Missions to Movements
This isn't just another nonprofit podcast - it's your weekly invitation to think bigger, take bold risks, and create lasting change in an ever-evolving social impact landscape. Meet Dana Snyder, your guide through the evolving landscape of nonprofit innovation. She's on a mission to help change-makers like you push the boundaries of what's possible in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Each week, Missions to Movements serves as your personal mastermind session, delivering actionable insights and bold strategies that challenge traditional nonprofit thinking. Dive into revolutionary approaches to digital fundraising, discover how to build magnetic monthly giving programs that create lasting donor relationships, and learn to amplify your voice as a thought leader in the social good space. Whether you're reimagining your organization's impact or forging game-changing partnerships, you'll find the ideas, insights, and inspiration to take your mission further than you've ever imagined. Ready to turn your mission into a movement?
Missions to Movements
A Fun Twist on Corporate Partnerships Results in $300k from 20 Cook-Offs with Courtney Johnson, Culinary Care
When I was 23, I could not even fathom starting a nonprofit, but Courtney Johnson did just that. In this episode, she shares her extraordinary journey and how her father’s battle with long cancer inspired her to start Culinary Care, an organization dedicated to supporting cancer patients with nourishing meals.
Fostering corporate partnerships have been a game changer for Courtney and she walks us through how hosting 20 of their interactive, culinary “cookoff” events resulted in $300,000!
We break down the details of how companies can sponsor a cookoff, how Culinary Care partners with local restaurants, and her strategies for growing past 200+ monthly donors in their giving program.
Personal connections have also played a pivotal role in building their community and retaining donors, and we discuss how Courtney's personal branding and authentic storytelling have bolstered their mission.
I love how Courtney's unwavering commitment and fearlessness has not only honored her father's memory, but created a compassionate support system for those fighting cancer.
Resources & Links
Learn more about Culinary Care on their website and connect with Courtney on LinkedIn, or at courtney@culinarycare.org.
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Let's Connect!
Culinary Care's true story and foundation really starts in 2006. My father was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Unfortunately, he ended up passing about seven months later. So, just heading into my senior year, for my family and I and for me personally the meals that we had at our doorstep and in treatment just meant the world to us. That was just the one thing that I was like. If I want to pay it forward and do something to honor my dad and just really grieve and do something meaningful and turn that pain into anything that would be positive, I wanted to do it with food, and so that was really just what started. The idea was just how can I bring other people meals, how can I volunteer and do this? And as I searched for volunteer opportunities, what I ended up finding was that there was nothing that existed, and so there was nowhere that I could volunteer that was supporting cancer patients in that way, and that was really what got things going from there.
Speaker 2:I'm Dana Snyder, your host of the Missions to Movements podcast, and my path to philanthropy has been anything but traditional. This show is your weekly mastermind, designed to give you the ideas, insights and support you need to push the boundaries of what's been done before in nonprofit marketing and fundraising. Whether you're looking to build a magnetic monthly giving program, elevate your personal brand or create partnerships that amplify your impact, this space is for you. I'll bring you solo episodes and conversations with industry leaders offering actionable strategies and fresh perspectives that will move you and your mission forward. Let's turn your mission into a movement. Happy New Year. I'm going to keep saying it the whole month of January as every new episode comes out.
