LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Igniting Faith-Inspired Art & Enterprise with LDSPMA: Steve Piersanti's Story - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley and Larry Johnson

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What unfolds when faith-driven creators stop flying solo, and start building together?

This week on Latter-day Lights, Scott Brandley and co-host Larry Johnson sit down with publishing veteran Steve Piersanti—founder and CEO of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, and the driving force behind LDSPMA (Latter-day Saints in Publishing, Media & the Arts). Together, they retrace Steve’s path to success; from launching BYU’s Century Two journal, to rallying 45 volunteers in 2015, and growing that circle into 2,800 members united by one mission: to spread light and truth through books, film, podcasts, music, and more.

They break down the process of building a volunteer-run nonprofit—from the early challenges, to launching pitching sessions, deep-dive workshops, and Praiseworthy/Spark awards—all the while emphasizing the faith-based community that keeps LDS creators and entrepreneurs coming back every time. Scott even throws in the serendipitous conversation that inspired Latter-Day Lights itself—and why showing up in media spaces matters just as much as showing up at Church.

If you have a talent that’s waiting to be seen, this conversation may be the nudge you need to step forward, link up, and create something that makes the world a better place. Tune in to find out how LDSPMA could be the bridge between your gift and the people who need it.

*** Please SHARE Steve's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/ob4OwpaaPKQ

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To LEARN MORE about LDSPMA (keynotes, conferences, workshops, etc.) visit: https://ldspma.org/

To VOLUNTEER at LDSPMA, visit: https://ldspma.org/volunteer/

To DONATE to LDSPMA, visit: https://ldspma.org/donate/

To LISTEN to Scott & Alisha's guesting on the LDSPMA Podcast, "Called to Create," visit: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1696705/episodes/17374653

To READ Scott’s book “Faith to Stay,” visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/latterdaylights

Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Scott Brandley:

Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Larry Johnson:

I'm Larry Johnson. Every member has a story to share, and one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.

Scott Brandley:

On today's episode, we're going to hear how one man's talent for writing, publishing and business led him on a mission to share his passion with thousands of others around the world. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today and I have a really special treat for you today, steve Pierzonti. Welcome to the show, steve.

Steve Piersanti:

Happy to be here, Scott. Thank you for inviting me to be on the show.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, I'm glad you're here. I'm also excited to introduce Larry Johnson, my brother-in-law, who, as my co-host, some of you may recognize him. He's been on a previous episode of Latter-day Lights where he shared his story. So welcome to the show, Larry.

Larry Johnson:

Thank you for letting me be here today.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah. So, steve, you've got quite the resume that you shared with us, and I'm really excited to get into some of that story, but why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself before we jump in?

Steve Piersanti:

Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself before we jump in? Well, I am the founder and CEO of Barrett Kohler Publishers, which is an award-winning independent publishing company of nonfiction books in the areas of business, leadership, current affairs, personal growth that I founded in 1992. I'm also one of the founders of Latter-day Saints in Publishing, media and the Arts, which is a not-for-profit professional association that we'll talk quite a bit about during today. I would mention that I live now in Cody Wyoming with my wife, kate, who joined me in founding Barrett Kohler Publishers and has been my partner now almost five decades, and we have two children. We lived for 47 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, but for the last year we've lived in Cody Wyoming.

Scott Brandley:

That's quite a shift. How do you like Wyoming?

Steve Piersanti:

Well, we're at the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park, so it's a beautiful place to live and there are tons of things to do, and we've had many more family members, grandkids, family relatives visiting us in the past year here than we did in the Bay Area, so it tells you something about the attraction here.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, it sounds like your house is party central. Everybody wants to go to Yellowstone, nice. Well, very cool. We're really excited to hear your story, so let's jump in. Why don't you tell us where your story begins?

Steve Piersanti:

And I have been a book editor for over 40 years. I began in, but where the story starts was I was a student at BYU and I heard, went to an honors program symposium where everyone was complaining that there wasn't enough student scholarship. And so I got the bright idea of starting a student scholarly journal in order to encourage student scholarship and managed to get the university administration to give it a green light, which was a big deal for a student publication. The English Department, the College of Humanities, supported it. We started the student scholarly journal. Its purpose was to the idea was that if you had a scholarly journal, it would lead to more students focusing on scholarly pursuits, and so we were trying to cover all areas of scholarship. We were trying to cover all areas of scholarship history, science, physics, literature, religion, all areas of scholarship. It was called Century Two, started in 1976.

