This episode is sponsored by RoundTable Technology - the Nonprofit IT Partner. On January 26, they are offering a free webinar on the exact steps required to secure and protect your nonprofit IT in the New Year. RoundTable Technology is a managed IT and cybersecurity services organization focusing on the nonprofit sector, with over 200 nonprofit clients. Head over to NonprofitIT.com/best-ever to save your seat now.
What started with an Instagram post in early 2020 has grown to a collective of hundreds.
Since immigrating to Canada from Nigeria, Itse Hesse struggled with the lack of safe spaces for Black women to connect with and support each other. She officially founded the Black Girl Collective (BGC) in July 2020. What began on a whim as an Instagram account grew into a vibrant and inclusive community of Black women and non-binary people.
In this episode, I talk to Itse about why and how she founded BGC and what she has learned along the way about building a thriving community, online and off.
Connect with Itse:
About Julia Campbell, the host of the Nonprofit Nation podcast:
Named as a top thought leader by Forbes and BizTech Magazine, Julia Campbell (she/hers) is an author, coach, and speaker on a mission to make the digital world a better place.
She wrote her book, Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, as a roadmap for social change agents who want to build movements using engaging digital storytelling techniques. Her second book, How to Build and Mobilize a Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit, was published in 2020 as a call-to-arms for mission-driven organizations to use the power of social media to build movements.
Julia’s online courses, webinars, and keynote talks have helped hundreds of nonprofits make the shift to digital thinking and how to do effective marketing in the digital age.
Take Julia’s free nonprofit masterclass, 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media That Converts
Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts
This episode is sponsored by RoundTable Technology - the Nonprofit IT Partner. On January 26, they are offering a free webinar on the exact steps required to secure and protect your nonprofit IT in the New Year. RoundTable Technology is a managed IT and cybersecurity services organization focusing on the nonprofit sector, with over 200 nonprofit clients. Head over to NonprofitIT.com/best-ever to save your seat now.
What started with an Instagram post in early 2020 has grown to a collective of hundreds.
Since immigrating to Canada from Nigeria, Itse Hesse struggled with the lack of safe spaces for Black women to connect with and support each other. She officially founded the Black Girl Collective (BGC) in July 2020. What began on a whim as an Instagram account grew into a vibrant and inclusive community of Black women and non-binary people.
In this episode, I talk to Itse about why and how she founded BGC and what she has learned along the way about building a thriving community, online and off.
Connect with Itse:
About Julia Campbell, the host of the Nonprofit Nation podcast:
Named as a top thought leader by Forbes and BizTech Magazine, Julia Campbell (she/hers) is an author, coach, and speaker on a mission to make the digital world a better place.
She wrote her book, Storytelling in the Digital Age: A Guide for Nonprofits, as a roadmap for social change agents who want to build movements using engaging digital storytelling techniques. Her second book, How to Build and Mobilize a Social Media Community for Your Nonprofit, was published in 2020 as a call-to-arms for mission-driven organizations to use the power of social media to build movements.
Julia’s online courses, webinars, and keynote talks have helped hundreds of nonprofits make the shift to digital thinking and how to do effective marketing in the digital age.
Take Julia’s free nonprofit masterclass, 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media That Converts
Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts
Julia Campbell 0:00
The Cyber Security seemed like a terrifying topic we'll have no fear. This episode is sponsored by round table technology, the nonprofit it partner. And for the seventh year in a row, they're offering a free webinar to teach you and your staff exactly the steps to make your it more secure in the new year. Round Table technology is a managed it and cybersecurity services organization, focusing almost exclusively on the nonprofit sector with over 200 nonprofit clients. So make it your New Year's resolution to get your entire staff free cybersecurity awareness training, head on over to non profit it.com forward slash best dash ever to save your seat now. And here's to a wonderful 2023 Hello, and welcome to nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently Find Your Voice. Definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie, or an experienced professional, who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact than you're in the right place. Let's get started.