Speaker 2:Today is particularly exciting for me because Courtney Johnson, during our pre-interview session, told me that she's a dedicated listener of this show, and so I always love having listeners that come on and want to essentially give back to the community and share things that they're working on, and so I just want to put a bug in your ear, listener, that you can also be a guest on this show. If you have an incredible case study or campaign or something that you want to highlight and share, let's put the spotlight on you. I would love to do that and today I am loving to do that. On, courtney, and I am just blown away by you, courtney. The fact that you founded Culinary Care at 23. It comes from a very personalized experience that we'll share about with your father and his battle with lung cancer and just the amazing work that you've done over the past decade is so inspiring. When I was 23, I could not even fathomed starting a business organization, so I'm so happy that you're here and also happy 2025.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and also a huge fan, so it's getting on all fronts.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. Okay, well, let's share with listeners. Can you give us a little bit of a background on culinary care, kind of what the origin story was? I think that sets everything up for our conversation today and then tease into where we are now and specifically like where you're going.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess culinary care's true story and foundation really starts in 2006. It was my junior year of high school spring, and my father was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and you know, we were told he was going to have five months to potentially five years to live, and I just feel like when you're told something like that, your mind just kind of goes everywhere. Is he going to be around for my wedding? Is he going to be around for graduation? I'm a junior in high school. You're just thinking about all of these things. Unfortunately, he ended up passing about seven months later, so just heading into my senior year of high school at the time, and so for me it was really just keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. I had ACTs, I went to college and then, when I graduated college in 2011, I went to the University of Arizona.
Speaker 1:So any wild cats had happened and what I was going through, and for my family and I, and for me personally, the meals that we had at our doorstep and in treatment just meant the world to us. That was just the one thing that I was like. If I want to pay it forward and do something to honor my dad and just really grieve and do something meaningful and turn that pain into anything that would be positive. I wanted to do it with food, and so that was really just what started. The idea was just how can I bring other people meals, how can I volunteer and do this? And as I searched for volunteer opportunities, what I ended up finding was that there was nothing that existed, and so there was nowhere that I could volunteer that was supporting cancer patients in that way, and that was really what got things going from. There was just thinking well, what happens if you're going through cancer and you don't have a community that is doing this meal train experience for you? What are you doing for food? And maybe everybody has it for you. What are you doing for food? And maybe everybody has it. You know, sort of it was really just kind of figuring out and what the need was, and the need is absolutely there, and so that's really kind of been what we've been focused on over the last 11 years is just continuing to uncover what the need is, and so for us, we started in 2013,.
Speaker 1:We delivered our very first meal. I was working full time and it was really as simple as just getting out there and just saying you know, we're a service, we're here to provide you a free meal If you need it. We have a cute little rhyme that we use even to this day, which is take the time to nourish and heal, let us deliver you a free meal. And so that's my poetry minor. I guess in action I wasn't sure how that was going to be used, but there it is, and so that was really kind of what kickstarted.
Speaker 1:Everything was just figuring out how we could get a meal from point A to point B, and for us I was working full time. I did not have the bandwidth to cook and prepare the food. So we work with local restaurants and that has turned out to be hugely important for cancer patients in our work, and so it's really just been a lot of learning and a lot of just making sure that we can fill these voids. So right now our mission overall is to make nourishment part of cancer care, because it is not.
Speaker 1:You know you have one in five cancer deaths that are a direct consequence of malnutrition every year. You have loneliness that impacts. You know. One in three cancer patients report feeling lonely and not having a sense of community can impact your outcomes by as much as 25%. Our name is literally our work in action. On the culinary side, we create meal programs. So right now we're really focused on making sure that if you're going in to chemotherapy, it can be up to a 12 hour long day and you do not get meal services from the hospital, and that was something we learned in the very beginning.
Speaker 1:I didn't either, and that was just patient driven. As we started delivering meals, we were talking to our patients and they were like, can you come here? I'm going hungry on these treatment days, and it's usually the one day that I feel well enough to eat before my chemo sort of kicks my butt, and for the next two weeks, and so we were able to start filling that void. So that's become a huge focus for us. We've been in, based in Chicago, for the last 10 years. We just opened in Dallas last year, so 2024. So it's been really eye opening what the need is. And then we launched a holiday program we're constantly working on. You know, what does the home front look like? It's just a much more complex place, but at the very basic level that's been. Our goal is really just to make sure if you're going in for chemo you have a meal that's waiting for you and we deliver to anyone that's with them as well, so any caregivers and it's just been a crazy, crazy journey that we're constantly learning.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that story. I think that helps provide so much context and I mean just a tribute to seeing a problem, and I'm sure there were a ton of logistics that you had to figure out to be able to even get into hospitals or treatment centers and to find the people that need. All of the logistics that are at bay. And I'm sure a lot of times it can feel when you first started it felt daunting, especially when you're Again I just go to You're 23 when you first started this and so really figuring it out and I think something that I love is when we're younger.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes that naivety can play in our favor as to like, why not, why can't I do this? Okay, you said, I'm just going to try again to somebody else, versus if we have years and years and years of more learning. Sometimes maybe that's against us. Did you ever feel that played into the success of getting started? As you were just like A, you had a very personal and thank you for sharing that story with your dad but then also just having the guts to be like I'm going to do this and I'm going to figure out a way to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people will say that my middle name must be persistence. I take it as a compliment.