Steve Piersanti:

I'm not sure that which was kind of commemorating the second century of BYU. I don't know that it really did much. It lasted for a few years, including a couple of years after I left BYU. I'm not sure it really did a lot to advance student scholarship, but what it did do was it launched a number of the volunteer staff, the student staff who ran the student scholarly journal into careers in publishing or writing or media. And I was one of those students and what I learned is that this was something that I really enjoyed was publishing. I had some talent for it. It kind of combined my business talent and my writing and intellectual talents and interests and so after I graduated from BYU I started looking for jobs in publishing, ended up taking a job in 1977 at Josie Bass Publishers in San Francisco as a promotional copywriter.

Steve Piersanti:

We moved our young family there and so I went on to become marketing director at this company. Then eventually I became editorial director. I became an editor at the company, an acquisitions editor, then editorial director, then executive vice president, eventually president and CEO of Josie Bass Publishers, and I stayed there for 13 years and then I left Josie Bass in 1991. In 1992, I founded Barrett Kohler Publishers, which is the company where I am now. Our company has the mission of connecting people and ideas to create a world that works for all and, as I mentioned, we publish in the areas of business management, leadership, organizational change, current affairs, social responsibility, personal growth, self-help in those areas, and we've won quite a few awards and are still going now 33 years after we were established. So that's kind of my background in the book publishing world and, as I mentioned, my wife has been Kate Piersanti, has been supporting and been a part of this all along.

Scott Brandley:

Okay, awesome. So how did you get the? Was it your idea to start the LDSPMA, or how did that come about?

Steve Piersanti:

Yes, it was my idea, and where that came about is over the years because I've been in book publishing for decades now, since 1977, I noticed that there were not very many other Latter-day Saints in book publishing and of people that I knew about only outside of Wasatch Front, of people who worked at Desert Book or Bookcraft, but outside of the Wasatch Front I only knew of maybe a couple dozen people in publishing, which was to me. I could not understand that. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was started with a book, the Book of Mormon. One of the very first, if not the very first, asset that the church had was a printing press. Everywhere where the church has expanded it has set up publications.

Steve Piersanti:

The church puts emphasis on education and learning and I just could not understand why there were so few Latter-day Saints in book publishing.

Steve Piersanti:

So I decided to do something about it and got the idea if we could start a professional association that would provide professional development for Latter-day Saints in publishing, that would encourage more young people and students to go into publishing careers, that would provide networking so that those could connect with each other, maybe we could expand the number of Latter-day Saints.

Steve Piersanti:

I don't mean to put down other kinds of careers, but there were so many more people, latter-day Saints, who were in multi-level marketing or dentistry or real estate all very reputable careers but there's so much good we can do in the world through publishing that I wanted to try and expand that. So what I did was I started connecting with other Latter-day Saints who I knew were interested in this realm and we started planning an organizing event, which we did on April 3rd 2015 at the Salt Lake City Library, and we had about 45 people who showed up at this organizing event and agreed to found what was then called the Latter-day Saint Publishing Professionals Association to support, and we made it a not-for-profit 501c3 organization. We organized a board of directors and that was the founding of what later became LDS PMA.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, lds, pma Wow, 45 people. It's grown quite a bit since then, which is pretty cool. So what were some of?

Steve Piersanti:

the challenges that you had when putting that organization together. Well, so we now have 2,800 members, so it has grown a lot. But the challenges are similar to starting any not-for-profit organization. They are attracting members, they are getting enough funds to start it. They are having enough volunteers. Ldspma has been a volunteer-led organization from the very beginning, because we were starting without a lot of resources and just building it over time, with volunteers basically doing most of the organizing and the work.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, so it's been interesting to see it today because I've been to the LDMS PMA.

Steve Piersanti:

Actually that's the reason why this podcast exists.

Scott Brandley:

Steve, I went to the LDS PMA and I've shared this story before on the podcast, but I sat at lunch. I sat by myself one day and a girl came and sat by me and we started talking and she had written a book called Early Homecoming about missionaries that come home for whatever reason and how they cope. And we just kind of got into a conversation and I asked her well, how do you promote your book? And she said well, I started a podcast and so that's so. On my way home from that, from that lunch, I came up with the idea for Latter-day Lights. Wow, yeah, so that's so. It's all because of you. It's your fault.

