Gift-giving makes you a better fundraiser? YUP. And I'll tell you why! We know that giving more than you receive is a satisfying way to live. And Patrick Kucharson helps people on both sides do just that - be better givers AND receivers, through his free email newsletter, Better Gift Coach.
Patrick runs one of my favorite weekly email newsletters Better Gift Coach, a weekly 1-minute shortcut to always having great gift ideas well in advance. Each week, he curates and shares a story of the best gift someone has ever received, and he analyzes the story to provide guidance on how others can replicate it.
I wanted to have Patrick on the podcast because I know that his work can help fundraisers, marketers, mission-driven individuals, and anyone trying to make an impact and affect people.
In this episode, we discuss:
Listen to the end, because Patrick drops some major thoughts on he continues to write his newsletter week after week and how he manages to sustain his creativity.
Know more about Better Gift Coach:
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
Gift-giving makes you a better fundraiser? YUP. And I'll tell you why! We know that giving more than you receive is a satisfying way to live. And Patrick Kucharson helps people on both sides do just that - be better givers AND receivers, through his free email newsletter, Better Gift Coach.
Patrick runs one of my favorite weekly email newsletters Better Gift Coach, a weekly 1-minute shortcut to always having great gift ideas well in advance. Each week, he curates and shares a story of the best gift someone has ever received, and he analyzes the story to provide guidance on how others can replicate it.
I wanted to have Patrick on the podcast because I know that his work can help fundraisers, marketers, mission-driven individuals, and anyone trying to make an impact and affect people.
In this episode, we discuss:
Listen to the end, because Patrick drops some major thoughts on he continues to write his newsletter week after week and how he manages to sustain his creativity.
Know more about Better Gift Coach:
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
It's March Madness people. No, not the sportsball March Madness. It's my 30th anniversary of being in business and I have a goal of hitting 100,000 podcast downloads. Here are three ways to help, One, download one or more of your favorite episodes, including setting your fundraising mindset with Rhea Wong, ethical storytelling with Caliopy Glaros, What the best fundraisers do differently with Sabrina Walker Hernandez, and my special series on What's Next in Social Media for Nonprofits, just to name a few number to share an episode with a friend or a colleague, you can go to pod.link/nonprofitnation to find descriptions and links to all the episodes. Number three, take a screenshot of the podcast and share with your network. Be sure to tag me so I can find it and share it out. Also, I truly appreciate all of you, your time, your attention and your passion to make the world a better place. Now, let's get to today's episode. 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, then you're in the right place. Let's get started.
Julia Campbell 1:58
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to nonprofit nation. Thrilled to be here with you today. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And today we're going to talk about something that you might not think is truly meaningful to the sector, we're going to talk about gift giving, and why gift giving can help make you a better fundraiser and I'm gonna sort of draw the lines between that now gift giving is one of the five love languages not my love language. My love language is words of affirmation and quality time. But it is hugely impactful when you do it correctly. So good thing we have my brand new friend Patrick Kucharson he runs better gift coach, which is a free newsletter. That's a weekly one minute shortcut to always having the greatest gift ideas well in advance. And each week he enjoys sharing a story of the best gift someone has ever received, analyzing it and providing guidance on how others can replicate it. And his LinkedIn profile says that he is a big gift giver by nature. Now coaching others how to make it easier to give better gifts. So I really wanted to have Patrick on the podcast because I know that his work can help fundraisers and anyone trying to make an impact and affect people. So Patrick, I'm really happy to have you here.
Patrick Kucharson 3:25
Julia Campbell, on nonprofit unicorn extraordinaire. Thanks for having me.
Julia Campbell 3:32
I was saying before we hit record that I was a huge fan of yours. And then you were saying you're a new fan of mine. So we're jet Z words of affirmation. Do you know my love language is the best gift you can give me. So I first heard of your newsletter, from the New York Times article, how to navigate gifting season while keeping your cool. And I was intrigued. And then I'm I subscribed to real simple. And I saw rave reviews about this newsletter in real simple. And what I love is how you set up your newsletter like every week you share a personal story and my audience knows and everyone should know that you know how passionate I am about storytelling. But you share a story about a great gift that someone has either given or received. But you also contextualize it and you give people ideas on how to adapt it to the people in your life. So can you tell us what is a gift consultant? Like what is a gift giving coach and like how do you help your clients?