Speaker 2:Yes, I would.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Yeah, I'm like I don't know how you're trying to say it, but I'm going to take it as a compliment. So it's a lot of that just staying on it. But once you meet these families and like our first meal recipient ever and I asked her just she got one meal, like we went. I took my lunch break, I went and picked up Maggiano's, I brought it to her. You know where we were meeting, like our meetup spot that we had coordinated ahead of time, and I just brought her this restaurant meal and I was just kind of like this is the least I can do. So I reached out to her afterwards and just said you know, is there any feedback that you have about the program, what I can share with any potentially interested donors? And she ended up writing this four page letter and in it.
Speaker 1:She just shared how she had just moved to Chicago. She didn't have any community, she knew no one. Her dad was going through treatment in New York and so he wasn't really a lifeline that she could count on. And because she was alone she brought up this sort of interesting concept, which is cooking for one person made her feel more lonely, so she just wasn't eating properly, just because it just exacerbated her loneliness. And the very end of the letter was culinary care has restored my faith in human kindness. Wow. And I was like well, I quit my job today.
Speaker 2:So it was how can we do this today?
Speaker 1:so it was how can we do this for another elite, how can we do this for another? And it just kept snowballing from there and it was just really one person, one foot in front of the other. So that was really what gave me the persistence was just hearing these stories and knowing. If this is how much we could change someone's life with one meal, imagine what we can just keep doing. I was nodding my head when you're talking about the naivete of it all, because it really is. It definitely was an advantage, especially at that time, and you just kind of have to embrace it.
Speaker 1:There was certainly a side of me that was like I'm not equipped to do this. I've never managed anything. I'm not an entrepreneur, like I'm not this, I'm not that, I'm not a fundraiser. There's so many. I'm not. I'm 23. I'm just graduated college. I have no experience. But if you lean into that, that's really where things started opening up, because I just found that so many people were willing to help. They wanted to share their experience. They wanted to share their expertise. They wanted to just sort of help me and watch me grow, and that was a really cool thing to be able to have was just. I'm not claiming that I know everything, but I do know that I just changed Lee's life and so if you want to help me, change more.
Speaker 1:That would be really great, and I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do that, and I would just kind of put my challenges on the table and get their thoughts.
Speaker 2:And this leads me to an interesting question I was going to ask you about with your career background. So did you have any? Or have you had in the past like decade? I know you have like a branding, like some PR background in the career work that you did Did you ever get any like nonprofit specific fundraising training degree anything?
Speaker 1:No, I still don't think I have a lot other than what I've done to this day. You know, it's really just been figuring out as we go. I don't have CFREs or whatever you call it.
Speaker 2:I don't have any of that, but I love it, I love it, I had no idea what it was going to be like to be an entrepreneur like now, eight years, in which blows my mind. And, listener, I just want you to hear this, courtney. We're about to dive into the freaking amazing things that you have done and I just want to show you do not have to have a degree or a specific certification to make these things happen, and so it just takes some fearlessness and courage and, like you're saying, asking other people for help, really, and leaning on their expertise to guide the way. So let's jump into this a little bit. Okay, when you first started, it was just you, right, and it was kind of like part-time you.
