
Clay Buck
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, the “Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack?
Justin McCord
Yeah, see, there's all sorts of places. What's been the scariest part about launching something new, and what's been the part that didn't even let me finish?
Clay Buck
I mean ... revenue, revenue. The realization that it's you, it's all you. If a client gets upset with me, there's nobody to go to. Like, I can't look at my, my president/CEO. I am that guy, right? I'm also like, I’ve also got to make sure the bottles are washed. Like, it's, it is the most challenging but rewarding thing I think anybody can do. The, the solopreneur route is it's a ride; it's a roller coaster. It's terrifying, but, just like a me-wall, see what I'm running, this is, this … I'm going to bring it full circle.
Justin McCord
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ronnie Richard
Go
Clay Buck
Right? Like having a me-wall, something like that, a jacket when you're in the midst of those, my gosh, what am I doing with my life? I've started this company, right? How is this going to work? Am I going to keep a roof over my head? And yet your me-wall in front of you, right? Keeps you grounded.
Ronnie Richard
How did you get the podcast started? I've just, you know, just for our listeners, I mean, you do a podcast called “Fundraising is Funny.” Your co-host is Lynne Wester. Tell us how that got started. What made you want to do that? How the two of you met and got started?
Clay Buck
Okay, no, go ahead.
So, Lynne and I knew each other professionally, and we had some interactions online, which then we moved into, you know, private conversations, which then, it turned into texts. And again, lockdown happened, and Lynne became one of those key touch points. And a conversation just started, and we kept each other laughing for like, nine months. And at one point, one of us said―I don't remember which one of us said―my God, we are so funny. We crack ourselves up. We should start a podcast.
And then, and here we are, right? Literally, most of the podcast episodes are conversations that Lynne and I have had that, you know, we're going back and forth, just laughing, because exactly the statement that I started with, like, when did we get the … ‘cause I, I, again, I came up in the blue suit and white shirt and the bank, you know, like, stuff. Like, when did we get the idea that professional had to be serious? Like, this is a joy business. Can we not laugh? Right?
Justin McCord
Yeah, it's the, I love it. I absolutely love it because there has been, since I have been in the agency business, I can't tell you the number of times that you are in a conference room or you're on now a video call and it just, it dawns on you, wait a second, like, are we in a mockumentary? Are we living right now? And are we characters?
And so yes, we are surrounded by opportunities to experience joy, and too often we don't take them.
Clay Buck
Well, and like when “The Office” was popular on TV, like, I watched a couple of episodes, and people were, do you watch the op “The Office”? I'm like, no, I live it. No.
Justin McCord
Live it. All the time.
Okay, so here's where I want to land. I do think that you tend to bring light by way of your energy into the spaces that you're in. Even when you get amped up, even whenever you're like, really, really warmed up. It's coming from a place of positive energy, not Chicken Little sky is falling. What is that source of hope and inspiration for you? What do you draw on that gives you a positive outlook and helps center you in the awesome work that you get to do every day?
Clay Buck
Hmm. It's a particularly tough question right now. And funny that you would ask that right now because it's, it's a question that I'm asking myself, and I think it's, I think it's people I'm fascinated by. And I think that, I think that comes from the actor stuff, right? So the … it's the being in front of people, right? And being in that kind of energy exchange.
But I'm also fascinated with people, and what we do, and why we do what we do, and getting to meet like, all different kinds of people. And I think if we're open to it, we have connections in many, many different ways, and some are good, and some are negative, and some are weird, and some are off-center, and some are odd, and we each kind of embody different personalities depending on the setting that we're in and who we're with.
So at … for me, I think it's, it's, it's people. Just that connection and celebrating the, the , and oddity, and weirdness, and messiness that are people. And then, and then secondly, but probably more importantly, my family and I have clear goals. We know, we know what we wanna do, certainly as we're looking at, you know, these next 10, 20 years, right?
So there's a goal, and there's a focus, and it's very centered in who we are as a family and what we want to be and do.
Justin McCord
You're the best, man.
Clay Buck
You are.
Justin McCord
Ronnie, you're the best. We both agree, and I, we both agree that you're, yeah, Ronnie, you're the best.
Clay Buck
There we go. That's it.
Ronnie Richard
I'll just stop it there, I agree.
Clay Buck
That's the right answer. That's the right answer.
Justin McCord
Clay, thanks for hanging out with us and sharing. We―Ronnie, just so you know, at some point, Clay and I are going to have some version of a podcast that covers things like the bear and suits. And like, we are going to do some version of ... I feel like it's VH1, but for fundraising, like, it's the weird, pop-culture type.
Clay Buck
Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Or, or, or Mystery Science Theater 3000? We could just watch things together and comment on it?
Justin McCord
Perfect.
Ronnie Richard
Sign me up.
Justin McCord
That's, yes, yes, Fundraising Science Theater 3000.
Clay Buck
Yeah, I like it. Yeah, right.
Justin McCord
Ronnie, can you make us some puppets?
Ronnie Richard
I'll get right on that.
Clay Buck
Sure. Sure, sure. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Ronnie, nice to meet you.
Justin McCord
Yes! Yes! Alright, we'll catch up with you later.
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.
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