Patrick Kucharson 4:37
Great question. I do see a distinction between a gift consultant and a gift coach. I don't see many people branding themselves as a gift coach, but that was important to me when I got in the space that you know I position myself as someone who's empowering others to be better gift givers, whereas a consultant might have the connotation of you hire me and I'll find you a gift.
Julia Campbell 4:58
That's exactly right. I sometimes I think that that's an important distinction between coach and consultant.
Patrick Kucharson 5:04
And they're both important services. I'm not, I'm not hating on the other. It's just that's not the way that I'm playing it.
Julia Campbell 5:09
How did you get into this work? And you did say that you have some nonprofit background, and I wonder if it impacted your decision to become a gift consultant or gift coach?
Patrick Kucharson 5:19
In a way it did. Yeah. So the last seven years I spent at a local nonprofit to Cleveland, Ohio called jumpstart Inc. So jumpstart, we always struggle for the words to explain it, or at least I have, I would call it a nonprofit venture capital organization. So we support entrepreneurs and founders. So I spent the last seven years and prior to this last seven years, I was an entrepreneur. So I was an entrepreneur then took a break spent seven years at jumpstart, as a business advisor or a business coach to entrepreneurs. And I learned a ton in those seven years, and also learn how to navigate the waters of working within a nonprofit and delivering a service within a nonprofit and always trying to do more with less. And always being mindful of funders, etc. But after that, I was ready to early in 2022, I was ready to be an entrepreneur again. And I was exploring some of the pain points or at least problems that I wanted to solve. And I really zeroed in on the pain points around gift giving. Because me myself as I branded myself as a b minus gift giver by nature, I know what it feels like to give a great gift and I have for a while but I don't always execute on that. So I wanted to find shortcuts for my own personal use. And that's what I was able to do. So once I found that shortcut, which we can get into, you know, I realized that I had a lot more to share with others. And that's how I started the newsletter.
Julia Campbell 6:43
Wow. So it's just it's so interesting. So you found this pain point was the something that people were coming to you and saying that they struggled with.
Patrick Kucharson 6:54
So like any good entrepreneur should, I went out and did customer discovery. So I talked to friends, family, and then people outside of my network, anyone who would really talk to me around the pain points of gift giving. So asking them questions like, hey, what kind of, you know, how would you grade yourself as a gift giver? So that's where that b minus gift giver of great I give myself comes from? And that's okay. That doesn't mean you can't give a plus gifts. There's just shortcuts. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I zeroed in on, hey, a lot of the pain points around gift giving can be solved with some simple shortcuts. And one of the shortcuts that really spoke to me as a storyteller is just going out and finding the stories of the greatest gifts people have ever received or given, and then copying them for my own use, right. And then I found myself with this library of gift ideas. And it just kind of spoke to me to to share it with the world through this free newsletter.
Julia Campbell 7:53
So you use storytelling as sort of the focal point for your newsletter. I always encourage nonprofits to do the same. So how did you come across this idea to use storytelling to encourage better gift giving?
Patrick Kucharson 8:09
Sure, so I'll paint the picture. You know, I'm running through the Cuyahoga National Park, and Cuyahoga Valley National Park, where is that? It's just outside of Cleveland. It's in between Cleveland Akron. So it's the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I'm running through there on a day where I just happened to pick up a new audio book, and it was called Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, great book. And part of their their model, which they branded as success. The S at the end of the success was was stories. And what they say is stories drive action through simulation. So that's what we're doing. And then inspiration, the motivation to do so. And the story that they talk about a lot is Jared from Subway and how that story just stuck with everyone. But it also, it was so relatable, whereas like, Hmm, you know, well is that guy who was completely ordinary guy from Indiana could do it, I can do it, and somebody can help me do it.
Julia Campbell 9:02
I love that I really, really liked that book. And they wrote another book called The Power of moments, which I think you would love because it's a lot about creating memorable experiences. And there's a lot about gift giving, but also giving back or just paying attention to what really resonates with people. So what makes a great gift story, like you collect these stories, so that you can kind of hack them and adapt them and use them to get inspiration for your own gift giving. So what do you look for in a great gift story?
