Corrie Oberdin on Sustainable Marketing, Nonprofit Collaboration, and the Power of Human Connection

Tasha: [00:00:00] Good morning. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your nonprofit origin story?

Corrie: Sure. So my name is Corrie Oberdin. I am based in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States, which is like. I like to say in the middle. Nice. If you think about it my nonprofit origin story, so it goes back pretty far. My actual background, if you go back to the year 2000, if anybody can remember that part, amazing.

Corrie: Love it. I’m having my. Yeah, I’m having my 25th anniversary in like literally employment and marketing this year. I have, I got my start really early in digital, so my dad, bless his heart, got me on CompuServe in 1992. I was doing like message board moderation and I was like a deeply nerdy internet kid.

Corrie: Before deeply nerdy internet kids existed graduated, moved to New York City. I’m originally from DC so like one does. I moved to the [00:01:00] biggest city I could think of. Moved to New York. Got a job because I knew the internet. I had a friend who was working for a company that did digital marketing for music and entertainment.

Corrie: So I worked with some of your favorite bands from the two thousands doing online marketing stuff for them. And it was very early. We used like GeoCities pages and Yahoo groups and, oh, I love this. I recognize these words.

Tasha: Yes.

Corrie: Yeah. Like back in the day, we would send instead of using a mail program, we would like email like hundreds of people.

Corrie: I. From Microsoft Outlook because there wasn’t an email program. I mean, it was that like cobbled together. And from that job I got a job with a company called New Media Strategies based in Washington DC and I moved back to DC and because it was dc and DC has a lot of large nonprofits. We did some nonprofit work there and I really [00:02:00] liked it, but back then I kind of thought that my, my heart lay in what I like to call nerdery.

Corrie: So I was the sci-fi channel brand manager. I worked with different video game companies and I was like, I am gonna make a career of being a big old nerd. But then I moved to Omaha, Nebraska because I met someone and he’s from Omaha. And anybody who has ever been to Omaha knows we have a lot of different things.

Corrie: But one of them is a very robust nonprofit ecosystem. And when I started working for myself, I was in kind of the corporate ecosystem here. I hung out my own shingle in 2009. And was working for some larger companies and a few nonprofits approached me asking me if I could help them get social media figured out.

Corrie: And I was like, of course, this sounds lovely. And as about two to three years passed, I realized that almost all my clients were nonprofits and I [00:03:00] realized I really loved nonprofit work. So I have kind of run the gamut of the. The type of nonprofit that I’ve worked for there is everything from sort of like women’s career support, nonprofits.

Corrie: To suicide and crisis hotlines, to child welfare, to library foundations. So it’s literally the gamut of what types of nonprofits I’ve worked with. But I love them all kind of equally. Not to quote severance, but I love and appreciate all of them equally. Yeah that’s pretty much my origin story.

Tasha: That’s amazing. Well, and hilariously. Right around the time I was starting the nonprofit hive and I was, my last job, I was like I don’t know if this is a right fit. And a marketing position came up at Dungeons and Dr. Like the Dungeons and Dr. I was just like marketing and it was like head of marketing, head of community growth.

Tasha: And I was like, oh, so cool. Ooh, do, how do I choose the lane? ’cause similarly, I [00:04:00] am a huge nerd. And and that’s where sometimes the power of like digital and community and I think those spots who are very much embedded also in nerd culture, know what community means because we needed it desperately.

Tasha: A hundred percent. Yes. Yeah. So it’s great. I love this crossover. This is so fun. Yeah. And in your time working with nonprofits, what’s been your favorite part about being in the sector?

Corrie: Oh. So I think my favorite part about being in the sector is the sense of possibility. There is, so if you, anyone who follows me on LinkedIn or listens to anything I’ve ever said knows I don’t believe in a cookie cutter approach in general, but I think with nonprofits there is even, there are as many types of nonprofits as there is.

Corrie: Nonprofits that exist out there. So you can have two nonprofits who on the surface do the same thing, right? And yet they will have different services, [00:05:00] different approaches, different personnel, different ways of connecting with the community, and essentially fill two completely different niches. Niches, whichever one we wanna say.