Steve Piersanti:

That is a great case study of exactly what our hope was in founding LDSPMA that people would network with others, they would get inspired, they would gain knowledge, they would provide professional educational opportunities, learning that could help them to do things, and that they would just it would just become something in their mind. It wasn't ever a case that Latter-day Saints didn't have abilities to do more in the media world, more in the publishing world, but sometimes it just wasn't forefront before them of what they could do or should do. So that's a great example.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, at least when I went, there was a lot of opportunities, like you said, to connect with others. One thing I love and I think this was the first year you did it when I went the first time was had all the the book publishers like Deseret book and Cedar fort and some of the other publishers that are now around today, and you could do speed pitches with Right.

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah.

Scott Brandley:

We call that yeah.

Steve Piersanti:

We call that fast pitch, and it's something that we've done. We so. So when we started LDS PMA, we, the first thing the board of directors decided to do was to hold a conference. So we held a and that's kind of a prototypical Latter-day Saint kind of thing to do. We're going to, we're going to hold a big conference meeting to get everyone together, which we did in the fall of 2015, our first conference. But within a year or two, we started adding other programs, and so one of the things we added as a part of the conference was what we call Fast Pitch, which allows aspiring authors to pitch their books to editors and agents, editors for other publishing companies. So that's been one of our very successful programs still going on today, and we've added a virtual component of it in addition to the in-person part at the conference.

Scott Brandley:

So when did the media side start coming into play?

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah. So that's a great question, because originally the whole focus of LDSP it was called again Latter-day Saint Publishing Professionals Association. The focus was really just on book publishing in particular. But world is that book publishing was becoming media focused. Every book publisher that I knew of was launching media in terms of e-books and then sometimes video publishing or audio publishing. It was becoming multimedia and it's become even more so now, and so the people we were attracting to our conference were interested in more than just book publishing.

Steve Piersanti:

So the first kind of expansion of the concept of the organization was Dad Media, and so we renamed it Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association, renamed it uh, latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association, um, um and uh and and then and so.

Steve Piersanti:

So that became the next uh uh juncture.

Steve Piersanti:

And then a few years ago we were also attracting a lot of people interest in the arts, performing arts, musical arts, and so we we again expanded, added the these, added these tracks dealing with musical arts, visual arts, performing arts, and so changed the name again to what its current name is, which is Latter-day Saints in Publishing, media and the Arts Same initials now as we had before LDSPMA, but it has a different meaning and having Latter-day Saints in publishing media of the arts is really important for understanding it, in the sense that the nature of the organization is to bring together Latter-day Saints and friends of Latter-day Saints.

Steve Piersanti:

It's not just, it's not limited to members of the church we have also had people who are not members of the church, who have been presenters an association of people uh uh involved in publishing media and the arts in one way or the other, as opposed to an organization that is itself trying to produce uh publishing media arts. We don't. We're not a publishing. We don't publish um uh books or we don't create films. We're not that kind of an association. Instead we're we're a professional development and networking association.

Scott Brandley:

Right, okay, so when you talk about the tracks the different tracks that you have I know when I went there were classes that you could take that were related to the different things that you wanted to do process or things that somebody goes through if they're interested in one of those particular areas. How does that typically work?

Steve Piersanti:

No People can choose to go to any class they want to go to, or session as we call them, in any of the tracks they can mix and match, and people do so. For example, podcasting what you're doing. Now there are typically podcasting sessions or classes, and in the in the in the media track, but sometimes they're also in the marketing track, where it's how to use podcasting to help market your publications, or in the editing, design and production track how do you actually produce a podcast. And so you may end up finding that you're interested in classes in three different tracks rather than just one. And I should also mention the first day of the conference, which is a Thursday. The main conference is on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, we have deep dive workshops, which are four hours going. The typical sessions on Friday and Saturday are just 50 minutes long, but the deep dive workshops are four hours and they go into much more hands-on, developing more extensive skills in their particular topics.

Scott Brandley:

Okay, awesome, larry. Do you have any questions?

Scott Brandley:

It is fascinating and I would love to actually be part of that yeah, I think, like a lot of members don't still don't know that it necessarily exists out there.