Patrick Kucharson 9:38
Yeah, I think it has to have two parts. One, it should be easily remembered. So I want someone six months down the road, 18 months down the road, five years down the road to be in a situation where they need to give someone a gift. And they're like, hey, what about that one story that I read that one time in a better gift coach newsletter. So that's the first piece that I tried to accomplish. And then the second one is I want it to be inspiring. I want people to read the newsletter and be like, just like the jarred story from Subway like, Whoa, I could totally do is I'm going to do this, like when when can I do this? When's the next gift I'm giving? And how can I adapt this story to my own needs? It sort of turns that light bulb on for you? Yes, that's what I'm hoping I'm doing for my readers. It certainly has worked for me.
Julia Campbell 10:19
I love that. How do you find your stories?
Patrick Kucharson 10:23
Yeah. So it started off with friends and family. And I got a pretty sizable library just from that. But then
Julia Campbell 10:30
what happened was family. So did you do interviews?
Patrick Kucharson 10:32
I did. Yeah. And just at certain point, like, I just kind of got obsessed and just started asking everyone in passing like, a story of a great gift you've received or given. And, and most people do have a story, or they at least know of a story, right? So I'm constantly writing those down. And, and then what happened is, once my subscriber base for the newsletter got big enough, they started submitting their own stories. So it's become this wonderful community of people who, who are either really good gift givers to begin with, and it's their hobby to do so. So you would say that their their love language is probably gift giving. Or it's people like me or you who aren't the best gift givers by nature, but you know, really know and enjoy the feeling of having a great gift well in advance and being excited to give it to someone.
Julia Campbell 11:17
Exactly. So your newsletter on GivingTuesday really caught my eye because GivingTuesday is obviously a huge celebration in the nonprofit sector. A lot of newsletters are sent, a lot of people are asking for gifts, a lot of attention is trying to be grabbed on GivingTuesday. But your newsletter, first of all, I loved the subject line, it was 10x my gift, how which, you know, the question was immediately piqued my curiosity. But then you shared a story from Habitat for Humanity, about Helen. And I'll post that link in the show notes. And this is the kind of story that I am constantly trying to encourage my fundraising listeners, my marketing listeners to share. So what caught your eye about this particular story? And how did it sort of come into your orbit? And why did you decide to share it?
Patrick Kucharson 12:12
So for the Giving Tuesday edition, I specifically went out and I knew that I wanted to find a story of someone being impacted by a charitable organization or it's hard to find. It shouldn't be. But it is, it was a challenge. But that one just really spoke to me. And it was just it was it was short, simple, sweet, but really impactful. And, you know, it just talked about how, you know, the cool thing I like about Habitat for Humanity in particular is, a lot of times the work that they do is supported by a lot of individual donors who aren't, you know, the larger institutions donating 10s of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of dollars towards their cause. It's people like you and I who who may give $50 every year and hopefully we catch that Giving Tuesday match where you know, we could we can sometimes two or 3x, or at times 10x, or donations.
Julia Campbell 13:04
Do you often recommend that kind of gift? Or is it just around sort of year end holiday giving Tuesday time?
Patrick Kucharson 13:12
There's good study, that giving someone how to I always struggled for the words to say that. So giving someone a gift as a donation to a charitable organization in their name. There's an addition that I did about that, you know, it's there's, there's fine line, you need to walk? If my I guess a quick rule would be if it's close family or friends, it's probably okay, because you know them well enough. But if it's someone who isn't that close in your orbit, you should proceed with caution.
Julia Campbell 13:43
So it's like the human fund with George Costanza, I don't know if you know that reference.
Patrick Kucharson 13:49
I think I do remember that.