Corrie: Yeah. Whichever one. It’s, yeah. And they will also have completely different marketing needs because of what they do. I’m actually thinking right now one of my clients. We are launching an internal newsletter for their team and we were like, oh, it would be fun to let the team know that they’re not alone in the work that they do, so let’s highlight some other organizations around the country who do what they do Well.

Corrie: We very quickly found out that like one, they’re the only nonprofit. In the United States doing the exact service line that they’re doing, but, and also there are hundreds of other nonprofits who are like doing similar things in the space, but different, and it’s so fascinating to see. So if someone’s oh, you’ve worked [00:06:00] with this type of nonprofit.

Corrie: Can you replicate something for ours? ’cause we do the same thing and I’m like, let’s that, let’s scratch that surface and like really ask those questions and say, are you doing the exact same thing? ’cause I’m guessing that you’re not. And your needs will be totally different.

Tasha: Yeah. Yeah. I would say marketing in the nonprofit world feels wildly misunderstood.

Tasha: The majority. Yes. Like I, that’s been my experience in supporting. And what is marketing even doing? Is it kind of like some magic that you’re doing? It is challenging and I don’t know if you ever read when. Evan Weinstein and Michelle Flores been put out their social impact staff retention report.

Tasha: Marketers were the ones most likely to leave out of any position. Yes. And like turnover was the highest there. People were looking. And I do think it’s a, it’s often an undervalued.

Corrie: Exactly. Interesting.

Tasha: And challenges, I know you kind of started to talk into some challenges, but challenges that you see, for nonprofits, whether it be with [00:07:00] marketing or brand awareness or Sure.

Tasha: Just, putting yourself out there. What do you see as the challenges?

Corrie: So I think there’s kind of a threefold challenge really if I was to be like, broadly general and across the board. So I kind of see there’s a threefold challenge. One, as you mentioned. I think marketing is really misunderstood.

Corrie: So in general, I think that nonprofits and I will also say, and the for-profit counterparts who often volunteer on nonprofit boards, do nonprofits a disservice by thinking what works in for-profit business. Should be easily replicatable in nonprofit business.

Corrie: So nonprofit marketing is almost seen as if you just do what the for-profits are doing everything will be fine.

Corrie: And that’s we don’t have the budgets, we don’t have the team members, we don’t have the. The time. And we also don’t have the time budget, I like to say. Yeah.

So

Corrie: [00:08:00] that’s one thing that I think like kind of the misunderstanding of what works for column A won’t always work for column B. So that’s kind of number one.

Corrie: And just the general misunderstanding of. What marketing is. And then number two is the I guess the, I’m trying to say this without being, making anyone sad. Yes. But a lot of times with. With nonprofit marketing the biggest challenge I see is not seeing the forest for the trees or not seeing the trees for the forest.

Corrie: So a lot of times I’ll go into a nonprofit and they will really talk up one program that they’re doing that, that, and I’m, I spent, we spend time talking about. How are we gonna communicate, everything they do and they focus like over here. And then someone will say something and I’ll be like, oh, excuse me.

Corrie: Wait, what is, tell me more about this thing. And it turns out [00:09:00] there’s a whole suite of services that they do either within the community or within other organizations or partnerships that they have that like they just don’t. They, it’s like they don’t even talk about or think about. Yeah. So I’m like, it’s there’s like the one thing, and I, again, I think it goes to the business hook of you gotta hook people with one thing.

Corrie: Sometimes the depth and the breadth of what nonprofits do in the community. It can present its own communication challenge. Yeah. In a way that but they don’t have individual silos. So if you think about a bank, right? A bank may have commercial lending and commer, consumer lending and real estate and all of these commercial products, but they have marketers for each one of those silos.

And then

Corrie: you get to a nonprofit and they have just as many service spreads, but they’ve got one person treading water, wearing one hat, but then switching. [00:10:00] And a lot of times it’s oh, we’re just gonna go with this one main thing. So I think communicating the depth of what different nonprofits do, and then also the cross pollination of nonprofits working with each other.

Corrie: A lot of times in the for-profit space, you don’t often see other for-profits like being like, we, we work with so and so. There’s not a lot of partnership discussion and in the nonprofit space, like partnership makes us thrive. But how do you get everybody on board to talk about that stuff and in the same way or how do you feel, okay, talking about this person does this and this group does that.