Scott Brandley:

Um, the way I heard about it was Alisha my coat, my normal co-host. She, she was writing a book and my daughter was coming home from her mission and we happened to have lunch with them because we went to pick her up and we happened to have lunch with them and I told her that I was writing a book and she's like well, I'm writing a book too and you should come to this conference with me, and so that's where I first heard about the LDMS PMA and so I actually went there, originally because of my book, but then I started the podcast. So it's kind of interesting how, how things go. But, yeah, I agree with you, Larry, there's there's a lot of people that don't know about it, but once you find out that it's, there's all of these different types of like publishing and media and arts and and all these kinds of things that you can learn more about and ways that you can participate in in the LDS market, it's it's pretty exciting.

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah, and and I should just to to, for you know full disclosure there are a half a dozen different organizations that support Latter-day Saint writers. Such as we say, provide professional development to people of faith involved in creating uplifting writing, art, music and media, and we're expressly supporting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and supporting faith. We believe that followers of Jesus Christ have a divine call to share light and truth of faith-based is very prominent in many of the sessions at the LDS PMA conference, which is somewhat distinctive for most of the writing organizations. Now, we don't. The kinds of publishing that is done and the kinds of filmmaking and art is not necessarily religious.

Steve Piersanti:

Many of the people, including myself, I've been the leader of a publishing company that has never been a religious publisher but that does seek to provide publications that provide benefit to the earth, to people around the world benefit to the earth, to people around the world.

Steve Piersanti:

So there's not one doesn't have to be doing religious work in order to find value in LDSPMA. You could be publishing science or you could be publishing architecture, you could be whatever you're doing, but we're trying to bring faith into the equation in it. The other thing that really distinguishes LDSPMA is the breadth of not being just about writing and publishing, but also about media, about filmmaking, about podcasting, about visual arts, performing arts, musical arts. I don't think there's another organization that has quite the same breadth, which at times that's a challenge because in a way, we're trying to bring together too many different elements, but it's also the genius of it, in the sense that a lot of people end up having interests in multiple areas or one area. In your case, writing a book led to doing podcasting, and so there is some serendipity that happens in terms of people making connections that lead them to broaden out what they're doing or to bring in another element. So that's part of the magic of LDS PMA.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, I would agree. So, speaking of magic, you've been there since the beginning. Are there any stories of people that you've met along the way that have stood out to you?

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah, and I think it's stories of people who have started publishing companies. One of the things that we're trying to do is is to encourage more Latter-day Saints to become entrepreneurs, not just to be creators, not just to create, you know, write books themselves or do a homemade film or something like that, but actually to create companies or organizations that are advancing publishing, meeting the arts, and so some of our members have started publishing companies, which is great, have started publishing companies, which is great. Some of them have gotten into doing musical CDs as a result of coming to LDSPMA.

Steve Piersanti:

One of the early things that we set out to do at the very first organizing meeting in April of 2015 was we wanted to encourage more students, more young people, to pursue careers in publishing and media, and in order to do that, one of the things we set out to do was to encourage BOU to change its, to elevate its editing minor program into a publishing and editing major program.

Steve Piersanti:

That took a few years, but much faster than we could have ever predicted would happen. Bou did convert their editing minor program into a publishing editing major program, which a lot of you know. Many more people are now going through that program young people and graduating into careers in these realms. One of the things we've started doing in the last couple of years is encouraging more youth ages 12 and up to come to our conference, and so a lot of parents now are bringing their youth, their children, to the conference as well, and the idea is that if it can open their eyes to say, oh, there are careers I never even knew existed, that more will decide to pursue careers in these realms.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, that's awesome. So, as you look back on the last 10 years of LDS PMA, what are some of the things you're most proud?

Steve Piersanti:

of. It's just what we've been talking about. The stories of people's lives have been changed in the, in the sense that they've been inspired to, to be creators and ways that that they. They needed some encouragement, they needed a little bit of a push, they needed maybe someone to help them, they needed professional support or to actually start be entrepreneurs and and start their own organization. I think there's that. I think it's also that we've stuck to being faith-based, where some organizations have started that way but, in the interest of trying to appeal more broadly, may lose the faith explicit faith component, and we've kept that, which I think is very important.