Julia Campbell 13:51
He didn't want to give out Christmas gifts one year, and he just gave everyone a donation to the human fund. Yes. But that's a great point. So I saw that graphic, it was sort of the red light, yellow light green light, when to be really careful, giving a gift on behalf of an organization or giving a gift to an organization on behalf of a person, you have to know them really well. And you have to know that it's going to be meaningful to them. And it shouldn't be about you unnecessarily what's meaningful to you. So that gets me into the pillar of everything that you do that I love. You say you talk about it a lot in your newsletters, but giving involves two sides, right, a giver and a receiver. And this is so much like fundraising. It's about what makes both sides feel good, feel happy. And you know how we can create a great experience for both sides. So there's definitely lessons for fundraisers in there. Do you want to talk more about how we can create this great experience?
Patrick Kucharson 14:57
Sure. And this is my personal philosophy. See that I'm constantly iterating on. But where I've kind of arrived, if you're talking about the two parties, the giver and the receiver of a gift and how to make that an incredible experience for both should really start with some foundational goals. And for the gift giver, giving a gift to the gift recipient, the gift recipient is most likely going to be the happiest if they receive a gift that has left lasting value. And that can be practical value or emotional value. So practical value, you know, maybe 10 years ago, my wife bought me a nice Gustaf kitchen knife, still use it, I plan to be using it in my 80s. Right, that is a great gift. And it continues to have practical value and should continue to have practical value. emotional value might be that one time when you were in college and your buddy showed up at your dorm room with a pizza, but you still remember it so warmly and fondly. And it's that that emotional memory that's attached to the gift that provides that lasting value. And then for the givers. Let's talk about that. So I did an email addition right before Christmas. And I believe I called it the gift recipient masterclass. Because this is a two way street folks, you know, if you are a gift recipient, there are things that you can do to make sure that that gift giver is have getting the most out of the experience. And that's really just making sure in my opinion that they're able to witness the lasting value that a gift may have on you. So I tell a quick story in a past newsletter about an aunt gifting her her nice a green sweater, okay, simple green sweater almost transactional at face value that story. But then the nice would continue over the years to send photos every time she was wearing that green sweater, and how that made that aunt who lived out of town feel and so much more connected to the knees. So that's an example of just being an incredible gift recipient. And that's something that I think the listeners in the nonprofit world can take away from this.
Julia Campbell 16:58
There are some people in my life that are amazing gift recipients, I will say that photo is so important. I know I have two kids. So I really tried to instill gratitude into them by either by writing thank you notes. But also by taking photos, like people have given them something, or something that they use or telling a story about how they use it or how they really enjoyed it. I think that is so important. And that just leads me into my my next question. I think you kind of answered it. But how do you know what makes a great gift? I mean, everyone is so different. Are there some principles that we can follow to really help us decide what makes a great gift for each occasion?
Patrick Kucharson 17:43
Sure, I'll keep it simple. And then if you have follow up questions, I'm happy to dive deeper. But at face value, I think it's just providing lasting value for the recipient. So make sure that you're providing that lasting value for the recipient. And that could be again, practical or emotional value.
Julia Campbell 17:58
Yeah, it comes in practical or emotional flavors. And I love that emotional connection that you have. And that just relates so well back to the work of the nonprofit sector. Because there does have to be that emotional connection, that resonance that you're giving, you know, the person giving the gift is feeling that emotional connection, the nonprofit receiving the gift should be an appropriate gift recipient. We should talk about that, like how are you appropriately thanking your donors, and the people that are giving you the gift and making them feel appreciated and making them feel seen? And making them feel like what they did was meaningful? So it is that two way street? How do we become an A plus gift giver? Like what are the best gift givers do differently? And I know that I need some help here.
Patrick Kucharson 18:52
I really liked that question. And you're not the first to ask me that. So I usually start off with saying, listen, like there are folks in this world whose love language is gift giving. And they are truly energized by giving gifts. And a lot of them are my subscribers. And with them being just naturally energized by giving gifts. They're phenomenal gift givers. But then there's folks like you and I who aren't, you know, that's not our love language. And we have to look for the proper motivations and shortcuts in order to rise the level of of giving a plus gifts which I've proven through my own experimentation. And I see through my subscribers replying back, like, I can't wait to do this, or this went really well. And I gave this gift that it works. So yeah. And then lastly, and there's great research behind this out of Carnegie Mellon. There's a researcher named Jeff Gallic, I hope I pronounced his last name correctly. Just Google Jeff Gallic, and you can read all about it and he puts out this great content about all of the common mistakes that gift givers make, and one of them that he stresses On is, you really should ask someone what they want. And I truly believe from my own observation in my own life, that the best gift givers, regardless of their log love language are usually the folks who aren't hesitant to just ask, Hey, what do you want to the person they're giving gift for? And study support that people appreciate gifts that they actually wanted more than unrequested or surprise gifts?