Corrie: I think it can be really challenging and I don’t know if you can tell by my face, but that’s when I get really excited. Yes. No, it’s a great thing to

Tasha: get excited about and I think the, the nonprofit cheerleading approach for cheerleading, other nonprofits, it’s a real thing. And it’s so beautiful.

Tasha: It’s so beautiful. It [00:11:00] can I think in many ways. It actually showcases trust within the nonprofit world. Yes. To showcase each other. And what does that mean in terms of like how nonprofit markets itself to the world? Yes. Like showing that level of like cooperative behavior. Yeah.

Tasha: It’s beautiful. Like I think actually it would increase like that feeling in the general public to go. Look at these two groups working together to solve this challenge, this

Corrie: problem? Yeah. Or help each other in the little ways that we can I love that. And actually some of my favorite projects to work on are when a someone says, Hey, we’re doing this thing with someone else.

Corrie: We wanna showcase that. That’s like my favorite thing. So

Tasha: yeah,

Corrie: that’s, yeah. I love that. I love that. So,

Tasha: I always like to ask, and you’ve been in this work for quite a long time now. What does peer support look like for you as a consultant, as a marketer, as [00:12:00] someone in this sector?

Corrie: Yeah, so peer support I think can be it, first of all, it’s super, super important and there is it. I also think it can be challenging. So when you are, particularly when you’re looking at like regional nonprofits, so if I think about the Omaha area, right? We’ve got a bunch of regional nonprofits and everybody knows each other, so that can be great when you are cheerleading.

Corrie: Other people or maybe need career advice or where to go next and kind of stewardship. But it can be really challenging when there is a problem and you maybe want. A different kind of support, like a troubleshooting type of support, because when everybody knows everybody else Yeah. Or you’re in a very small regional community.

Corrie: I was actually talking to someone in one of the nonprofit chats, and they were also in a small regional community where everybody knew everybody and it was very similar [00:13:00] thing. You don’t wanna turn to someone. At another organization and go, I’m having this problem with our executive team or with our with our relationship to, to, city, state, whatever.

Corrie: So I am, I would love advice on this. It can be harder when it’s a little hotbed of everybody knows everybody. So, yeah. One of the reasons I actually love the nonprofit hive and I try to get my friends and clients involved is because I’m like, you can talk to people and they’re never going to know what your problem is because they don’t know that person.

Corrie: It’s true. So that’s kind of number one. So it can be both very. There’s a lot of, I think peer support is really helpful, but it can also feel really isolating if you have a problem. I know during the pandemic, and this is something I didn’t start sharing about till later, but I did, I was almost wholly running.

Corrie: I. So like doing social media management particularly for front [00:14:00] fronter line organizations. Yeah. And from a mental health standpoint, that really took a toll, but I didn’t really think I could tell anybody. Not only did I think I couldn’t tell anybody in like my local organization, surprise everybody in my local organization or in my local kind of field.

Corrie: But I also didn’t necessarily feel like I could admit that challenge to other people in the social media world because for the most part, it. People didn’t, if you’re running for-profit stuff it’s kind of hard to understand. So, talking to other people in nonprofits from elsewhere, even other nonprofit consultants was extremely helpful.

Corrie: I met one gal over Twitter and we would routinely, like talk to each other about the different things that were happening. Just to be like, wait, is this, do I feel this way about this? And she’d be like no, I do too. And it was extremely helpful. So love that self-seeking people can be helpful, but also I think joining, different communities [00:15:00] where there are either people doing what you do or people who understand the frameworks can be

Tasha: really important.

Tasha: I think. I think you’ve highlighted something so important and I do think there’s different. Do we all need community in whatever levels of work we do. Correct? Absolutely. But I do think social media, people who engage with social media, like they’re it’s an interesting field. And it’s exhaust like it’s, has its own level of exhaustion.

Yes. It

Tasha: has its own, its own challenges that when you talk to somebody else who does that kind of work, it, they know exactly what you’re talking about. ’cause you can love it and also be exhausted by it in the same answer. But that’s I find that there’s. There’s oftentimes, instead, people are like, when I talk about my job, they’re like, I never do that.

Tasha: Never like it’s, they’re almost disgusted by my interest in the topic. And so it’s lovely to talk to people who get that you can love [00:16:00] something and also be exhausted by it, that you want to engage with it, but you also want to run runaway. Yes. Yeah. And is that not nonprofit work in almost a, for many, right?