Julia Campbell 1:39
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to nonprofit Nation. I'm so excited to be here today. with you wherever you're listening. I'm your host Julia Campbell. And today I have a special guest. My guest is Itse Hesse the founder and executive director of Black Girl Collective. Black Girl Collective is a Vancouver based nonprofit that connects black women in British Columbia through mentorship and events aimed at fostering community. Nigerian-born and raised e Shea is an experienced curator. I love that with a BA in communications from Simon Fraser University. She's an avid believer of walking my talk and believes in uplifting everyone around her. Itse also believes that black women are unmatched and is passionate about building a community that is inclusive, impactful and long lasting for black women in Canada. So this nonprofit is building its black futures program that will provide black girls with mentorship and financial literacy. And she also recently founded the Towson copper Foundation, a nonprofit bring I'm sure I mispronounced that. But I'll let you talk about that a nonprofit bridging the socio economic gap for underprivileged girls and children in Nigeria. Oh my gosh, I'm over time to sleep. So really welcome Itse to the podcast. I'm excited to have you here.
Itse Hesse 3:12
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here and to finally make this happen.
Julia Campbell 3:17
Yes. So tell me about the journey to create the black girl collaborative. And then you can talk about your other nonprofit as well.
Itse Hesse 3:27
Yeah, for sure. So Black Girl Collective, I set a black girl collective in 2020 on the whim, I was just sitting on my couch, you know, just going through Instagram and just seeing all the communities that blog girls in the UK ad and bikers in the state and, and I noticed that there was just none here. Like that's something I've noticed before but just, you know, it was just right in my face and I just decided to subscribe to my Instagram page. And it grew up to be bigger than expected I just edited that's summer to just you know, kind of blog girls and she gets the blog girls in Vancouver. And that was also the pic of COVID with Black Lives Matter and we just recently at graduation, but there were you know, there were other people that graduated I could not work the stage. So I decided to create like just a small graduation package for them and and deliver it to them in their houses. And that was our blogger collective was started you know, they felt so good that even though they could not walk the stage is the add the you know, little celebration, we celebrated them on the page. And you know, we gave them like, you know, a little bit of gift and that was the beginning of blogger collector.
Julia Campbell 4:39
I love that. So started on Instagram. What was it like starting a nonprofit in the middle of the pandemic that started the pandemic?
Itse Hesse 4:47
Honestly, it was it was a little bit scary, but I just went for it. I did not think about oh, was this scary? Was it the pandemic I just wanted to win in the community and what we needed in Vancouver was beyond The pandemic, this was something that, you know, we have been struggling with for a long time. I've been in Vancouver for eight years now. And you know, I went to university here, I came as an international student. And one thing I noticed were, there was just not a lot of black people here, there was no black community, me coming from Nigeria, I grew up in a small town called where we were, it was such a community, I could literally go out and somebody will call my mom and say, Hey, I saw issues outside. And coming here, this Trish was so different, where it's everybody was such an individual, there was no community. You know, I finished university and I tried to get a mentor just I wanted like a black woman that understood my experience as an international student that could just help me navigate the world, the work can place, but it was just so difficult. I literally could not find anybody. And yeah, that was just why I studied. And we did that people request them for some event, we held our first event that August, which was pretty interesting. But it was sold out. Because we did it outdoors, we made sure to listen to all the COVID protocol. And just little by little we incorporated and yeah, we are now two years in.
Julia Campbell 6:12
So when I was doing some research on the black robe collective, I saw that you have clearly stated three pillars. And I think, actually that many nonprofits need to do this, because through the three pillars, it seems that you really have a very clear sense of what the organization stands for. And I do want to start off with events. So the pillar of black joy involves in person events. And I know that you have a history of an event, as an event planner, and this nonprofit has put on over 10 sold out events throughout the pandemic. So how did you navigate that? And sort of what advice do you have for others that are trying to hold successful events but maybe struggling?
Itse Hesse 7:00
I will say First things first, I am an avid planner, I love to plan right now. I have all my events till next year, December scheduled that is
Julia Campbell 7:11
RCW. Tip one, I'm writing it down.