Julia Campbell 20:24
Well, I know that as a parent, and you said that in the New York Times article, he said the children never hesitate to just tell you exactly what they want.
Patrick Kucharson 20:33
Totally. That's why my son is so much happier than all the adults in the room on Christmas morning, right? Because it's all he told us what he wanted. And we get him what he wanted.
Julia Campbell 20:43
Oh, exactly. I never give a list. And that is just my downfall. How can we get over that? You know, how can we approach this conversation? I think that what happens a lot of the time is that these are uncomfortable conversations for people to have at least in Western culture. I live in northern New England. So we're very Puritan. And we're very Yankee. And we just don't ask people what they want. And you just get it and you get what you get. You don't get upset, that kind of thing. So how can we change this culture? Do you have any ideas? Like what kind of questions can we ask?
Patrick Kucharson 21:17
Yeah, I mean, I would love to see over time a change in culture. And I would say we're probably gravitating towards that, with this research coming out and our society just moving in the right direction on that front, in my opinion, but I will tell a quick story about what my mother does.
Julia Campbell 21:35
Oh, my mom is one of those people, by the way, not interrupt that just literally tells you what she wants, she sends you a link. So this is what I want. Those people are so helpful.
Patrick Kucharson 21:43
Yeah, they are helpful. But here's what my mom does. So you know, I'm one of three brothers, and we're all married. We all have kids. So probably sometime in November, my mom sends an individual email to everyone and says, Hey, what are you and your wife and all of your kids want? And then she collects that list, and then she shares it with the entire family. So I know exactly what to get my niece or nephew. And that sidesteps all of those uncomfortable conversations of should I really tell my sister in law what I want for Christmas? Or should I just let her come up with something and make her feel good about it? So my mom's like a huge gift giving ally.
Julia Campbell 22:20
That's a gift giving ally. This is blowing my mind we from how simple it is. But having these like systems and these processes, then you really are going to you're not going to be returning as many things you're going to know the sizes of things you're going to know oh, people always ask me I have a teenager, you know, teenage girl, what do you get a teenager? It's like, well, she does have a list of stuff. But you will probably never know what it was unless I told you. So I would love to see people being more direct, not only about what they want, but also Yeah, asking people, you know, let's just cut through all of this like BS, like, that's really like, find out what, let's find out what you want. But how do you combat I can already hear some of the pushback from this, right? How can you combat the thing that says, you know, people that say, well, then you know, where's the thought in that? Like, I really want to be creative and my gift giving?
Patrick Kucharson 23:18
Great question. Okay. So this won't work on everyone. This, this works on me. If someone points me to research that proves how feeling is incorrect research is great. That could change my mind. But that doesn't always change my feelings, right? So there are ways to give someone a completely mundane non surprise gift, but give it in with some pizzazz, right? Like you hear stories of, oh, here's a story. So if you're going to give a gift card to someone, stick the gift card balloons, so balloons that you blow up like helium balloons, they are great at storing things that you don't think could actually fit in them. But I don't know if you've ever seen videos on YouTube, super fun to watch where people put gifts and balloons and then just hand someone a pin and say like, oh, find your gift. Right? And that creates a memorable experience. We're sure you're giving someone a gift card. And sure that's what they want. And that's probably going to lead to that lasting happiness or value that we're looking for in a good gift. But it's also allowing you to exercise kind of that creative side and scratch that urge to say, hey, look, I was thoughtful.
Julia Campbell 24:28
Yeah, doing something unexpected. I think that really lends itself also to my audience when they're thinking of how to approach a donor or how to thank a donor how to acknowledge someone doing something a little unexpected, and even dressing up something like you just said a gift card. It can be made into something interesting and I was going to actually ask you how you feel about gift cards as a gift. Yes or no I love gift cards personally.