Tasha: Like a hundred percent. I love it. I love it. Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. I’m proud.

Corrie: I think that’s one of the reasons. Have you ever seen the woman who does the like nonprofit boss stuff on Instagram and TikTok, nonprofit boss? I think I know who you’re talking

about.

Corrie: I I love her.

Corrie: And there’s a couple other people who do nonprofit, like nonprofit memes on Twitter also now on Blue Sky. I think there’s a reason those things resonate so much. Yeah. Because a lot of times when you love something, you can also see like the good and the bad and the ridiculous and the good.

Corrie: And I think that’s why I enjoy that stuff so much, but also it’s fun to send it to my friends and I’d be like, look, it’s you [00:17:00] look, it’s, look, it’s the, it’s a joke about a strategic plan, the third strategic plan in five years and they’ll go, ha, so it’s,

yeah.

Corrie: Those of us, you can laugh at it at the same time.

Tasha: Absolutely. I think those of us who are moms, this is where mom memes come in, right? ’cause you’re like, oh wow. You hit the nail on the head in that one. Like it’s totally true. And we Oh goodness. See ourselves. Yes. Yeah. It creates connection.

Corrie: Yes.

Tasha: Great.

Tasha: So last question that I usually like to follow up with people is, what have you gotten out of being a nonprofit? Hi member. And I’m gonna highlight. Yes. You were one of the early people who even knew this was a thing. And were very early on supportive and being I think when I was still just waitlist Yeah.

Tasha: You were talking about it and sharing it Yeah. And stuff to the newsletter. So I ap deeply appreciate that. Yay.

Corrie: Yeah. But I remember thinking, oh, this would be great for my clients, [00:18:00] right? Because I have a lot of clients who for a variety of reasons, like I wanna see them connect with the broader ecosystem. But I also just thought it would be great for them because like it at the time. I felt like none of them were doing a lot of networking ’cause they were all so busy plus pandemic stuff was still kind of in the air, right?

Yeah. So

Corrie: But what I love about it is I have yet. To have a hive chat that like felt, you do some networking stuff and you’re like, oh, I, oh, I never have to see that guy again. That I’ve never had that. Everyone seems so genuine, like it’s the best part of their week. You know what I mean?

Corrie: It’s yeah, we might be busy, we might be over, overworked, we might be in the middle of a stressful situation, but you come to the Hive chats and it’s not like, Ugh, okay, I gotta, I got another meeting at 1230. Let’s do this. It’s very much what do you do? What can we talk about?

Corrie: [00:19:00] Where do we and for some people. We don’t even start with what we do. Like I just did one the other day and someone had all this delightful art on their walls and I was just like, oh, that’s kids art. Like I wanna do that. We didn’t even, it was like 10 minutes in and we’re like, we should probably talk about what we do.

Corrie: And maybe that means I’m the worst networker. I dunno. No, but it’s so delightful. And the other thing that I love is that I have also yet to meet someone. Who is doing the same thing. So even like the same sort. ’cause like I said, there’s a million different nonprofits out there. We all do different things either as consultants or as nonprofits.

Corrie: But I have yet to be like, oh, like you are exactly the same as the person I talked to three weeks ago. You guys do? Yeah. Like I’ve never there’s no. Topical crossover. There’s [00:20:00] no like position crossover. And yet there are so many commonalities between us and I just love that so much. And also no matter where anyone is in the world I think that’s another key piece where it’s oh, no matter where you are.

Corrie: But at every nonprofit I’ve talked to, it does not matter where they are. The and consultant. There are questions like, oh, how should in this day and age, do we market? Or do we talk about what we do? Yeah. Nobody is not asking that question. Nobody is not saying like, how do, how does the greater world impact what we’re doing?

Corrie: I mean, it’s, it’s honestly made me feel a lot less alone than I think we probably could feel at the, as I speak at this particular moment in time

Tasha: as well.

Corrie: Yeah,

Tasha: it, building the bridges internal, it’s nonprofit. I know we serve externally so much in this sector, [00:21:00] right? So much goes in service.