Itse Hesse 7:15
Yeah, planning, I always plan my events aid. And what I do is I always write an event proposal, what is the purpose of this event? What are the risks associated with this events? You know, what does my team have to do? Do we have? Do we need an external party just that proposal itself gives you all the details that you need, you know, how much you're going to apply for grant? If you need external partners? What location are you looking at, I mean, if people you know, with the COVID protocol, so that really just gives me a clearer sense of what I'm going to do for that event. So after the event proposal, that's when the big word comes in. So the event proposal could be maybe three to five pages, I like mine, very comprehensive, because it's just for me and the team out of that I make my sponsorship deck. So out of the then propose that I create in a sponsorship deck that it's not too much, because sponsors don't want to read a lot of notes. They just want to know what the point is. So just make it very short and concise. But you know, I also make it very colorful, because color attracts people and I like color personally. So I always make things very colorful, just make sure people want to read each you know, I always attach pictures from previous event. But before we add our event, I used to go on Pinterest and look what kind of events I'm going for, you know, what's the theme of the event? What am I looking for, then I take pictures of that and add it to my proposal so they could see exactly what I'm going for. So that's how we do it then starts the marketing. So when we do remarketing is when we obviously we post on social media and everything we actually get into community and ask our community members to share it for us on their social medias. And we'll always tell them, we're always happy to do the same. Because you know, you have to be part of the community and be involved in a community. So we always ask our community members, please help us share this event. But the big thing is everything that goes on behind the scenes. So talking to the sponsors, which you also have to be very clear with what you want with sponsors. I know as nonprofits we can be so shy to ask for money because we're like, oh my God, I don't want to x $10,000 might be too much you know, but the thing is we don't make money we're not a for profit business. So that's something somebody told me. She said you're a non for profits, you literally survive have the sponsorship that you get and businesses understand that they understand that you're not making money so they are willing to give you just have to know exactly what you want. And don't leave it open ended. Don't ask the company or what can you offer me What can you know? Do your research on the company know exactly what they do know exactly what you want from them. for approaching them, and I send out if I'm looking at venues, I know exactly what kind of venues I want for a particular event, I look at five different types of venues, and I send email to each one of them. And one of them always replays. So you cannot just send to one and say, okay, that's okay. No, you have to send to multiple if you need decorators sent to 10 decorators, if you need sponsors for liquor send to 10, spontaneously co businesses around you, because the more you send, the more probability is that you will get somebody to reply you back. So that's where the planning goes. So what I do is, I like to reach out to companies three to six months in advance, so they can put me in their next fiscal year, because if you reach out to them, a month or two months before your event, the probability they will tell you Oh, we've exhausted our budget for this month, or for this quarter is really high, you want to avoid that I want to put them in their radar. And companies also love when they see your planning. Also, they love nonprofits that plan. And as nonprofits, sometimes we forget that it's also as to be beneficial for both parties, which is something I make clear to anybody that I work with, I want this to be beneficial for both of us, you know what's important for you tell me exactly what you want. I always am very transparent, because I don't want them to be any, you know, misunderstanding along the way, I am always transparent. And then for like my oldest for volunteers, I dip into my community or as this qualities who can take photograph for me who can do video refer for me, you know, I always tap the resources in my community. And you know, sightseeing, we add a lot of people do things for us for free, because a lot of people do want to be involved in your nonprofit, they do want to give back to your nonprofit. So when somebody does an event for me for free, when I get a grant or a donation, how we can afford to pay those people, we go back to them, because that's how you build relationship. And that's how you get someone to stay and say, Okay, I don't have enough budget for this event, will you be able to Yes, they'll be willing to do that. Because they've seen that when you do add the capacity, you've come back to them, and you know, you've paid them. So all those little things matter. And when you add like an event, it matters a lot. I also tried to like make my partners feel that I'm supporting them. Even if we don't have an event and I say my partners, they're doing something, I'll send it, promote it to my audience. But what I'm also going to say is I'm also very, very particular with companies that I partner with, I do my research strongly, I don't just partner with anybody that approached me, I have to do my research. What is the news saying about you? What's the process surrounding you, because I know the community that I'm trying to create. And I don't want to be another token black organization that you're just doing the work here, I like organizations that want to get involved. They just don't want to donate, but they want to, you know, they want their employees to volunteer, and be part of the progress that we're making. So that's what I do for my organization, you have to find what works for your organization, what values align best with your organization, and what company is aligned with those organization. And also, depending on the type of events you're doing, when we do our blog or brunch, I approached like you know, liquor companies approach the Vancouver art gallery, because that's what we wanted, we need a liquor we needed food, that kind of companies. But if we're doing game nights, I approach like the local game stores. So just depending on the game, the event your own stain, you have to cater it to the sponsors, because as a sponsor, if I had a liquor business, I have no business sponsoring anything that has absolutely nothing to do with liquor. It just better that way to your events that way.