Speaker 1:I was working full-time for two and a half years, so I had a full-time job and it was me, some of my coworkers at that job and my family was basically it. Okay, and then now, in 2025, what does the team look like? At Culinary Care, we have a marketing director and about eight programs staff that are a mix of part-time and sort of semi full-time, and then myself. So we're still a pretty small and lean team, but we get a small but mighty. We get a lot done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty phenomenal. So I want to share. There's two things that I really, actually three that I really want to talk about with you. You kind of have all things that I want to cover in regarding really smart corporate partnerships, your own personal branding, and then talk about the line a little bit, your monthly giving program. So let's start just because there's a relevant recent growth to it, and that's the corporate cook-off, which I know started in 2015 in Chicago and then you just, in 2024, launched it in Dallas, right? Yep, okay cool. Can you explain what is the corporate cook-off? And I know it's created also a substantial fundraiser model for you. Can you explain to the listeners what it is and how it works?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we created this event in 2015. And just to back up on it, before I get into the weeds of what it is and how it all works, is we really wanted to do something as a fundraiser that was going to connect people to our mission and that also used my skill sets, which was in PR and marketing. That was it. That's all I had, but it was also just a two-year career, maybe like a five-year career in that, before really diving into culinary care. So I didn't have this huge background in a lot of things. I had just been learning the PR and marketing.
Speaker 1:So I had that, and we really wanted to connect people in a deeper way to like a fun, interactive way to drive awareness for our mission, and something that would be engaging but also was just a little bit standout and different. I do remember, like in those very, very early days, we kind of pictured ourselves, as you know, if we were going to send out gala invitations, we kind of pictured, you know, these corporate executives or we weren't really sure how it worked right. We just kind of pictured, okay, if you're getting all these invitations, we just pictured all of them at the table.
Speaker 2:What's going to distinguish you?
Speaker 1:Okay, we know American Cancer Society, like they've got the brand on us. We can't even try to compete with 100 plus year old organization. You know, we've got. You know, these different organizations that we're envisioning are sending these galas. How do we stand out? How do we do something that isn't even considered like in that camp necessarily? Using my background, that was just where our thought process was. The cook-off was our first ever fundraiser at all. We were not doing individual giving campaigns, we just were doubling down on this one event experience and the premise of it was really we work with local restaurants, so we invite chefs to be part of this experience and we, you know, work with these chefs because they can make meals that appeal to our patients' appetites, which are tricky because loss of appetite is a really common treatment side effect.
Speaker 1:So we kind of wanted to bring to life the different challenges that our patients face. Maybe they're on a low sodium diet or a low fiber diet or high protein, high calorie. What does this look like on a day-to-day basis? Chefs know how to prep these meals. They know how to do this work. So we invite corporate partners to really kind of get their hands into our mission in a way that isn't necessarily they don't prep the meals for our patients, but we're still able to educate them and teach them how to do some things. So it ends up being just like a really fun team building experience.
Speaker 2:So walk me through an example. Like I signed my corporation up, is there a limit to how many people from their team can be there?
Speaker 1:We do anywhere from 10 to 40. Okay.
Speaker 2:Let's say I've got 32. 32 people are walking in. What are?
Speaker 1:we about to do. Really, the experience is set up where you're going to right now. We do it as our like match, the chef challenge. So the chef will demonstrate a dish and then you and your team will break you into different teams and you need to bring that dish to life and it just ends up being this really fun team building experience and it has hands-on sort of elements to it and we have a whole tasting panel, and I mean in Chicago and even in Dallas it continues to grow and get bigger.
Speaker 1:So in Chicago they're all competing for what we call the Impact Cup. So it was actually a trophy sponsored by our partners at Impact Networking and so we made this huge Stanley Cup. So it's this beautiful trophy that they get to put in their office. So we just keep adding layers to this experience. That makes it really fun and engaging, and we also get feedback from our corporate partners every single year. One of the things that really sort of shifted the dynamics of this is we were hosting this event from 2015. We continue to host it through today, and last year was our biggest year ever. It happens like throughout the year we call it a corporate cook-off season, so it runs. Last year it ran from July through October and we continue to expand from there?