Tasha: To the mission, but we, I think it, it’s okay to care for the carers, to care for the helpers. Give that moment back to ourselves and 30 minutes is a pretty small investment in a big week. It

Corrie: really is. And something else that comes to mind a lot of times, like I’ve gone to networking events, I’ve gone to conferences and you do networking events and a lot of them.

Corrie: Whether nonprofit or for-profit, like freelance focused or consulting focused feel very career oriented, right? This is a way that I will in somehow make my. Career better. And it feels with the chats that I’ve done and the events that I’ve gone to through y’all and the stuff you write about, it’s more of the human side of things and the soft side of things in addition to here’s how to do, like in the Hive partner meeting where we did the [00:22:00] LinkedIn.

Corrie: Thing. That was amazing. Yeah. But it’s there’s some businessy stuff, but it also feels very the soft side of things and I think it can be so easy to forget about the human side of things. Yeah. And the caring for the carers. And I just love that

Tasha: so. Oh, that’s, Hey, it’s been, yeah.

Tasha: The support I’ve found in this group has been just amazing. And and like you said, I have been meeting people from all over the world. I think I’ve had conversations with people from 30 countries since we started, which is wild. Yeah. But I don’t know, the heart of the people in this industry is the same somehow, regardless.

Tasha: Of where they’re coming from everywhere. And isn’t that just great to immerse yourself in, right? Yes. So I feel so blessed by it. Always like to finish these up, Corrie with please tell us about how people can get in touch with you, a little bit about your services. I always love to finish up that way.

Corrie: Sure. Okay. So you can find me. It’s really easy. My business name is Oberdin Consulting, which is a [00:23:00] mouthful. So if you wanna find me on the internet, I’m actually@www.co.net. It’s great, simple. It’s easy. You don’t have to look hard for me. But what I do is I work with what I call small teams, small marketing teams of one or teams of none.

Corrie: So, and I especially kind of specialize in the teams of one or teams. There’s not teams of. I especially specialize in the teams of one or teams of none. And those are my friends who whether in nonprofits or for-profits. I do occasionally work with for-profits who do good for other people. I it’s the organizations that either have a marketing person who is in charge of all the things they might, their title might be marketing manager.

Corrie: Their title might be Vice President of Marketing, but they’re the vice president of themselves, right? Yes. And so. I come in and help them do things that they maybe otherwise would not be able to [00:24:00] do for my friends who are teams of none. And every time I say the teams of none and I give the explanation and people are like, yeah, oh, that’s me.

Corrie: It’s the executive director who is also in charge of marketing. ’cause you’re a developing or growing org. It is the director of development who somehow got end communications tacked onto their title. Or it could even be another position that has end communications or end marketing tax on. Yeah, those are my teams of none because quite frankly, you’re not a team of anything.

Corrie: If you’re one person handling like five things. So I come in and I act as a fractional marketing consultant, so I can do as much or as little as you need. I do specialize in digital, so social email, like web content. But what I have found with nonprofits, and one of the things that brings me so much joy is that a lot of times.[00:25:00]

Corrie: Particularly from a nonprofit standpoint, and I work with a lot of regional nonprofits, so think city, state, county subset, maybe two states together that, that meet in the line not national. The line between on and offline is very blurred, right? So you might have an event and you’re doing all your digital stuff, but also you have to think about what happens at the event.

Corrie: So that you can maybe get more people on your mailing list or something like that. So I, the lines blur for me as well. Even though I say digital, a lot of times I will touch offline stuff too. , I also run a newsletter called Sustainable Social that encourages people with small teams or people in the position of being a team of none to be very mindful of the things that they take on.

Corrie: So how to handle social media. When it seems like you have to live on it 24 7 and live and breathe it and [00:26:00] do all that stuff, but also do all your other work. So I talk about being really mindful about what you choose and selecting things. I also talk about other marketing topics as well, using a lens of sustainability.

Corrie: Which is not the traditional green side of things, but thinking about what can you do with who you have right now and the resources you have right now. And every quarter I do a free webinar for people on my newsletter. So that’s awesome. I love doing it. I love teaching, so that’s something that I kind of have as part of my mission as well.

Corrie: So

Tasha: that’s it. That’s, I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for doing this with me, Corrie, and thank you for being a supporter and believer in what we’re building here. It’s amazing. I love

Corrie: what you’re building. It’s great.