Julia Campbell 13:50
Do you do any virtual events or hybrid events, everything's in person.
Itse Hesse 13:54
We did a couple of virtual events during COVID. We did like filling SF workshop with series, which was just helping our community get there in their mental mind and everything to get their their mental and emotional states together. We don't do a lot of virtual events because we're trying to create that community. And that's what's missing year for us. In Vancouver. It's the in person community aspect that's missing. So that's what we're trying to rectify what we do do, our financial literacy program is both in person and online.
Julia Campbell 14:28
Wow. And I know that the BGC focuses on giving talks and offering workshops to younger black girls to teach them their future potentials on your website, you know, and that possibilities are limitless. So I know you also run a free mentorship program that pairs black women, mentees with mentors who can give them guidance, share their expertise and resources to help them thrive. Is this in Vancouver?
Itse Hesse 14:57
So we obviously we just set it so we're setting We'd Vancouver, but the ultimate goal is for BGC. To be, you know what? Well, what we, what we do is we do asset mentors. So our mentorship program is professional and personal mentorship, so anybody can be a part of our professional mentors, because we cannot do it. No, we need allies to help us get to the next stage. And most of the time that people are in the IR or our allies, there are no black people, there are no black women or black men. So we need allies that are willing to help us get to the next stage. So that's why our professional mentorship is set up like that. And that can be virtual that can be so anybody anywhere can sign up to be a professional mentor. In that sense. Yeah, they get paired with a black woman and a professional mentor ship, they meet up with our mentees compositely once a month for at least an hour, which is not too much, in my opinion. So that's a professional mentorship than our personal mentorship that specifically for black women to black women. Because when someone needs a personal mentor, they are struggling with different things than a professional mentorship. And as a black woman, you need somebody that really understands your experience when it comes to personal mentorship. So that's why we pay black women with only black women for personal mentorship.
Julia Campbell 16:20
So what makes us successful mentorship, both what makes us successful professional mentorship, like if we want if we wanted to be a mentor or a mentee, and then what would make sort of a successful pairing for a personal mentorship.
Itse Hesse 16:36
So it's a process we do have a signup process where we ask a couple of questions on our website. So after you sign up for the mentorship, we'll have to do like a background check. Because that's just required in Canada, you have to do criminal background check for anybody that does want to be a mentor, professional or personnel through a program. So we did the background check. And based on the questions that you answer as a mentor and the mentee, we use that to pair you with the mentee and mentor that most aligns will be paired together. And we do add the opportunity after two weeks. If you feel like after two months of the mentorship and you feel like this is not going well. With me I want to change my mentor or the mentor says, you know, I don't really I'm not doing well. With this mentee, we can always switch a mentor or the mentee based on availability. At that time. If there's no availability, but you don't want to continue that program that mentorship partnership, that's totally fine. You just have to wait till a mentor becomes available.
Julia Campbell 17:39
What I think is so great about both of the pillars about like the in person events, the mentorship program is that unlike I think a lot of nonprofits, this came from the community. This came from, you know, your personal experience and things that other women had said to you that were so needed. So what advice do you have for people that want to start a nonprofit, but they're not sure if there's going to be community buy in? How could you? What advice would you give to people to really go out and explore and see if, if there is a community need for this particular nonprofit?
Itse Hesse 18:15
I'll say go out to events go out to like community events and talk to people in the community that you want to start something what I did is I started my nonprofit because I noticed that this was my personal experience. My friends around me, I said the same thing. And also bloggers who I knew who grew up here, they all said the same thing. They were all had similar experiences. And what we continue to do is we continue to ask our community via our Instagram story, we have an open email policy, we have an open DM policy where you can always reach out to us what type of events you want to see what type of programs you want to see. That's the best way to make sure that the community are involved, because you're doing something that they actually want to see and they actually want to be part of but if you just had, you know, without doing your research is going to be added because there's not a need that you're feeling right now. You so you need to see what is the need in my community, what's missing in this community? Where am I? What is missing? What can I do to fill in that gap? And once you do that, you'll see you'll be surprised at how much people want to be involved. Ahmed, you know, people would just reach out to you, I want to be part of your community, how can I up I want to volunteer. That's the best way to go about it. Listen to your community, always.