Speaker 2:How many of them do you typically do a season A?
Speaker 1:season we're typically doing like, I would say, what was last year's I honestly forget the numbers, but I think we were hosting like two events a week. Oh, wow, Like August, yeah, really starting starting like it really picks up pace, august through October and we're hosting about like two of these a week, so, and it can be anywhere from 10 people to 30 to 40 people and they're really sort of bespoke, more intimate. We don't want them to really be bigger than that on a given day, because then it's a gala which we do host, but it is something where we really wanted a more intimate way to connect people on like a one-to-one level to the work that we're doing, being able to educate them and we basically just walk them through our two, give them an interactive experience that touches on the two things of our mission, which is the culinary side. So they get this interactive food experience where they're building something, they're creating these exciting dishes, They've got chefs there that can give them tips and tricks and insights. And then, on the care side, it's really just an educational component.
Speaker 1:On one showing up matters, I think people, especially with cancer you would think that everybody has gone through it at this point. There are so many people affected by it. Don't we all know what to do? Don't we all know what to say? That's not the case. A lot, a lot of our patients. The majority of them, will say that their friends and family aren't really there for them. They don't know what to do, they don't know how to step up, they don't know how to react. So that's the other component of this is just educating people on what does it mean and just taking the time out of your afternoon to do something. We hear all the time like, well, this wasn't volunteerism, this was just fun. I don't know where volunteerism doesn't need to be. Fun became a thing. It wasn't hard work, it wasn't this, it was just like a really cool event Showing up. Is the volunteerism? Like taking the time out?
Speaker 1:of your afternoon to do something for somebody else with, like somebody else in mind is, for us, volunteerism. Like our patients, truly feel the love of somebody just taking time out of their day to show up for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when was the last time you used LinkedIn? If you're thinking, oh, when I was job hunting, I totally get it, but as the new year begins, linkedin is the one platform I am all in on why LinkedIn is so much more than a job platform, especially for nonprofits. I have seen firsthand how powerful it can be for growing your community and your impact. Did you know that 75% of surveyed nonprofit professionals use LinkedIn to market their organizations to potential supporters? That's huge. Head over to nonprofitlinkedincom to discover all the ways LinkedIn can amplify your mission, because whether you're looking to connect with donors, find amazing volunteers or establish yourself as a thought leader in your space, linkedin for Nonprofits has your back.
Speaker 2:I love that. They've created this incredible collection of free resources specifically for nonprofits like yours, and I wouldn't be telling you all of this if I hadn't experienced the impact myself. Click the link in the show notes or head to nonprofitlinkedincom to start diving in and, trust me, you're about to have a LinkedIn tab open on your computer at all times. A LinkedIn tab open on your computer at all times. Now back to our conversation. Is there a financial component when a company signs up for one of the events?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so it's all sponsorship driven. You have to sponsor. We have different levels.
Speaker 1:It did not start this way, but our corporate sponsorships at this point range anywhere from like 6,000 to 30 plus and it's really just been driven. I mean, it is just one of those events that has taken on a life of its own and people love it and we just continue to. One of the things that we do that has really sort of shifted the way that this event has been people have engaged with this event from a corporate sponsorship standpoint is we do a dinner every year with all of the corporate sponsors, really just to get feedback and have a more like level set of like. This is what we're thinking about. This is what we are picturing for the year to come. These are some of the challenges we heard and what you would like to see next year. Here's how we're thinking about building those solutions. So really inviting people into building this event alongside us and our retention rates shifted tremendously once we started hosting these dinners and bringing people together, and I think it just reminds people that we're all just humans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and that brings up a really good point that I wanted to ask you about, and so A for anybody interested, you can learn more about it if you go to their website. Just search Culinary Care, corporate Cook-Off, or it's like right at the top of their header on their website. Also, you just talked about retention With that people coming in, employees coming in do you mention the line your monthly giving program and ask people to become part of your monthly giving program? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've been more intentional about that. Last year was really our first year, I think, being intentional about it. We had to shift the entire event structure post pandemic. So part of us, like, over the past couple of years, we've still really just been learning the success of just making this event run in a totally new way. So we had to pivot the entire corporate cook off and it ended up being an amazing pivot. But it was also incredibly scary because we had to change the entire format of the event post pandemic.