Steve Piersanti:

I think I'm also most proud of all the volunteers. You know of that original group that gathered in Salt Lake in 2015,. Quite a few of them maybe half of them are still involved in LDSPMA in one way or the other. A number of them maybe half of them are still involved in LDSPMA in one way or the other. A number of them became presidents I was the first president and then several of them became subsequent presidents of LDSPMA but are still involved today. The lifeblood of a professional association is volunteers. Association is volunteers, and we've had a lot of volunteers who have devoted large amounts of time to helping this organization continue, always without any compensation. We do have two part-time paid operations people, but together it's much less than a full-time person and most of what is done in LDSPMA is done by volunteers.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so your current president, mike House he's been on our podcast before because he's an author, right, he's a great guy. He's a great guy. I've met several people that volunteer time for LDS PMA and we've actually had quite a few authors that have written books and have been part of the LDS PMA on the podcast. So it's interesting how things work, right, like you probably never thought that that would happen 10 years ago, but we're just kind of promoting the work that you've put into it and helping these authors too, and I'm sure there's lots of other people like me that are doing that as well.

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah, right, and I would like to. Another thing that I'm very proud of is all the different kinds of programs that LDSPMA has developed over time. So started out with the annual conference, but then we've added a bunch of other things. We've added our own, called to Create podcast, which is very prominent, very successful. We've added an awards program praiseworthy awards, spark awards, lifetime achievement awards and the awards program has become so successful that a lot of people you know work very hard to try and get their publications. The awards program started out being awards for publications, for books, but has expanded into awards for videos, for musical CDs, for different multimedia publications, and that has become very prominent in encouraging a lot of people to become more professional in how they publish or how they create videos or audio CDs.

Steve Piersanti:

We also have a mentoring program. We have a program for let me just think of some of the other monthly free Zoom discussions. We have articles that are published, written by many different people, that are published on our website. We have a newsletter. We have an internship fair. We've recently last year we started a publisher's summit, which is to give more special attention to people who are actually in the book publishing world, because they can kind of get lost sight of with all these other things that we're doing. We have master classes that are carried on for, instead of the, the conference is a is a two-day or three-day conference. The master classes go on for seven weeks, virtual classes, both in different realms I mentioned the deep dive workshops so we've added a lot of different programs over this time, all volunteer-led.

Scott Brandley:

That's awesome. Larry, did you have any thoughts?

Larry Johnson:

It's given me a lot of ideas. So, just as you're talking, I'm thinking of a lot of ideas that I'd like some help with. So I appreciate that you know everything from yeah.

Steve Piersanti:

And and the organization LDS PMA wouldn't itself provide that help to you, but what we would do is we would connect you with people who would the the networking that takes place in our various events. You, you would. You would find people who are just just the right people to help you where you might need help, who are just the right people to help you where you might need help.

Larry Johnson:

Well, that's awesome.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah Well, what I've found, too, is those people are quite accessible. You know, when you go there, it feels like everyone is very willing to help you.

Steve Piersanti:

Right.

Scott Brandley:

And it feels kind of like a family which is, which is pretty cool.

Steve Piersanti:

So, yeah, there is that vibe and and, and you know, the vibe started, I think you know, right out of the gate, back in in 2015, in the first months when we were organizing LDS PMA with a board of directors, we had about eight or nine people from the original 45 who were on their board and we were having regular board meetings.

Steve Piersanti:

I was at the same time on two other not-for-profit boards of directors and no one for-profit and one not-for-profit board of directors excuse me, two for-profit and one not-for-profit board of directors. Excuse me, two for-profit and one not-for-profit boards of directors I was on, and one of the things I figured out very quickly is it was just so much easier with the LDSPMA board than any other board I was on, and I think it was because we were so faith-based and we were very united in what we were trying to accomplish. We were latterly saints. We'd been brought up in a culture in which we learned how to run meetings, how to work together, how to collaborate, how to support each other, how to pursue a common cause. It just made running things much easier than I had experienced in these three other boards of directors that I was serving on and that original gestalt of people supporting each other.

Steve Piersanti:

I think has continued on, as you mentioned, to this day, that at our conferences there is really a vibe of how can I help? I'd like to be of help to you, what can I do? And that's the spirit of it all kind of united in this common cause of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world, of helping the world serve people's needs in ways that are needed throughout the world.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah Well, and I really I think it's amazing that you've kind of created this, this platform or this stage for people to take advantage of that in a way that they in a good way that they've that. They've never had that opportunity to do, or it's been limited in the past, so thank you for doing that. So what do you think the future looks like for the LDS PME?