Julia Campbell 19:31
I love that. I think that's what's lacking in a lot of the sector is that connection to the community, or even just understanding what the needs are because even if you did respond to the needs of the community 1020 years ago, the look and feel of the needs might be very different. The look and feel the parties might be different now as we know when the world turned upside down a couple of years ago.
Itse Hesse 20:01
Yeah, because even the needs of my community when I started two years ago, I've shifted right now, you'll see that shift in our events, which we're going to be trained in the following year, because our community as todos we want to be more involved, like, our events are exclusively for black women. Last year, we had our first community engagement events where we invited black men to come shine or joy. And a couple of our community member reached out to us and say, you know, I have a white spouse I have a spouse is not black, I would like them to come and engage in this safe space and see me in my, you know, in my safe space with my community, so we're listening to our community. And in the next year, we're going to be having more community engagement event where not just a black men can attend, but also allies can attend, because our community has told us that this is where we are now this is what we want. And we you just have to listen to your community.
Julia Campbell 20:54
And that brings me to the third pillar of the BGC. And that is community engagement, which is such an important pillar. And on the website, it says that includes providing resources, volunteering, and facilitating book clubs, centering black women authors, and I recently read that you've doubled the size of your book club, can you tell us how you did that? I just know people are always looking for more engagement, more members more participation. So maybe you can give us some tips on how to do that.
Itse Hesse 21:28
Look, I was actually studying by our awesome book of facilitator praise she is currently studying abroad in Spain. She's someone that is very passionate about reading my team, what what I do in my team is I make sure like everybody is passionate about their role and wants you to you know, do something that you enjoy doing also. So that's why so impressed started the book club, it was just like something she just said, I'm just gonna do a book club for the black girls in Vancouver because she noticed that every time she wants to like read, she reads a lot of black autos book, but there was just no space to talk about the book club with people that understood experience, because when she talked about it with different people that are not from our black community, they don't really understand what she's saying. So that was out the book club started. And what we do is we promote every on social media, when we usually post a book of the month, every month. So that's what we do. Then, after the book club at their meeting, we post a short snippet, it could be 30 seconds, it could be one minute. But we just put a snippet where somebody is talking about the book, it could be the book club facilitator, it could be another member of the book club. But this is not a video, this is an audio clip with permission from the book club. So you don't know who's stuck, and you just get to see them. And when we also let the members have control of the book club, right, so they decide what books they want to read, everybody throws out the book. And then the book club facilitator sends out a poll. And that way they feel a sense of ownership, I will say you just need to let the members be part of it. That's the biggest thing you need to let the members be part of it, I need to show that the members are part of it. People want to see before they join before they take that step. And also I will say most of the things we do from word of mouth, which there's no better advertisement than word of mouth. So book club grew, because every time we promote our book club on social media, if it's this, especially the snippet of people talking, somebody always asks, oh, can I join this book club? Or can I join the book club, I can join the book club. And although we focus mostly on black autos, we also like during indigenous people month in which is February here, our book club said they wanted to read a book by an indigenous auto. And that was okay, we let them have ownership because, you know, we're in a safe space, if they want to read a book by any auto, we'll let them do that. But we just sent her books from our community.
Julia Campbell 24:01
That's fantastic. And getting that buy in and getting that investment. Because you're not just telling them what to read or giving them a series of steps. It's really they're involved in the process of choosing the author's which I think is just so important. And I know that you started another nonprofit, a foundation. Can you tell us about this nonprofit? And what are the you know, sort of how it came about why you decided to found another organization.