Speaker 1:So really we just in 2023, we felt like, okay, we're in a really good place with this event. People know it, they like it and the pivot has worked and we've, like, figured out the lay of the land with this. And so now is our time to start adding different levers and different touch points and testing new things. And so this 2024 is our first year where we really started finding what might resonate with getting somebody to give monthly. And it's a very unique audience and we have to think about it in different ways because most of the people attending are coming as kind of like a we'll call it like voluntold program. They weren't super informed, yeah, yeah, no idea that this was for a charity at all. They're just like hey, my company sent.
Speaker 1:I was told I get to like eat, drink and have some fun, and it's a team builder. So we're really there to educate and inform and then really kind of find the people that are like extra passionate. So it has. It ends up being like a really great. Having those bespoke small experiences is a really great way to have those like one-on-one conversations with the extra passionate people that then can convert and become potential monthly donors, or some of them will host internal fundraisers for us and like do even more at their company, more on an individual level. So amazing.
Speaker 2:What have you seen so far in your testing that's resonated with people? Have you seen like an increase in signups through those events?
Speaker 1:We've seen a couple, not as many as we thought we would. I think we have to reframe our mind. People might not sign up immediately at the event and if they do, it's typically because they know it Like they have been through treatment. We had a one-on-one conversation with them. They are a super super passionate supporter.
Speaker 2:They have a close tie, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a very close tie. Those people sign up and are kind of in. For the other folks, we're really sort of seeing this event as their foot in the door. We'll say they're shopping around, they're browsing, and now the work really starts. How do we nurture them? How do we get them engaged and involved? What's that? One next thing we can get them to do that might get them more engaged with the cause. So that's how we're thinking about it right now is just how do we since it's so new and you're learning and you know, you put yourself in their shoes, which is, if my company just invited me to this random event? I don't know if I'm in the mindset of like whoa, whoa, wait, you're asking me to give now, like what's?
Speaker 2:happening here.
Speaker 1:So that's our 2025 sort of initiative is to figure out what that next thing is that we really get them to do.
Speaker 2:I love that. What does the line look like right now for you?
Speaker 1:We have over 200 monthly donors, which is really amazing. It's been super exciting. We're kind of figuring out our footing with it. Still, it's really just been, at least in terms of how we get people in and excited. But the ones that are in stick with us, which is really amazing to see. So we're constantly trying to double down on how do we make sure that you're engaged and you're excited, how are you helping us amplify your impact and get their voices out there? But it's still definitely something that we're continuing to learn and grow and lean into. But it's really it's been amazing.
Speaker 2:Your messaging around it like right on the homepage during the holidays was give $30 a month to provide unlimited meals and care for one patient each month. Like so straightforward, impact-based. Do you typically lead with a recurring giving ask in your fundraising messaging?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've tried to lead with it for everything.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that makes me excited. Everything Love it. Yeah, you know that makes me excited. The number one fan of it, even if we're at these fundraisers, the next cook-off we have or the one that we just hosted, I just tell everybody at this point, even if it's not for culinary care, if it's for the causes you care about, give monthly. And so I feel like my place in this space isn't just to advocate for culinary care, like if we resonate with you, I hope you'll join us.
Speaker 1:But I get it. You might not have any personal connection to cancer. This might not resonate with you, and as a nonprofit leader, as someone just in the nonprofit space at all, I just want you to know how important it is for you to give monthly, whether it's for us or for somebody else. So you know every event we have now, especially the smaller cook-off spaces, is, you know, if it's not for us, I hope it's for somebody else, because it really is such a lifeline for nonprofits. So I'm a huge monthly giving advocate. I think we're just constantly testing and trying to figure out what is resonating with people and learning, and that takes more time than I thought it would.