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah, well, I think the future depends upon our ability to keep bringing in more volunteers. What happens with organizations not-for-profit organizations is they often flourish or have a big burst for five, six, seven years and then they kind of dwindle. And if they don't have more new groups of volunteers coming in, the old volunteers eventually get tired or retire or just, you know, get distracted by something else health issues or moving on to other things. And so the real, in order for an organization like this to succeed, it has to have new waves of volunteers coming in every year, and we've done a pretty good job of that so far. But we need more volunteers in terms of how, in all kinds of big and small ways. We need people who are willing to lead a function. We need people who are willing to just provide support in a particular area. There are about 20 different areas in which people can volunteer for LDSP, maybe 30 different areas in which people can volunteer we also need.

Steve Piersanti:

The future, I think, will depend upon being able to get more donations to LDSPMA. Thus far we've been mainly surviving just on programmatic income, income from our conference especially, and a few of our other uh, um, uh programs. Most of our programs are free, but but the, the conference and a few others um do have a cost, and that's been what's supporting us. But we, in order, I think to, to succeed in in the longterm, we're going to have to get, uh uh, more of an endowment, more of a base, of fundraising base. It's just it kind of requires too much when everything has to be done by volunteers, and so I think that how well the organization succeeds, we're trying to do something that's very challenging because we're trying to have programs in all these different areas, and if we had a narrower focus it might be easier. But for better, for worse, we've chosen this broad focus, which has blessings in terms of connecting people to different realms and helping people do what you did move from an interest in writing a book, working on a book, to podcasting, and so there are real benefits from this range.

Steve Piersanti:

But there are also challenges. Another challenge is, up until this point, none of our presenters have been compensated, not even our keynote speakers. We've been just absolutely blessed to have amazing keynote speakers. Last year, in 2024, keynote speakers were Kristen Yee of the Relief Society General Presidency, michael McLean, brigham Taylor from Disney Studios, one of the leaders of Disney Studios. Ali Khandi, a best-selling author just phenomenal keynote speakers.

Steve Piersanti:

This year we have amazing keynote speakers again with Sherry Du, longtime president of Desert Book. With Sherry Du, longtime president of Desert Book, also a former member of the Relief Society General Presidency, harry and Deborah Bonner of the Bonner family, which are among the top Christian vocal groups in the country. Brad Pilo, who is the executive producer of the Chosen, and he's the president of 5 and 2 Studios, which is the media company, that production company that oversees the production of the Chosen. And then J Scott Savage, who's a best-selling fiction author. So we've been fortunate to be able to attract just phenomenal keynote speakers without having paying out stipends to them just because of connections of the one instance board, lds PMA. Right, but over time we can't be so completely dependent on on just goodwill and and we do need to create more of a financial base for the organization if it's going to survive and prosper.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, yeah, I, I get that. So if anybody's listening to this, that has just tons of money. They don't know what to do with all the Steve.

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah, well, what you would do is on our website, um, uh, on the website there is a um, a tabs, different tabs to our different programs, and one of the tabs is called Supporting LDS Company and on that tab, underneath that, is a tab for donating and a tab for volunteering, and so we have people that are volunteering all the time. Each month. There are people volunteering and that is so important for our survival and we also need more donations.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, I have to say I've been to several classes at the LDS PMA and the caliber of the teachers were amazing.

Steve Piersanti:

Thank you.

Scott Brandley:

And you could tell that the people that you had chosen to teach those classes definitely had experience in that area. They were well educated, they they were willing to help anyone that was in the class, which was great in a variety of different topics, kind of like what you were talking to earlier. I did take um. I took a podcasting class, um, after I'd already started the podcast, cause I wanted to learn how to do it better. And I took um a class about branding and um. I let's see I've. I took um, I took, I took several. I took like three or four classes while I was there, but they were, they were all really good Um. I would highly recommend anyone that's that's listening out there, that wants to, that has a gift or a talent or that wants to learn how to learn how to improve their talents, to go be part of the LDS PMA, because I think that they'd get a lot out of it for sure.

Steve Piersanti:

Yeah, and all the classes, those are set up by our track organizers. Again, we have this group of, you know, 30, 40 different volunteers, maybe 50 different volunteers through different areas, and so for, like, the fiction track, there's a track organizer for the fiction track. For the marketing track, there's a track organizer. The media track, there's a track organizer. And they just do it on a volunteer basis and they are aware of dozens of different potential presenters and they are very selective of which presenters they bring on and and and people can also go on the website and and apply to present, and so it's a mixture of of people applying and then the track organizers selecting from among those who've applied and the track organizers just knowing some very good presenters or people who've presented in previous years who did a great job, and let's bring them back because they did such a terrific job in their presentation. So that's how that works, and each of the programs has volunteers leading it.