Itse Hesse 24:31
So I'm Nigerian, I was born and raised in Nigeria, and just been privileged enough to be able to go to school, and also come to school in Canada and just finished school just, you know, being able to live my life on my terms. That's something that a lot of women and girls in Nigeria are not able to do. And now that I'm in this position, to do something, I want to do something and I feel like I have to do something which is why I I started that that is actually named after my mum, mum and dad, my mom is so sad and my dad is combat. And then that after them because growing up, our house was never empty. I mean that in the sense that my mom and dad always had somebody living with us that they were open, which like I saw my dad been so generous, my dad will go to like university and bring some people back home. It's and these are people who did not know. But it was always taking care of them. And that, for me always just inspired me how amazing they are just wanting to do more. And they still continue to do till this day. So yeah, that's basically why I started it. And that's why we basically focus on helping girls in rural areas because Nigeria, girls are not a priority in Nigeria. So my organization focuses on helping girls in that area, go to school, and also empowering women with businesses too. So that's what's our focus is just trying to help the next generation because when you educate a woman, you educate a nation, which is actually quite true.
Julia Campbell 26:10
And I was served in the US Peace Corps. I was in Senegal, for two and a half years. And we worked with a lot of organizations working to uplift the voices of girls and getting girls into education. So, so important that no, I love that I think that's so great. And I see that both of your nonprofits are really active on Instagram and LinkedIn. So actually, I want to shift it, I want to ask while you're here, because it sounds like you just are like killing it on social media. What tips do you have for someone starting out? Where do you think they should go? Should they start on Instagram start on LinkedIn?
Itse Hesse 26:50
I would say that's an Instagram. Instagram is where your community are. LinkedIn is where your partners or sponsors are. So you want to build your community to be able to show your sponsors or your partners who your community are, who you represent, and what you can do what you're capable. Because it's sad to say, but sponsors need ROI, they need a return on investment. So they need to know okay, how is this gonna help me if I, you know, sponsor your community? And what are your numbers, they do ask for your website traffic, they will ask for your social media, what amount follow us, you know, I mean, people are engaged in your event. So you definitely want to build your community. Because when you build your community, you don't even have to go out sometimes the sponsors will be the ones coming to you and say, We want to be involved, how can we help you so definitely, always build your community.
Julia Campbell 27:41
And if you want to follow black girl collective, they're on Instagram at Black Girl collective with an underscore, and black girl collective.com. So I think that's really exciting. So any more tips on building a community using digital tools? So do you have an email list? Is that something that you're using? Or are you mostly relying on social media and your sponsors?
Itse Hesse 28:08
We actually have an email list. And I will say with an email list, you have to be consistent. Like, I send out my newsletter every first of the month, unfailingly, even if I don't add anything, if we did not have an event last month, just send out a newsletter because your concepts are going to come to expect that. And when we send out our emails, we always get action stems from our email, right? Because most of the time people wait for your monthly newsletter to say, Okay, what event is coming up? You know, what programs what's new? Can I see the videos and pictures from the previous events. So always, always, you need an email list. Because you also create you raise more funds from your email list also to a lot when you send out like your end of year given is come in, you need your email list for interviewer giving.
Julia Campbell 28:57
Absolutely, I totally agree with that.
Itse Hesse 29:00
Yeah, we actually are on all social media platform, because you just have to be on all social media platform, or we just also have to see which one works best for you. For us. Instagram works best for us, because that's where we're coming into our and then LinkedIn also works best for us. But for some other nonprofits, Twitter could work best for you. Facebook could work best for you. You know, tick tock would work best for you just have to know your community and know your audience and just study over time.
Julia Campbell 29:29
I think that point about finding the proper channel for your nonprofit is so important. This is a question I get all the time. Where should I build my community? How can I build my community? Should I be on Instagram? Should I be on Tik Tok? Should I be using email? Should I be using my website? Should it be live streaming? And I say the same thing. You might be best suited for something else you might be best suited for Twitter. You might be best suited for you too. But it sounds like What You Did you che is you found what you liked, which was Instagram. And you really went to where your community was. And then what I also love about that is, it was almost testing out the waters, seeing if this was going to stick seeing if it was going to grow, seeing what was going to come of it. And your you know, the people that really wanted to belong and participate responded to it in a organic way.