Speaker 2:It could be really interesting to test. This is just me throwing an idea out there off the cuff. So do you receive the contact information of the people who are part of the corporate events we do? Yeah, okay, could be a thought and you might already do this, but in like a follow-up email sequence is to have the first one be actually from a member of the line. Oh, that could be cool and have them share about, like, why they joined, what their experience has been, their story of it, and then make it feel so it's not from the brand, it's not necessarily from you, as like the first initial email, but like a casual, like hey, I heard you just did this. Or somebody who's joined specifically from a cook-off event, from the event yeah, and be like I did this too three months ago and this is what it means to me and just so it's more like a peer-to-peer email ask.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think that's awesome. Yeah, I mean all that we. That's a really good idea. We've definitely had our most passionate supporters, and it's unfortunate because I wish that this wasn't the reality but people who have come to this event or an event for culinary care, who, years later, are reaching out that their mom, their dad, their loved one, is now going through treatment and we happen to be serving them and they're like I knew that your work was important. I just didn't connect with it in the same way that I am right now.
Speaker 2:I totally get it. I had the same thing. I worked with Movember for three years running their North America campaign and in the middle of the third one my dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer and so it all became much more of a reality of the work that the organization was doing and I think that's why I so strongly am support and I'd love to hear from your side of being like actually in the organization in a mission. When did you realize that having a recurring revenue stream would be so important? And what has that having 200 people that are dedicated, what has that allowed you to do or how you feel as a leader, at least having some consistency?
Speaker 1:We decided to do monthly giving. I want to say it was in 2020. And just kind of like, really towards the end, and it's been sort of we've wavered on how much should we invest in it, how much should we commit, and so it just it's something that we're, you know, continuing to. Right now we're really leaning in and trying to make our sort of biggest push ever over the last couple of years. So it's really exciting. But for us it was really just taking into stock who we are, what we do, and in the pandemic pre-pandemic almost 95% of our meals were donated from these restaurant partners.
Speaker 1:Restaurants were hit probably some of the hardest, and so they weren't able to donate through 2020. And so we needed to raise funds and initially we just did this huge sort of like one-time giving campaign. This isn't, you know, we're going to make sure that we can support these restaurant partners. We're just going to pay for meals at full price. We're not even going to tell them that it's culinary care doing it. We just want to show up for them in the best way that we can and just be part of the hospitality industry in the way that we are.
Speaker 1:And then we realized, okay, this is going to last a little bit longer than we thought, and we really need a sustainable way to continue to do this work. And simultaneously, while restaurants are being hit the hardest, so are cancer patients. So now more people than ever need our help, and we're just balancing how we do all of this work, and so monthly giving really became the outlet for us. On that front, it was just okay. We need people to be in this with us for the long haul, because we don't know when we're going to be able to stop paying for meals. It might not ever go back to being 95% donated.
Speaker 1:And that's continued to be the case. That is the reality for restaurants. If it wasn't the pandemic, it was then inflation, it was then staffing challenges. It's not even though we're all out and dining out again. The reality for them on the back end is still. They're just still constantly navigating different fires and challenges. So for us that has been just a huge lifeline.
Speaker 1:And the other sort of element that we were really looking at with monthly giving was cancer is not a one treatment experience. We are not a pop-up organization. We're not just here one time and then leaving the community. If we tell you that we're going to serve you and if you're in our program, we are committing to be there for you until your very last day of treatment and we've been able to stand by that, and so monthly giving is really sort of part of that conversation. Now is just cancer is not a one time experience and so we really one time donors really help us get far. But knowing that we can count on our monthly donors means our patients can count on us every single month, because that's really so it comes full circle.
Speaker 2:I love that and that's so powerful. I'm sure, too, for the line, like they know that, and I'm sure, through the stories that you share, that it all comes full circle. I love that and you tell a lot of these stories. So, in wrapping up our conversation, I think this is so powerful and you do such a great job, courtney, where I have seen you post on LinkedIn and are part of your Instagram stories and lives and personal branding as a founder, as a leader for a nonprofit organization, I think is really important.