Steve Piersanti:

I'm not doing all that, so for me being the, so I mentioned my own progression, as I was involved in the founding LDSPMA and the original board of directors. Then I became the first president, then I stepped down and others have been presidents, rotating each year since then, but about five or six years ago I became the conference director. That became my role and it's a volunteer role. I'm not compensated for this like others in LDSPMA, and obviously I couldn't If I were to try to do this. It would be far more than a full-time role. So we have to have many different people volunteering to lead different dimensions. So we have, for example, people who are leading the fast pitch we talked about before. We have people who are leading the call to create podcasting, several people lead the awards program, and then there are a couple dozen people who are judges for the awards and so on.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, yeah, wow, well, this has been awesome, steve, thank you so much for coming on and sharing some of your experiences and for being willing to put all of that time and effort into creating this association that's helped so many members in the future. Could you maybe share any final thoughts that you might have to inspire people to create or, to you know, take advantage of the LDS PMA?

Steve Piersanti:

Well, the final thought I would have is just going back to the purpose of the organization, the original founding purpose, which is to help Latter-day Saints step up, become more involved in spreading light and truth around the world, both as creators themselves, but also supporting other creators, in other creators Also, as leaders, latter-day Saints have our whole lives. We learn how to be leaders, we learn how to delegate, we learn how to organize, we learn how to get people together, we learn how to do things. And as we apply those talents in spreading publications, media art, performing arts, filmmaking in all different media around the world and messages of light and truth, we can make the world better. We can help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can make people's lives better. We can help magnify our impact beyond what we can do just in our own lives or families by reaching out in the world. So the potential impact is huge of if you just think, for example, what's going on with the chosen, the impact of the chosen around the world.

Steve Piersanti:

Now, that was not started by a Latter-day Saint, but a number of Latter-day Saints have been very involved in it and have been very supportive in key roles, including Brad Pilo will be one of our keynote speakers and others, and so sometimes it's just learning how to partner with people of other faiths. It's not trying to do all this ourselves, and every conference we have sessions on how do you partner with people in other faiths in ways that are actually helpful, that are well-received, and that's a talent into itself, instead of just trying to remain isolated ourselves, and so all of this it's kind of building a bigger area of competence and networking to make a bigger difference in the world awesome.

Scott Brandley:

Larry. Do you have any last thoughts, inspiration to improve your, your gifts? I?

Larry Johnson:

know you like to play the piano and stuff I do and I actually have been taking notes. So thank you very much. I I have a few projects now that I I want to pursue and learn more about, but I would I like I can concur here, because spread light and truth and the more that we can do, that it's it furthers, it just blesses everyone, blesses the whole world, and so thank you very much for for what you've been doing.

Steve Piersanti:

Thank you, and thank you for for giving the spotlight to for uh, not just for me, but for many other uh creators and media, people and authors and so on.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, it's been. It's been fun. Um, everybody's got a story and that's and you know that, right, Right. So we believe that too here at Latter-day Lights, and that's why we built this is so that we can have people share their stories and share that light out with the world. So we're kindred spirits, Steve.

Steve Piersanti:

Okay, yes, thank you Scott. Thank you Larry. Yeah, thank you.

Scott Brandley:

So if somebody wants to learn more, where do they go?

Steve Piersanti:

to ldspmaorg. That's our website, ldspmaorg, and there you'll find pretty much all the information there is to know about ldspma, including all the details on the conference. The conference is happening October 16th through the 18th at UVU in Orem, but on the site you will see all the keynote speakers, you'll see all the breakout sessions, all the deep dive workshops, all the different elements. You can register for these events at the conference. You'll see other things called the Great Podcast, starting to be information about the many other programs that LDSP May is doing. So all of that you can go there as well as, if you choose to volunteer, to donate.

Scott Brandley:

Awesome. Well, thanks again, steve for being on the show and thanks Larry for helping me out helping a brother out, literally.

Larry Johnson:

Anytime. Thank you very much.

Scott Brandley:

Awesome, Okay, Well, thanks again everybody for tuning in to another episode of Latter-day Lights. If you have a story that you'd like to share that you feel can enlighten and inspire others, go to latterdaylightscom and tell us about it, and till next week we will see you with another episode. Thanks again, Take care everybody. Bye-bye.

Larry Johnson:

Thank you.

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Scott Brandley

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Alisha Coakley

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