Patrick Kucharson 24:56
Completely support gift cards and you mentioned that you have a teenage daughter You're at home. So this wasn't around when you and I were growing up, because we would go to the mall and make purchases. So cash was a wonderful gift. I remember getting cash and being oh my god, it's cash is exactly what I wanted. But these days, kids aren't often going to the mall or, you know, adolescents aren't going into the mall or shops, they're doing everything online. But what's something you need to purchase something online? Well, a credit card, and people in that age group don't often have credit cards. So that's why gift cards make a very practical gift, especially for that demographic.
Julia Campbell 25:34
I love that idea. Know your audience. It's an important tip. So do you have some stories to share? Maybe you could just share a couple of your favorite stories, either of gift recipients gift givers. I love the examples you put in our prep document, I would love to hear all of them, but maybe just pull out a couple of them.
Patrick Kucharson 25:53
While I was I was going to put it to you. So you know, do you want to hear a hallmark type story? Do you want to hear a practical story? Or do you want to hear a fun story and we could do multiples.
Julia Campbell 26:02
Let's do fun. Okay, fun.
Patrick Kucharson 26:04
So I have a friend named Nick. And he told me that over the years, he will go out to dinner with his wife. And he will capture her like mid bite into her favorite foods. And they're really not flattering photos, right. But he's he's amassed this collection over the years of her just savoring and enjoying meals that they've had together. And then he went back and got the recipes from the restaurants or similar recipes online, and then put it into a recipe book. So um, you know, on one side of the page, when you open the book, you have the picture of her enjoying the meal with these really unflattering funny photos. Thankfully, she has a good sense of humor. And on the other side, you have the recipe so they can recreate those meals at home. And also live through those photos. So just a fun story that, you know, someone I know did for as a gift. And it just it worked out well. And I've written about how I would go about doing that if I was going to recreate it for my subscribers.
Julia Campbell 27:10
I have a feeling the Hallmark stories. Both might make me cry. What about one of the practical stories?
Patrick Kucharson 27:19
Okay, practical stories. Well, I already told one of the hallmark stories, he didn't cry, it was the green sweater story. Right. I just think that's awesome how the two of them that the niece and the aunt had that connection with each other. And it just that's the whole one of the hallmark stories that I am arc for this conversation. So he didn't cry you made it through. The other one might make you cry. So we'll avoid that one for now. The practical gift. So these are two quick ones. So I have a friend His name is Camilo. And Camilo and his wife when they were dating many years ago. They were thrift shopping, I think, and they found this little E T waterglass. Or mug that she absolutely loved. And then eventually it broke, you know, 10 years, 15 years later. And he was smart enough to just go on eBay and find the exact one and surprise her with it. But the story that or the like the lesson that I'm would try to to impart on my subscribers is just find something that was broken, or last or that you can even upgrade in someone's life and do that. It's a simple shortcut.
Julia Campbell 28:25
Well, if you think about now, okay, maybe dating myself, the movie The Santa Claus with Tim Allen. Okay, do you remember the part where he goes to the teachers, he goes to the school Christmas party, and he goes with the principal and everyone's no one's having fun. And everyone's kind of gloomy. And then he magically because he is Santa, no one knows that yet. But he magically finds all these gifts, but it's gifts that they never got when they were younger. So it's all gifts from their childhood, but something they had wanted, that they never got, and that that story that you just told me we think of that sort of like, it doesn't have to be something that you know, doesn't have to be a knife you're going to use for 80 years, but it could be just something that's going to make them feel a certain way and make them smile, make them happy, because that emotion is so important as well. So to end on, I want to end talking about your email newsletter because a lot of my listeners have their own email newsletters, their own communications, they're desperately trying to like build community, get people to open get people to click get people to respond. So your subject lines are always really great. Snap this pic before it's too late. I love that one. And she listened now I don't chew my smoothies. You're gonna have to tell me that story are going to tell our my listeners that story.
Patrick Kucharson 29:55
It's a quick one. It's my own story. So my wife when When we were dating, you know, early in our relationship, I had this blender that was fairly old, and I put kale in my smoothies. And she watched me every morning sit there and chewed on my smoothies.
Julia Campbell 30:11
That sounds horrifying.