Itse Hesse 30:27
Yes, like our community groups. So organically, we're so surprised that our first we were able to grow. But we all like you know, when I first started, when I created an Instagram page, I just created a small nodes. And I follow like a couple of black women in Vancouver and I just send them welcome to our community recommend some black woman you want us to follow it, you know, this is a safe space for black women. And yeah, I don't think anybody can really tell you what channel will work best for your nonprofit, that is something you are going to have to figure out yourself by doing some experiments, which is what we did like last year, we tried to do Twitter, it just did not work for us, because our audience were just not responding to us on Twitter. We tried Facebook, it's just it did not work for us. So what we used to do we use, we still are on Facebook, we use Facebook to share our events to like, you know, Facebook groups that some blood Facebook groups in Vancouver, that's what we use our Facebook mostly for, because it just doesn't work for our audience right now. We tried to talk it also doesn't really working for us. So we tweaked. Instagram seemed to be the only one that was working consistently for us. So we stick to that and LinkedIn to was working consistently, because then we were able to like reach partners. And we're able to responses, which I say LinkedIn are mostly for your sponsors and your partners, and maybe somebody that want to work with you. In your organization. That's mostly where LinkedIn is for an email, you also have to segment your email list that is very, very, very important. So we do have a newsletter sign up. So that's on our website, you go and just sign up. But we also have an event. So everybody that has attended our events are in a different segments, right. So they are tagged on the events, because if somebody has attended your event, but they've not signed up for your newsletter, you don't want to send them your monthly newsletter. But you do want to send them your newsletter that you're going to send out if you have an event coming up. So we do send out a monthly newsletter on the first of every month. But when we add an event, we also send out a new event newsletter. So let's say we have an event that want to start announcing on October 15. When I send out that newsletter on October 15, I'm only going to send it to people that have attended my events in the past, because those are people that have shown interest in my event. So that's very targeted. But when I send on my newsletter, November 1, again, I'm going to send it to everybody but the event is also going to be in that newsletter. But it's not going to be the focus of the newsletter, it's just going to be a recap of the past month and the upcoming month. So that way they get to see our new event is coming. But it's not a nuisance to them that it got a newsletter on the 15th that they did not ask for them. They got another one on the first day that you know asked for. But there are some people that have signed up for the events newsletter and the monthly newsletter.
Julia Campbell 33:30
You notice that your open rates? Yeah, they were targeted, I would bet.
Itse Hesse 33:36
Yes, exactly. So we actually get anybody even unsubscribe from our email list like almost barely anybody unsubscribe because we only send it to like targeted, obviously, even though they they might not have signed up for it. You also want to send out your monthly newsletter to your donors, especially the ones that are doing reoccurring donations because they do care about where their money is going. So always make sure to add your donors to your monthly newsletter.
Julia Campbell 34:06
These are such great tips. My last question before I ask you where people can find you learn more about you and sign up is what is your maybe your biggest piece of advice or learning for someone listening to this and they are so inspired. They have this passion project. They have this thing they want to do and they're just not sure if it will work. How can they get started?
Itse Hesse 34:32
I'll say just start. Just start. They fear you have you ever right now because you've noticed that it that's literally once you start you have no other option than to keep going and you need to make that first step. Once you make the first step believe you will not be able to stop once you see okay, I've made this step it has led to this it has led to this. You just not be able to stop start and there trust me. There are people that need Once you want to start there are people waiting for you to start that organization. So just started, take that first step and just that.
Julia Campbell 35:08
There are people waiting for you. I absolutely love that. Thank you so much Itse, where can people learn about you? I know blackgirlcollective.com Where else can people connect online?
Itse Hesse 35:19
So you can connect with me on my LinkedIn. Just My name is Itse Hesse. I have a website, which is itsehesse.com. So yeah, you got the itsehesse.com You can find me, actually, if you Google it. So you find me on Instagram on Twitter. Yeah, that's basically my name everywhere.
Julia Campbell 35:37
Okay, I'm going to put all of those links into the show notes. So if you just click on the show notes in your podcast app, you'll be able to find all of these links and learn more and participate. So thank you so much II shave for being here. I really appreciate it. I'm glad we could make this workout.
Itse Hesse 35:54
Thank you so so much for having me. I really enjoyed talking about you know, just nonprofits in general. Thank you.
Julia Campbell 36:07
Well, hey there, I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show, and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast app, and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell seven, seven. Keep changing the world you nonprofit unicorn