Speaker 2:What would be your recommendation? I don't know if you want to share, if you have like a full strategy, if it's like ad hoc, what does continuously, maybe not every single Monday, or maybe there's not like an exact approach to it, but have you seen an influx or an increase in people reaching out to you because you've been more open and you've been posting personal stories about the organization or news clippings that have come out about your work? Have you seen that? And what would be your advice to an ED or a founder or someone who's maybe a little hesitant to create more of a personal brand?
Speaker 1:I think my biggest one is I don't have a strategy, and I think that it can be really overwhelming to think that you need one going into this, and so I would say that that's a good frame of mind to start with is it doesn't need to be as complicated as it seems and just really for me, sort of internalizing the fact that someone very few people, realistically are going to see the posts every single day.
Speaker 1:You know they're not tracking every single Instagram, they're not tracking every single LinkedIn, they're going to just see things that might resonate. And so my only strategy and mindset was really just make sure I get something out every day and that something doesn't have to be perfect, and it really was with the intent of just being a bit more transparent, of just. We're a growing organization and these are some of the challenges that we have. Everything isn't always hunky-dory every single day, and I think in the nonprofit space, you always want to be like everything's great, we're making this huge impact and we are, and that is everything is great and we are making this huge impact. But that also comes with growth challenges on the program comes with growth challenges on the program side growth challenges on the fundraising side.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where you shine a light. Like I think people want to see the messy middle and they want to hear from another leader to be like oh my gosh, we're there too. Like what are you doing?
Speaker 2:That's why, this podcast exists, honestly, is like I wanted to just like take the mask off and just be like here's the inner workings of what's happening and how people are doing it. And it's people like you that are coming out to say, hey, I'll raise my hand, I'll share with you what's going on and hopefully, like, if this one post or five minutes of this episode can be an aha moment for somebody, then that can create a catapult of difference on their end, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's the one thing that we hear from you know, donors and just anyone involved with the organization. The most common questions that I get are like what are your challenges? You know, how can I help, where can I be the most impactful? And so I think really just trying our best to pull back the curtain a bit and sharing where we're at and what's going on, and one of my most popular posts from 2024 was when I went on and shared that we lost one of our grants, which I laugh about because I'm like this is the one of the single most popular posts of 2022. We're doing like the Spotify recap.
Speaker 1:I'm like, well, I'm so glad everybody loved hearing that we lost this grant, but I think it just gave that new light because the outpouring of support we got from that of just people that were like I can't fill the void that that grant is filling because that was a big grant, so like I can't personally give that much, but I'm happy to join a monthly giving community.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to reach out to my friends, I can reach out to her, like everybody started stepping in and finding ways that they can fill the gap, and so it was an exciting thing to see was just the outpouring of support that we got, and it is just one of those things where some days I get a lot of likes on it and some days it doesn't land. But I think I really am just trying to shine a light on what we're doing, and a lot of it just stems from conversations that I'm having with our donors, with our community, that are really just like I'm the only one that knows this. And how do I get that out to people? You know, how do we get that information to them on a daily basis? That just to open up the dialogue and make sure that they're aware of what's going on within the organization, but just within the space and and maybe they can find a way they can help.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for being a voice and for doing that. I am so grateful for everything that you're doing for culinary care, for you taking the time today, and I want to ask where can I'm sure you have a ton of people reach out to you where can people reach out to you and where can they learn more about culinary care?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the best place to learn about culinary care is our website, so culinarycareorg. Hopefully that's the best place to learn as much about us as you can. But if you have any particular questions or want to contact me LinkedIn I'm on LinkedIn a lot, so feel free to send me a message or just reach out. I'm just at Courtney at culinarycareorg and we have gotten this far from people helping and lifting me up, so I'm always more than happy to try to help in any way that I can Amazing.
Speaker 2:We will link to everything you just mentioned in the show notes as well, courtney. I can't wait to see what happens for you in 2025. And thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movements. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review. Wherever you're listening, your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too, so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.