Patrick Kucharson 30:14
She, she eventually invested in a Vitamix, and it's the same Vitamix that I still use today. And I use it almost every morning. And she gets that satisfaction every once in a while I just see that face when I'm drinking my smoothie. And she goes, so how do you like that Vitamix, you know, and that's a perfect example of lasting value for me, but also lasting value for her as the gift giver because she gets to see me enjoy that.
Julia Campbell 30:39
We gave my daughter an airfryer this year because we were tired of yelling at her to stop cooking things in oil and almost burning down the house. So it was a win win for everybody. So I love that. So you use animated GIFs emojis that's truly probably my love language. Like it's such a colorful, happy newsletter to open. How do you continue your passion week after week after week? And where do you get your creativity from?
Patrick Kucharson 31:09
Good questions. So the book that I just finished his called the Go Giver?
Julia Campbell 31:14
Have you ever read the Go Giver? No, but I'm putting it on my list, go giver.
Patrick Kucharson 31:19
So there was a line in the Go Giver that talked about how being someone who gives way more than they receive is such a satisfying way to live. And that's what I'm finding this journey for me to be. And I found out when I was working in the nonprofit space as well. So just being attached to the work and the mission of what I'm trying to do and helping people. And that's another reason why the distinction of coach is so important to me as opposed to consultant because I view a coach is someone who who should be giving to the world more than they're receiving. And then how I keep the creativity up. You'll laugh if you look at an email that has come out recently, but then go back like six months to my earlier emails. They're just a complete snore fest. Like they're not that well written, and they're less animated. So my whole point is creativity is like a muscle. And you know, I'm pumping these out every week, just like you're doing this podcast, just with any other muscle the more you exercise it the stronger it gets. So anyone out there listening who's like, how do I get more creative? How do I get more funny? Just start and then keep doing it and keep doing it. Keep doing it and you're eventually going to get better.
Julia Campbell 32:31
I love that. Thank you for that advice. So where can people find out about you sign up for this newsletter that I know all my listeners are going to want to sign up for, and learn more about you.
Patrick Kucharson 32:42
Bettergif coach.com, bettergiftcoach.com You can subscribe again. It's a free weekly newsletter. It's less than a minute to read most of the time. And as Julia put it, like it should make you smile and giggle a little bit when you open the email. I do have Instagram as well at my handles a better gift coach.com Or better gift coach.
Julia Campbell 33:01
I don't follow you on Instagram a shirt. I love that. So we have to end with this. And you get asked this all the time. And I didn't put it in the questions. But what's the best gift you've ever either given or received.
Patrick Kucharson 33:13
So it was actually featured maybe three weeks ago. So I did an addition about planned surprise gifts, which I'm a huge fan of. And there's a book called gift ology that I also would advise people to read. And the author talks about this thing called planned randomness. So you just pick random days throughout the year where you commit to giving someone a gift, and they don't know it's coming. It's a phenomenal practice. So this will be local to you, Julius. So we're living in Cleveland now, which is where I'm from. But we spent three years from 2017 to 20 in Boston. And my favorite restaurant in the world is here in Cleveland. It's a taco chain. And my understanding was that, you know, it was only in Cleveland, there was maybe four or five of the of the locations here in Cleveland. And my wife randomly found one when we were living there. That's up in New Hampshire in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And she just told me, Hey, we're going out to dinner one night, and she didn't tell me where I figured it was just the restaurant that she found online. And it was my favorite restaurant.
Julia Campbell 34:22
Oh, so she brought a little Cleveland to you.
Patrick Kucharson 34:25
She did and you can watch if you go to the email a couple weeks ago, you can she recorded my reaction is a short 10 second clip of me just being dumbfounded and my brain like not being able to function. That was a good gift. So that's the one I always go back to. So you can thank my wife for that one.
Julia Campbell 34:44
I love it. Thank you, Patrick, so much for being here. Thanks everyone for listening. So it's better gift coach.com Sign up for the newsletter and get all sorts of goodies every week in your inbox. So thanks again, Patrick for being here.
Patrick Kucharson 35:00
I really appreciate it
Julia Campbell 35:07
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 nonprofit unicorn